Flanagan v. ScriptPro, LLC

Filing 36

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER granting 30 Motion to Amend Scheduling Order and ruling on discovery disputes. Discovery deadline 8/29/2018. Dispositive motion deadline 9/28/2018. Proposed Pretrial Order due by 9/7/2018. Final Pretrial Conference set for 9/12/2018 at 10:00 AM in Telephone GEB - CONFERENCE LINE 1-888-363-4749 ACCESS CODE 9686294 before Magistrate Judge Gwynne E. Birzer. Jury Trial set for 6/4/2019 at 09:00 AM in KC Courtroom 427 (JAR) before Chief District Judge Julie A Robinson. See Order for additional details. Signed by Magistrate Judge Gwynne E. Birzer on 6/27/18. (rel)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS

RYAN FLANAGAN,

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Plaintiff,
v.
SCRIPTPRO, LLC
Defendant.

Case No. 17-2586-JAR-GEB

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiff’s Motion to Modify the Scheduling
Order to Extend the Deadline for the Close of Discovery (“Motion”) (ECF No. 30) and
certain disputes regarding Defendant’s responses to Plaintiff’s first set of written discovery.
On June 13, 2018, the Court convened a conference to address the Motion and discovery
disputes. Plaintiff appeared through counsel, Megan L. Stiles. Defendant appeared
through counsel, Tammy M. Somogye. After consideration of all briefing related to the
Motion and discovery disputes, hearing arguments of counsel and discussing the same, the
Court GRANTED Plaintiff’s Motion and OVERRULED Defendant’s objections to
Plaintiff’s discovery requests.
memorialized below.

The previously-announced ruling of the Court is

I.

Background
A.

Nature of the Case1

This matter arises from Plaintiff’s claims of disability discrimination, interference
and retaliation under the ADAAA2 and FMLA3 against Defendant ScriptPro, LLC.
Plaintiff worked for Defendant at its Mission, Kansas location from June of 2014 until his
termination on September 9, 2016. At the time of his termination, Plaintiff was employed
in Defendant’s Customer Service Department as a Technical Support Analyst I. According
to his Supplemental Rule 26(a)(1) Disclosures, Plaintiff is seeking attorneys’ fees and
costs; front and back pay, including lost wages of approximately $23,290.00 as of January
3, 2018; liquidated damages; emotional distress damages, pre- and post-judgement interest;
and punitive damages. Defendant admits Plaintiff’s employment was terminated on
September 9, 2016, but denies any wrongdoing.
B.

Procedural Posture

Plaintiff filed his Complaint on October 9, 2017, and Defendant answered on
November 13, 2017.4 On January 11, 2018, the Court entered a Scheduling Order setting,
among other deadlines, a discovery completion deadline of June 4, 2018.5 Although a few

1

Except as otherwise stated, the information recited in this section is taken from the Complaint
(ECF No. 1) and Answer (ECF No. 4), and should not be construed as judicial findings or factual
determinations.
2
Americans with Disabilities Act as Amended, 42 U.S.C. § 12101.
3
Family Medical Leave Act, 29 U.S.C. § 2601.
4
ECF No. 1; ECF No. 4.
5
ECF No. 15.
2

intermediate deadlines have been extended, Plaintiff’s Motion is the first request to amend
the Scheduling Order to allow additional time to complete discovery.
Defendant has been granted several extensions in this case.6 In particular and as
relevant here, Plaintiff allowed Defendant extra time to answer the written discovery
Plaintiff served to Defendant on March 28, 2018.7

This resulted in Defendant not

answering that discovery until May 14, 2018, approximately three weeks before the
scheduled mediation and close of discovery.8
Plaintiff, having issues with Defendant’s discovery answers, conferred with
Defendant on May 16, 2018 regarding a few issues.9 But, to save potentially unnecessary
time and expense, Defendant agreed to delay discussing a majority of the issues until after
mediation.10 The mediation, held on May 31, 2018, was unsuccessful.11
On June 4, 2018, the discovery completion deadline, counsel conferred regarding
the remaining discovery issues.12 Unable to resolve the discovery disputes and agree on
whether the discovery deadline should be extended, Plaintiff filed the instant Motion.13 On
June 13, 2018, the Court convened a conference to discuss the Motion and discovery
disputes, each are discussed below.

