DOUGLAS v. CORIZON, INC. et al

Filing 86

ENTRY ON OBJECTION TO MAGISTRATE JUDGE'S ORDER: This case is before the Court on the Defendants' objection to Magistrate Judge Dinsmore's order on the Plaintiff's motion to compel. See Dkt. No. 72 (objection); Dkt. No. 71 (order on motion to compel). The issues are fully briefed and the Court, being duly advised, SUSTAINS IN PART AND OVERRULES IN PART the objection (see Entry for details). Signed by Judge William T. Lawrence on 1/22/2015. (SWM)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA
INDIANAPOLIS DIVISION
STEVEN DOUGLAS,
Plaintiff,
vs.
CORIZON, INC., et al.,
Defendants.

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) CAUSE NO. 1:13-cv-1351-WTL-MJD
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ENTRY ON OBJECTION TO MAGISTRATE JUDGE’S ORDER
This case is before the Court on the Defendants’ objection to Magistrate Judge
Dinsmore’s order on the Plaintiff’s motion to compel. See Dkt. No. 72 (objection); Dkt. No. 71
(order on motion to compel). The issues are fully briefed and the Court, being duly advised,
SUSTAINS IN PART AND OVERRULES IN PART the objection to the extent and for the
reasons set forth below.
I. BACKGROUND
In this case brought pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 1983, Plaintiff Steven Douglas alleges that
while he was incarcerated in Indiana correctional facilities he complained of symptoms such as
“blood in stool, black/tarry stools, extreme pain, rectal bleeding, inability to have a bowel
movement despite urgency to do so, anal leakage, swelling/knot in rectum, and the inability to sit
because of pain.” Complaint at ¶ 15. He alleges that Defendants Vance Raham and Richard
Tanner, who are doctors, “provided only minimal care to [him] and failed to provide diagnostic
testing to determine the cause of his persistent and serious symptoms.” Id. at 17. After his
release from prison, Douglas was diagnosed with rectal cancer. He alleges that the Defendant
doctors’ treatment of him fell below the standard of care and delayed the diagnosis and treatment

of his cancer. He also alleges that Defendant Corizon, Inc., the doctors’ employer and the entity
responsible for providing medical care at the correctional facilities at issue, failed to provide
adequate training to its medical staff and has the following policies and practices that led to him
being denied adequate medical care: (1) not ordering diagnostic tests for inmates; (2) denying
inmates’ requests for diagnostic testing; (3) inadequately monitoring the health care provided to
inmates; and (4) hiring physicians who have a history of providing inadequate or negligent health
care.
The Plaintiff moved to compel the Defendants to respond to a request for production and
three interrogatories to which they had objected. The motion was fully briefed and the
Magistrate Judge held a hearing on the matter, after which he granted in part and denied in part
the motion to compel. At issue before the Court is the Defendants’ objection to two aspects of
that ruling.

II. DISCUSSION
Because the Magistrate Judge’s ruling on the motion to compel was a nondispositive
ruling, it is subject to review for clear error. Domanus v. Lewicki, 742 F.3d 290, 295 (7th Cir.
2014); see also Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A) (both
establishing standard for reviewing non-dispositive rulings by magistrate judges). The
Defendants argue that Magistrate Judge Dinsmore’s ruling on the motion to compel was clearly
erroneous in two respects.
First, the Defendants object to the fact that, in ordering them to respond to a modified
version of Interrogatory No. 30, the Magistrate Judge ordered them to reveal the amount of any
settlement Corizon, Inc., has paid to resolve any lawsuit filed against it since January 1, 2004,
alleging “inadequate or improper medical care related to the delayed diagnosis of colorectal
2

