Reese et al v. CNH America, L. L. C.

Filing 360

OPINION and ORDER re 354 Appeal of Magistrate Judge Decision,, ( Discovery due by 11/18/2013, Dispositive Motion Cut-off set for 12/3/2013) Signed by District Judge Patrick J. Duggan. (MOre)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
JACK REESE, JAMES
CICHANOFSKY, ROGER MILLER, and
GEORGE NOWLIN, on behalf of
themselves and a similarly situated class,
Plaintiffs,
v.

Case No. 04-70592

CNH GLOBAL N.V. and
CNH AMERICA LLC,

Honorable Patrick J. Duggan

Defendants.
/
OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART
PLAINTIFFS’ APPEAL OF THE MAGISTRATE JUDGE’S ORDERS AND
SUA SPONTE AMENDING SCHEDULING ORDER
The above-captioned matter is before this Court on remand from the Sixth
Circuit Court of Appeals to determine whether CNH America, LLC’s proposed
unilateral changes to Plaintiffs’ vested retiree health insurance benefits are
reasonable. At issue currently are Plaintiffs’ efforts to obtain discovery from CNH
America, LLC (hereafter “CNH”) relevant to that determination. More
specifically, the Court has before it Plaintiffs’ objections to Magistrate Judge Paul
J. Komives’ decisions, dated May 20 and June 11, 2013, denying Plaintiffs’

requests to have three interrogatories answered by CNH.1 For the reasons that
follow, the Court grants in part and denies in part Plaintiffs’ appeal.
Background
The interrogatories at issue in Plaintiffs’ pending appeal are:
3.

Identify each person the Company expects to testify and/or
provide information in support of its claims or defenses, and
state the subject matter about which the witness has knowledge.

4.

Identify each person the Company expects to use as an expert
witness in this matter.

...
48.

Identify all documents the Company intends to use, either in
summary judgment proceedings or at trial, to support its
position that the benefits in the Proposed Plan are reasonable.

CNH objected to these interrogatories, claiming that they “duplicate . . . the
parties’ mandatory-disclosure requirements.” (See ECF No. 339 at 8.) In his May
20, 2013 decision, Magistrate Judge Komives found that Plaintiffs failed to address
CNH’s objections when they replied that it was “the first time [they] . . . submitted
any interrogatories in this case.” (See ECF No. 346 at 9, quoting ECF No. 342 at

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Having served CNH with fifty-one (51) interrogatories, Plaintiffs originally
sought leave to exceed the twenty-five (25) interrogatories permitted under Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 33. Magistrate Judge Komives issued a decision on May
20, 2013, granting Plaintiffs leave to serve twenty (20) of the excess interrogatories
but denying their request to serve four others (Plaintiffs had withdrawn two).
(ECF No. 346.) Plaintiffs now are challenging Magistrate Judge Komives’
decision with respect to only three of the four interrogatories the magistrate judge
ruled CNH need not answer.
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5.) Magistrate Judge Komives invited Plaintiffs to seek reconsideration of his
decision if they could “rebut or address” CNH’s objection. (Id.)
Plaintiffs in fact filed a motion for reconsideration on May 28, 2013. (ECF
No. 348.) Plaintiffs argued that while there is overlap between interrogatories 3
and 48 and the initial disclosures required under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
26(a)(1), “[t]here is . . . no duplication because CNH never filed any Initial
Disclosures in this matter.” (Id. at 4, emphasis removed.) Even if CNH had filed
such disclosures in 2004, Plaintiffs argued, those disclosures would require
supplementation “given the new ‘proposed plan’ [by CNH to provide Plaintiffs’
health care benefits] and new legal standards the parties have been asked to apply.”
(Id.) Because CNH has not identified its expert witnesses, Plaintiffs also argued
that interrogatory 4 is not duplicative. (Id. at 5.) Magistrate Judge Komives
denied Plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration on June 11, 2013, explaining only that
he “agree[s] with CNH that ‘[P]laintiffs have not demonstrated that [his]
determination that the four additional interrogatories at issue . . . violate Rule 26(b)
is clearly erroneous or contrary to law.’” (ECF No. 352, quoting ECF No. 351 at
12.)
While the matter of Plaintiffs’ interrogatories was being litigated before the
magistrate judge, this Court had before it Plaintiffs’ motion to extend the
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scheduling order established for the remand proceedings. In light of Magistrate
Judge Komives’ May 20, 2013 order requiring CNH to respond to more than
twenty-five of Plaintiffs’ interrogatories and the fact that the deadline for CNH to
respond to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests per the initial scheduling order already
had passed, this Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion and entered the following
amended scheduling order:
6/19/13

Defendants to respond to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests

8/6/13

Reports due from Plaintiffs’ experts

8/26/13

Reports due from Defendants’ experts

9/25/13

Discovery closes

10/21/13

Dispositive motion cut-off

11/11/13

Dispositive motion(s) responses(s) due

11/18/13

Dispositive motion(s) reply brief(s) due.