6

See ECF No. 21.
ECF No. 30, ¶¶ 3-4.
8
Id. at ¶ 5; ECF No. 22.
9
ECF No. 30, ¶¶ 6-7.
10
Id.
11
Id. at ¶ 8.
12
Id. at ¶¶ 9-10.
13
Id. at 10; ECF No. 31, ¶ 9.
7

3

II.

Plaintiff’s Motion to Modify the Scheduling Order to Extend the Deadline for
the Close of Discovery (ECF No. 30)
A.

Duty to Confer

As a threshold matter, the Court first considers whether the parties have sufficiently
conferred regarding this Motion and their discovery disputes, as required by D. Kan. Rule
37.2. In the briefing and at the conference, counsel explained their attempts, via email and
telephone, to work through the issues. The Court also notes counsel resolved previous
discovery issues in this case without court involvement.14 As such, the Court is satisfied
counsel have adequately conferred as required by the above-cited rule.
B.

Legal Standard

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4) states a scheduling order may be modified
“only for good cause.” To establish good cause, the moving party must show that the
deadline could not have been met even if it had acted with “due diligence.”15 In making
this showing, a party “must provide an adequate explanation for any delay.” 16 “While a
scheduling order is not a frivolous piece of paper, idly entered, which can be cavalierly
disregarded by counsel without peril, rigid adherence to [a] scheduling order is not
advisable.”17 Ultimately, whether to modify the scheduling order lies within the court's
sound discretion.18

14

ECF No. 31, ¶¶ 2-3.
Prudential Ins. Co. of Am. v. Hawker Beechcraft Glob. Customer Support, LLC, No. 16-2380DDC, 2016 WL 7229260, at *2 (D. Kan. Dec. 14, 2016) (internal citations omitted).
16
Id. (quoting Strope v. Collins, 315 Fed.Appx. 57, 61 (10th Cir. 2009)).
17
Id. (internal citations omitted).
18
Id. (citing Paris v. Sw. Bell Tel. Co., 94 Fed.Appx. 810, 816 (10th Cir. 2004)).
15

4

C.

Discussion

Plaintiff argues he has been diligent in pursuing discovery by serving written
discovery more than two months prior to the completion deadline. But, due to giving
Defendant more time to respond to that discovery, answers to the same were not provided
until May 14, 2018, less than a month prior to the close of discovery. After reviewing
Defendant’s answers, Plaintiff argues he has been timely working with Defendant to
resolve Defendant’s objections to producing certain discovery. However, in an effort to
work with Defendant to keep costs down, Plaintiff agreed to participate in mediation before
pressing the discovery issues.
But, because mediation, which occurred two business days before the discovery
completion deadline, was unsuccessful, Plaintiff asserts he now needs more time to prepare
his case for trial. Plaintiff believes there is responsive discovery in Defendant’s possession
yet to be produced which precludes him from (1) being able to prepare for and depose
Defendant on the extent of its discovery answers; and/or (2) serving follow-up discovery
as it pertains to any new information disclosed in Defendant’s recent production.
Defendant, on the other hand, argues Plaintiff has not been diligent in attempting to
meet deadlines and has not provided an adequate explanation for his delay. Defendant
states it managed to complete its discovery within the allotted time and chastises Plaintiff
for waiting until two months before the end of discovery to serve written discovery
requests. Defendant also takes issue with Plaintiff’s failure to identify any person for
deposition or given notice of any deposition during the discovery period. Defendant further
argues if Plaintiff wanted to await the outcome of mediation before moving forward with
5

more discovery, he should have asked to extend the deadlines earlier instead of filing a
motion on the last day of the discovery period. In summary, Defendant contends Plaintiff’s
request for additional time is due to carelessness and poor planning, which is not good
cause to modify the Scheduling Order.
In support of its arguments, Defendant cites three cases, each of which the Court
finds distinguishable. In Stonebarger v. Union Pac. Corp.,19 the Court denied plaintiff’s
request to conduct additional depositions after (1) the discovery deadline, which had
previously been extended three times, closed; (2) the final pretrial conference held; and (3)
the pretrial order entered. Here, the discovery deadline has never been extended, the final
pretrial conference has not occurred, and no pretrial order has been entered.
In Tomelleri v. Zazzle, Inc.,20 the Court denied plaintiff’s motion to extend a
discovery deadline that was filed six weeks after the deadline passed. Similarly, in
Semsroth v. City of Wichita,21 the Court denied plaintiff’s motion to amend her complaint
that was filed a year and four months after the deadline. Here, even though Plaintiff filed
his Motion on the last day of the discovery deadline, the request was timely.22
In addition to finding these cases distinguishable, and while the Court encourages
efficient practices when conducting discovery, it does not find Plaintiff acted carelessly in
waiting until March to issue his first set of written discovery. The Court notes parties often