cancer.” 1 The Defendants argue that they should not be required to reveal the amounts of any
settlements responsive to Interrogatory No. 30 because the settlement agreements in question are
confidential and the settlement amounts are of dubious relevance to this case. The Court agrees.
While Judge Dinsmore correctly noted that there is no privilege applicable to confidential
settlements, that does not mean that an objection to producing confidential settlement
information is baseless. As Judge Hamilton recognized in the unpublished decision cited by the
Plaintiff, Meharg v. I-Flow Corp., 2009 WL 3032327 (S.D. Ind. 2009), it is appropriate to
consider the confidentiality of a settlement agreement in determining whether requiring its
production is appropriate. “Agreed settlements of dispute are of course essential in the American
civil justice system. Courts try to encourage them whenever possible. That is why Rule 408
limits their admissibility so narrowly.” Id. Clearly information about a settlement (or any other
information, for that matter) cannot be insulated from discovery simply by virtue of the fact that
the information has been designated “confidential” or parties to the settlement have agreed not to
disclose it. But it is appropriate to weigh the interest in encouraging settlement by allowing
parties to maintain the confidentiality of settlement agreements against the relevance to the
issues in this case of the amounts the Defendant paid to settle other, unrelated cases. See
Centillion Data Systems, Inc. v. Ameritech Corp., 193 F.R.D. 550 (S.D. Ind. 1999) (cited with
approval in Meharg, 2009 WL 3032327); see also Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
26(b)(2)(C)(iii) (court must limit extent of discovery if “the burden or expense of the proposed
discovery outweighs its likely benefit, considering the needs of the case, the amount in
controversy, the parties’ resources, the importance of the issues at stake in the action, and the

1

The Defendants do not object to the remaining information they must provide in
response to modified Interrogatory No. 30.
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importance of the discovery in resolving the issues”).
This analysis was not conducted by Magistrate Judge Dinsmore in his ruling; indeed, his
order does not specifically discuss the relevance of the settlement amounts. This is
understandable in light of the fact that the parties did not brief the issue in those terms; indeed,
the Defendants’ response to the motion compel is lacking any citation to authority and best can
be described as perfunctory. The Defendants have squarely raised the issue in their objection,
however, 2 and have correctly distinguished Meharg which does not, as the Plaintiff argues,
compel 3 (or even support) a finding that the amounts of settlements paid by a defendant in other
cases is relevant and discoverable. Rather, Meharg addressed the discoverability of a settlement
agreement between the plaintiff and a defendant by a non-settling co-defendant in the same case,
and Judge Hamilton’s reasons for finding the settlement agreement to be relevant (and the
authority he cited) were all related to that unique situation. 4 Indeed, as noted above, Judge
Hamilton approved of the holding in Centillion that the confidential settlement agreement from a
previous case involving the same plaintiff and the same patent was not discoverable; he simply
distinguished the two situations.