19

No. 13-CV-2137-JAR, 2014 WL 5782385 (D. Kan. Nov. 6, 2014).
No. 13-CV-02576-EFM-TJJ, 2014 WL 6895610 (D. Kan. Dec. 5, 2014).
21
No. 04-1245-MLB, 2006 WL 2570557 (D. Kan. Sept. 5, 2006).
22
D. Kan. Rule 6.1(a) (“Parties must file the motion [for an extension of time] before the specified
time expires. Absent a showing of excusable neglect, the court will not grant extensions requested
after the specified time expires.”); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(1)(A).
20

6

need time to do further research and investigation before issuing written discovery and
does not find Plaintiff’s preference in developing his case careless. Nor does the Court
find it careless for Plaintiff to want to review discovery responses before noticing
depositions or issuing further discovery. Here, due to Plaintiff allowing Defendant more
time to respond to his discovery requests and the pending mediation, Plaintiff was not able
to receive full discovery responses before the discovery cutoff deadline, necessitating this
current request for more time.
Neither can the Court find it careless for Plaintiff to wait until after mediation to
follow up on Defendant’s discovery responses when the reason for doing so was to keep
litigation costs down. The Court further notes this case (1) has only been pending since
October of 2017, and written discovery has occurred; (2) Defendant has previously been
granted extensions; and (3) this is the Plaintiff’s first request to extend the discovery
deadline. Therefore, the Court finds good cause to grant Plaintiff’s Motion and modify the
Scheduling Order as set forth below.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion to Modify the Scheduling
Order to Extend the Deadline for the Close of Discovery (ECF No. 30) is GRANTED.
The Scheduling Order (ECF No. 15) is modified as follows:
All discovery completed:

August 29, 2018

Pretrial Order due:

September 7, 2018

Pretrial conference:

September 12, 2018 at 10:00 AM

Dispositive motion deadline:

September 28, 2018

Jury Trial:

June 4, 2019 at 9:00 AM
7

No further amendments to this schedule will be permitted without Court approval on a
showing of good cause.
III.

Discovery Disputes
During the June 13 status conference, Plaintiff also raised several discovery issues

regarding Defendant’s responses to his First Interrogatory Nos. 7, 8, and 9, and First
Request for Production of Document Nos. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23. As stated in
section II.A. above, the Court finds the parties adequately conferred regarding these
discovery disputes. After discussing the legal standard, the Court will address each
discovery issue in turn.
A.

Legal Standard – Scope of Discovery

Rule 26(b)(1) states the scope of discovery is as follows:
Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is
relevant to any party's claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the
case, considering the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the
amount in controversy, the parties' relative access to relevant information,
the parties' resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues,
and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its
likely benefit. Information within this scope of discovery need not be
admissible in evidence to be discoverable.
Relevancy is “construed broadly to encompass any matter that bears on, or that
reasonably could lead to other matter[s] that could bear on” any party’s claim or defense.23
In other words, the court should permit a request for discovery unless “it is clear that the

23

In re EpiPen, No. 17-MD-2785-DDC-TJJ, 2018 WL 1586426, at *2 (D. Kan. Apr. 2, 2018)
(quoting Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 351 (1978)).
8

information sought can have no possible bearing” on a claim or defense.24 Relevancy
determinations are generally made on a case-by-case basis.25
B.

Temporal Scope of Plaintiff’s Discovery Requests

The parties disagree as to the temporal scope of Interrogatory Nos. 8 and 9, and
Request Nos. 18, 19, 20, and 21. These requests seek discovery from June 1, 2014 to the
present, which would encompass a period of approximately two years before through two
years after Plaintiff was terminated. The Court finds this time period relevant and
proportional, especially considering the well-established rule that the scope of discovery is
broad in employment discrimination cases.26 As stated in Horizon Holdings, L.L.C. v.
Genmar Holdings, Inc.:
In the context of employment discrimination cases, courts have held that
discovery of information both before and after the liability period may be
relevant and/or reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible
evidence; thus, courts commonly extend the scope of discovery to a
reasonable number of years both prior to and following such period.27

24

Gilbert v. Rare Moon Media, LLC, No. 15-MC-217-CM, 2016 WL 141635, at *4 (D. Kan. Jan.
12, 2016) (quoting Sheldon v. Vermonty, 204 F.R.D. 679, 689–90 (D. Kan. 2001) (emphasis in
original)).
25
In re EpiPen, 2018 WL 1586426, at *2.
26
Swackhammer v. Sprint Corp. PCS, 225 F.R.D. 658, 661-62 (D. Kan. 2004) (“Furthermore, it is
well-established that the scope of discovery is particularly broad in employment discrimination
cases.”).
27
209 F.R.D. 208, 212 (D. Kan. 2002); see also, e.g., Swackhammer, 225 F.R.D. at 661-62 (D.
Kan. 2004) (finding plaintiff’s request for information regarding similar incidents occurring three
years before and two years after the alleged discriminatory termination not overly broad in
temporal scope); Owens v. Sprint/United Mgmt. Co., 221 F.R.D. 649, 655–56 (D. Kan. 2004)
(allowing discovery into period two and one-half years prior to the alleged discrimination); Garrett
v. Sprint PCS, No. 00–2583–KHV, 2002 WL 181364, at *3 (D. Kan. Jan.31, 2002) (allowing
discovery into three-year period prior to the alleged discrimination to the present); Equal Empl.
Opportunity Comm'n v. Kansas City S. Ry., 195 F.R.D. 678, 680 (D. Kan. 2000) (allowing
discovery into four years prior to and one year after alleged discrimination).
9

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendant’s objections to the temporal
scope of the above discovery requests are OVERRULED.
C.

Interrogatory No. 7

In Interrogatory No. 7, Plaintiff asks Defendant to “[s]tate the reasons for which
ScriptPro contends it terminated Plaintiff’s employment, and describe the factual basis or
evidentiary support for such reasons.”

Defendant invoked Rule 33(d), stating the

information responsive to the interrogatory could be derived or ascertained from its
business records, and directing Plaintiff to numerous documents. Plaintiff argues a
substantial burden would be imposed on him if he is expected to examine the voluminous
documents cited by Defendant and then speculate as to what information contained in the
documents constituted the reason for his termination. The Court agrees with Plaintiff and
finds it reasonable to expect Defendant to answer the seemingly straightforward question
of why it terminated Plaintiff.28
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendant’s objection to Interrogatory No.
7 is OVERRULED. Within 10 days from the date of this Order, Defendant shall provide
a factually sufficient response to the Interrogatory, including stating the reason(s) it
terminated Plaintiff and describing the documents in support of that decision.

Rule 33(d) (stating subsection can only be invoked if “the burden of deriving or ascertaining the
answer [to the interrogatory] will be substantially the same for either party”).
28

10

D.

Interrogatory No. 8 and Request No. 20; Interrogatory No. 9 and
Request No. 21

In Interrogatory No. 8 and Request No. 20, Plaintiff seeks information and
documents regarding whether any employee made an internal complaint against Defendant
at any time between June 1, 2014 and the present, alleging Defendant subjected him or her
to unfair treatment as a result of requesting or taking FMLA leave. Interrogatory No. 9
and Request No. 21 mirror Interrogatory No. 8 and Request No. 20 except Plaintiff is
seeking internal complaints alleging discrimination or retaliation. Defendant objected to
all requests as being overly broad, stating the requests seeks information concerning
complaints from employees not similarly situated to Plaintiff and for a time period Plaintiff
was not employed by Defendant.
Plaintiff offered to narrow his requests to include employee complaints regarding
FMLA and disability discrimination/retaliation made to (1) managerial employees in the
Customer Service Department at the Mission, Kansas location, which is the department
Defendant worked in when terminated; and (2) the Human Resources Department at the
Mission, Kansas location. Defendant responds this is not much narrower than the original
requests and argues the requests should be narrowed to FMLA and disability
discrimination/retaliation complaints made to (1) the Human Resources Department from
March 2015 to present; (2) Plaintiff’s manager (Preston Flint) from August 2015 to present;
and (3) Advanced Technical Lead (Sylvia Marvicsin) from September 2015 to present.
The Court finds Plaintiff’s requests as narrowed above relevant and proportional to
the needs to the case. Because the Customer Service Department at the Mission, Kansas

11

location was the Plaintiff’s employing unit when he was terminated, it is appropriate to
include that department in the discovery requests.29 It is also appropriate to include the
Human Resources Department because Plaintiff’s allegations involve that Department,30
in addition to involving the supervisors and managers in the Customer Service
Department.31 The Court has already ruled in Section III.B. above that the time period is
appropriate. However, the Court will further narrow Plaintiff’s requests to encompass only
written complaints.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendant’s objections to Interrogatory
Nos. 8 and 9 and Request Nos. 20 and 21 are OVERRULED. Within 10 days from the
date of this Order, Defendant shall, for the time period of June 1, 2014 to the present,
provide responsive information/documents regarding any written FMLA and/or disability
discrimination/retaliation complaints made by employees to (1) managerial employees in
the Customer Service Department at the Mission, Kansas location; and (2) Defendant’s
Human Resources Department at the Mission, Kansas location.