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The Plaintiff does not argue that the Defendants waived (or forfeited) arguments they
did not raise before the Magistrate Judge. The Court notes that while the Plaintiff’s briefs before
Magistrate Judge Dinsmore were not as cursory as that of the Defendants, the Plaintiff also did
not specifically address the relevancy of the settlement amounts.
3
Indeed, as a district court opinion—an unpublished one at that—Meharg would be
merely persuasive, not binding, authority even if it squarely supported the Plaintiff’s arguments.
4
For example, the Plaintiff correctly quotes Meharg as holding that “[r]edaction of the
monetary settlement would not be consistent with potentially permissible uses of the settlement
agreement.” However, Judge Hamilton was referring to the fact that the settlement agreement in
that case could be used to show bias or prejudice on the part of witnesses who were employed by
the settling defendant, I-Flow Corp., who would be testifying at trial; “[f]or purposes of showing
bias or prejudice of I-Flow witnesses, it would surely be relevant to know whether the settlement
was for one million dollars or one thousand dollars.” That reasoning is not applicable in this
case, which does not involve a settling co-defendant who will still be a witness in the case.
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The Plaintiff argues that the settlement amounts are relevant in this case in several ways.
First, he argues that they will “serve a narrowing function,” allowing the Plaintiff to focus energy
on those cases in which Corizon paid higher settlement amounts because those cases presumably
were more meritorious than those in which lower amounts were paid. To the extent that the
Plaintiff’s assumption is correct—and the Court notes that a party’s decision to settle a case for a
particular amount might be based on many factors other than the merits of the case—that strikes
the Court as akin to invading the work product of Corizon’s counsel in those cases. Second, the
Plaintiff argues that the information might be admissible for a reason other than to prove the
Defendants’ liability; however, the Plaintiff does not articulate any such possible scenario.
Finally, the Plaintiff, again citing Meharg, suggests that telling him what previous cases have
settled for might improve the chances that this case will settle. Again, however, Meharg noted
that to be the case in the context of a case in which some, but not all, co-defendants have settled:
“‘For example, in a claim for $1,000,000 involving overlapping claims against multiple
defendants, the fact that one defendant has settled for $0, $100,000, or $750,000 has great
strategic significance to the remaining defendants. Such information may promote settlement of
the remaining claims and permits the remaining defendants to evaluate their risks in continuing
with the litigation.’” Id. (quoting White v. Kenneth Warren & Son, Ltd., 203 F.R.D. 364 (N.D.
Ill. 2001)). With regard to cases outside of that unique context, the Court agrees with the
reasoning of Centillion:
First, strong federal policy supports the settlement of cases and F.R.E. 408 does
not exhaust the reach of this policy. Because confidentiality of settlement
agreements is a primary inducement to parties to settle cases, courts require a
strong countervailing interest to breach that confidentiality. Although Bell Sygma
argues that review of the AT&T–Centillion settlement agreement will facilitate
the process of settlement in this case, we believe, on balance, that settlements are
and will be encouraged, in the run of cases, more by maintaining the
confidentiality of agreements than by disclosure.
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Centillion, 193 F.R.D. 550, 553 (S.D. Ind. 1999) (citation omitted). Indeed, the Plaintiff cites to
no case outside of the non-settling co-defendant context in which a court has ordered the
wholesale disclosure of the details of confidential settlement agreements entered into in unrelated
cases.
The Court finds that the burden of requiring Corizon to breach its confidential settlement
agreements in other cases and the public interest in encouraging settlement outweigh any
possible relevance of the amounts of settlements of other cases to the claims and defenses in this
case. Accordingly, the Court SUSTAINS the Defendants’ objection to Magistrate Judge
Dinsmore’s order to the extent that it requires the Defendants to reveal the amount of any
settlement in any unrelated case.
The Defendants also object to Magistrate Judge Dinsmore’s order requiring them to
respond to a modified version of Interrogatory No. 31, which reads:
For the time period of August 1, 2008, to the present, list by case name, number,
and date, all settlements of lawsuits in which Corizon, Inc. and/or its predecessor
Correctional Medical Services . . . was alleged to be responsible or liable for
inadequate health care of a prisoner or prisoners at any facility in which it or CMS
provided medical services to prisoners in any jurisdiction. In making this list,
separate any such findings 5 in the State of Indiana, and in other jurisdictions. For
each settlement, please provide the following information: a. Title of Lawsuit; b.
Court/Jurisdiction; c. Case Number; and d. Settlement Amount.
The Defendants’ objection is SUSTAINED with regard to the settlement amounts, for the
reasons already discussed. With regard to the remainder of Interrogatory 31 as modified, the
Court disagrees with the Defendants that only cases involving inmates with colorectal cancer are
potentially relevant to the Plaintiff’s Monell claim. The pattern and practice showing the
Plaintiff must make is not necessarily limited by medical condition; the Plaintiff could, for

5

It is not clear to the Court what “findings” means in this context, but presumably it refers
to each settled case.
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example, show a general policy of refusing to order any diagnostic test, or any diagnostic test
above a certain cost, or any diagnostic test for a certain category of inmate to which he belongs.
The Defendants also suggest that only cases in Indiana are relevant, but they have failed to
provide any information to show that this is the case. Perhaps Corizon’s policies are established
in each state independently, but perhaps they are all standardized nationwide, or established by
region. That is the type of information that could have led the Magistrate Judge (or the Court) to
narrow Interrogatory 31, but it is notably absent from the record before the Court. Accordingly,
the Defendants have not demonstrated that Magistrate Judge Dinsmore’s ruling with regard to
modified Interrogatory 31—with the exception of the amounts of the settlements in question—is
clearly erroneous, and the remainder of the Defendants’ objection therefore is OVERRULED.
The Defendants shall respond to modified Interrogatory 31, without subpart d, within 21 days of
the date of this Entry.
SO ORDERED: 1/22/15

_______________________________
Hon. William T. Lawrence, Judge
United States District Court
Southern District of Indiana

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