29

See, e.g., White v. Graceland Coll. Ctr. for Prof'l Dev. & Lifelong Learning, Inc., 586 F. Supp.
2d 1250, 1257 (D. Kan. 2008) (“When addressing overly broad objections to discovery requests,
courts have limited the geographic scope of discovery. In non-class action employment
discrimination cases, the standard for determining the geographic scope of discovery focuses on
‘the source of the complained discrimination—the employing unit or work unit.’”) (quoting
Mackey v. IBP, Inc., 167 F.R.D. 186, 195 (D. Kan. 1996) (quoting Heward v. W. Elec. Co., No.
83–2293, 1984 WL 15666, at *6 (10th Cir.1984))).
30
See, e.g., Complaint, ¶ 36 (ECF No. 1).
31
See White, 586 F. Supp. 2d at 1257-58 (allowing discovery requests to include the defendant’s
human resource department as well as the plaintiff’s employing unit).
12

E.

Request No. 17

At Request No. 17, Plaintiff seeks all records, from the time period of June 1, 2014
to present, reflecting the attendance of each Technical Support Analyst employed by
Defendant. The request further states it is “meant to encompass records that reflect
incidents of tardiness, the alleged reason for said tardiness, and whether or not Defendant
was notified of the absence and/or tardiness in accordance with Defendant’s policy.” To
address Defendant’s overbreadth objection, Plaintiff proposed to narrow his request to
include only those employed as a Technical Support Analyst I during the time frame
Preston Flint was a supervisory employee. Even with this limitation, Defendant objects to
the request as irrelevant and overly burdensome. In particular, Defendant argues the
requested attendance records would not show evidence of tardiness and would be too
expensive and time-consuming to warrant production.
Plaintiff argues these attendance records are highly relevant and outweigh any
overly burdensome objection because a material issue in the case is whether Defendant
applied its attendance policy in a discriminatory manner towards Plaintiff as compared to
his non-disabled co-workers. The Court agrees and finds Plaintiff’s narrowed request for
attendance records relevant and proportional to the needs of the case given the amount in
controversy32 and the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues at hand.33

See Section I.A, supra, listing Plaintiff’s claimed damages.
See Rule 26(b)(1); see, e.g., Austin v. Haaker, 76 F. Supp. 2d 1213, 1217-18 (D. Kan. 1999)
(granting summary judgment on plaintiff’s employment discrimination claims where plaintiff
failed to provide sufficient evidence regarding other employee’s attendance records); Owens, 221
F.R.D. at 653 (“When the motive or intent of a defendant employer is at issue, information
32
33

13

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendant’s objections to Request No. 17
are OVERRULED.

Defendant shall produce attendance records for each person

employed as a Technical Support Analyst I during the period that Preston Flint was a
supervisory employee. The Court orders counsel to confer regarding an appropriate and
reasonable time frame for Defendant to produce these records.
F.

Requests Nos. 18 and 19

In Request No. 18, Plaintiff seeks copies of each charge of discrimination filed
against Defendant from June 1, 2014 to the present. In Request No. 19, Plaintiff seeks a
copy of each lawsuit filed against Defendant wherein an employee alleged Defendant
engaged in unlawful discrimination or retaliation.
As a compromise to Defendant’s overbreadth objections to these discovery requests,
Plaintiff agreed to narrow the categorical scope to encompass (1) charges of discrimination
alleging disability discrimination/retaliation for Request No. 18; and (2) lawsuits alleging
disability discrimination/retaliation and/or FMLA retaliation/interference for Request No.
19. Even narrowed, Defendant, based on proportionality and relevancy, objects to the
temporal scope of the requests and also insists the requests should be limited to the same
decision makers involved in Plaintiff’s case.
As stated in Section III.B. above, the Court finds the time frame of June 1, 2014 to
the present appropriate. Additionally, Defendant has already answered the requests for the
period Plaintiff worked for Defendant, which was from June of 2014 to September of 2016,

concerning its conduct towards employees other than the plaintiff is relevant.”) (quoting Spulak v.
K Mart Corp., 894 F.2d 1150, 1156 (10th Cir.1990)).
14

by stating it has no responsive documents. Therefore, Defendant only needs to review an
approximate two-year time period, from September of 2016 to the present, to provide
complete responses. The Court does not find this burdensome.
Additionally, the Court finds Plaintiff’s requests as narrowed by the categorical
scopes identified above relevant. Plaintiff is entitled to know if similar charges of
discrimination or lawsuits have been filed against Defendant.34
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendant’s objections to Requests Nos. 18
and 19 are OVERRULED. Within 10 days from the date of this Order, Defendant shall
produce responses to these discovery requests as narrowed to the categorical scopes
identified by Plaintiff above.
G.

Requests Nos. 22 and 23

Requests Nos. 22 and 23 ask for the complete personnel files of Preston Flint and
Sylvia Marvicsin. Defendant objects, arguing the requests seek irrelevant documents, such
as employment applications, offers of employment, hiring documents, employment
agreements, payroll information, background check information, and W-4s.
Courts in this District generally hold that an individual’s employment records are
relevant and discoverable “if the individual (1) is alleged to have engaged in the retaliation
or discrimination at issue, (2) is alleged to have played an important role in the decision or

34

See, e.g., Owens, 221 F.R.D. at 653 (finding discovery requests for information of other charges
of age and sex discrimination against employer relevant); Equal Employment Opportunity Comm'n
v. Kansas City S. Ry., No. 99-2512-GTV, 2000 WL 33675756, at *4 (D. Kan. Oct. 2, 2000)
(“Information which may establish a pattern of discrimination is discoverable even when the action
seeks only individual relief.”).
15

incident that gives rise to the lawsuit, or (3) is a key witness to the events giving rise to the
lawsuit.”35 Here, Plaintiff states Mr. Flint was a decision-maker regarding his termination
and Ms. Marvicsin was a material witness because Plaintiff requested an accommodation
from her that was ultimately denied. Defendant does not dispute Plaintiff’s
characterizations of Mr. Flint and Ms. Marvicsin as such. Therefore, the Court will order
these files produced.
To protect the sensitive and confidential information in these personnel files, the
Court ordered the parties to revise their Stipulated Protective Order (ECF No. 13) to
specifically include such files. The parties did so to the Court’s satisfaction and a
Stipulated Amended Protective Order was filed on June 15, 2018 (ECF No. 35).
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendant’s objections to Requests Nos. 22
and 23 are OVERRULED. The Court orders counsel to confer regarding an appropriate
and reasonable time frame for Defendant to produce the personnel files.
IV.

Conclusion
For the reasons stated above, Plaintiff’s Motion to Modify the Scheduling Order to

Extend the Deadline for the Close of Discovery (ECF No. 30) is GRANTED and

35

Hall v. Life Care Centers of Am., Inc., No. 16-2729-JTM-KGG, 2018 WL 1992333, at *2 (D.
Kan. Apr. 27, 2018) (quoting White, 586 F. Supp. 2d at 1259); see also, e.g., Williams v. Bd. of
County Comm'rs, No. 98–2485–JTM, 2000 WL 823909, at *5 (D. Kan. June 21, 2000) (compelling
production of personnel files of non-party individuals who were alleged to be involved in the
specific events giving rise to the lawsuit); Fox–Martin v. H.J. Heinz Operations, No. 02–4121–
JAR, 2003 WL 23139105, at *1 (D. Kan. Dec. 19, 2003) (compelling production of personnel files
of employees who either played important roles in the employment decisions or allegedly
participated in or witnessed the hostile work environment); Oglesby v. Hy–Vee, Inc., No. Civ. A.
04–2440–KHV, 2005 WL 857036, at *2 (D. Kan. April 13, 2005) (compelling production of
individual's personnel file in employment discrimination case where individual witnessed the
events defendant claimed gave rise to plaintiff's termination).
16

Defendant’s objections to Interrogatory Nos. 7, 8, and 9 and Request Nos. 17, 18, 19, 20,
21, 22, and 23 are OVERRULED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated at Wichita, Kansas this 27th day of June, 2018.

s/ Gwynne E. Birzer
GWYNNE E. BIRZER
United States Magistrate Judge

17