(ECF No. 353.)
Applicable Standard
A party may object to a magistrate judge’s non-dispositive orders. Fed. R.
Civ. P. 72(a); 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A). The magistrate judge’s decision must be
affirmed unless the objecting party demonstrates that the decision is “clearly
erroneous” or “contrary to law.” Id. A district court may not reverse a magistrate
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judge’s ruling on a non-dispositive matter simply because the court would have
decided the matter differently. See, e.g., Anderson v. Bessemer City, N.C., 470 U.S.
564, 573-74, 105 S. Ct. 1504, 1511 (1985). Instead, the court may reverse only “‘.
. .when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire
evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been
committed.’” Id. at 573, 105 S. Ct. at 1511 (quoting United States v. U.S. Gypsum
Co., 33 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S. Ct. 525, 542 (1948)).
Analysis
Plaintiffs initiated this action in 2004 in response to CNH’s announced
intent to reduce or terminate their retiree health care benefits. Plaintiffs argued
that, pursuant to the applicable collective bargaining agreements, those benefits
vested upon their retirement and thus Plaintiffs were entitled for their lifetime to
the negotiated insurance provisions made part of the agreement governing their
employment. CNH took the position that it lawfully could reduce or terminate
Plaintiffs’ benefits because they were not vested. (See, e.g., ECF No. 125.)
The issue of what modifications CNH could make if Plaintiffs’ benefits were
vested did not arise until after this Court’s August 27, 2007 ruling that Plaintiffs
are entitled to vested retiree health insurance benefits from CNH. In fact, more
accurately, the issue did not arise until the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed
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this Court’s decision that the benefits vested but held that “vesting” does not mean
that the scope of those benefits is “fixed and irreducible.” See Reese v. CNH Am.
LLC, 574 F.3d 315, 324-27 (2009); see also Reese, 583 F.3d 955 (6th Cir. 2009)
(denying Plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration in which Plaintiffs argued “that the
court resolved an issue ‘that CNH did not raise or litigate before the trial; that the
trial court did not decide; and that CNH did not raise or argue on appeal.’”). The
Sixth Circuit remanded the matter for this Court “to decide how and in what
circumstances CNH may alter such benefits . . ..” Reese, 574 F.3d at 327. When
the case returned to this Court, after the Sixth Circuit entered its mandate on
October 6, 2009, no procedure was established for litigating those issues.
Interestingly, at that time, CNH propounded various discovery requests to
the UAW seeking information CNH deemed relevant to the issues raised by the
Sixth Circuit’s decision. When Plaintiffs sought a protective order and to quash
CNH’s discovery requests– citing the discovery deadlines set by this Court in May
2006 (see ECF No. 252 at 2)– CNH responded in part that “the pre-appeal
discovery deadline upon which Plaintiffs now rely is irrelevant because the Sixth
Circuit specifically remanded the case to this Court for further evidentiary
development” and that “Defendants waived nothing by failing previously to seek
the information now sought in their subpoenas to the UAW, because only the
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recent Sixth Circuit decision in this case has required this new discovery.” (ECF
No. 258 at 1.) The parties eventually reached an agreement concerning the
discovery CNH sought. (ECF No. 270.) Shortly thereafter, they filed crossmotions addressing whether, and if so to what extent, CNH may modify Plaintiffs’
benefits. (ECF Nos. 271, 273, 280, 282.)
This Court then ruled on the modification issues (ECF No. 304), CNH
appealed the decision, and the Sixth Circuit rejected the Court’s analysis and once
again remanded the matter for adjudication. See Reese v. CNH America, LLC, 694
F.3d 681 (6th Cir. 2012). This time, the Sixth Circuit panel plainly set forth the
facts it finds relevant to decide what modifications reasonably can be made to
Plaintiffs’ benefits.2 Id. at 685. The panel noted that those facts were not in the
lower court record. Id. Of course those facts had not been developed because the
ability to modify Plaintiffs’ benefits if they were found to be vested had not been
previously accepted by this Court based on its interpretation of controlling
precedent, the language of the governing agreements, and the parties’ collective
bargaining history. Nor was the mutability of vested benefits contemplated by
Plaintiffs when they initially sought discovery from CNH. Moreover, it was not

2

As such, the Court rejects CNH’s argument that Plaintiffs should have
sought the current disclosures when the Sixth Circuit first remanded the matter and
that Plaintiffs’ failure to do so should preclude them from doing so now.
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until far later that CNH proposed the plan changes now at issue and thus any
disclosures that had been made would not have covered the discovery Plaintiffs
currently seek.
For these reasons, Magistrate Judge Komives clearly erred when he found
that interrogatories 3, 4, and 48 are duplicative of other written requests by
Plaintiffs and the parties’ Rule 26 mandatory disclosure requirements. With
respect to interrogatory 4, however, the Court’s current scheduling order provides a
specific deadline for expert witness disclosures. As such, Magistrate Judge
Komives’ ruling that CNH did not need to respond to interrogatory 4 at this time
was not clearly erroneous. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2)(D). In other words, CNH
need not identify any person it expects to use as an expert witness until its expert
reports are due. However, CNH must answer interrogatories 3 and 48 within
fourteen (14) days of the date of this Order. Accordingly, the Court grants in part
and denies in part Plaintiffs’ objections to the magistrate judge’s orders.
As set forth earlier, pursuant to the amended scheduling order, CNH was
required to respond to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests by June 19, 2013. As a result
of the conflict concerning Plaintiffs’ interrogatories, this was not done. To account
for this, the Court is sua sponte amending the scheduling order as follows:

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8/13/13

Defendants to respond to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests

9/27/13

Reports due from Plaintiffs’ experts

10/17/13

Reports due from Defendants’ experts

11/18/13

Discovery closes

12/3/13

Dispositive motion cut-off

1/3/14

Dispositive motion(s) response(s) due

1/10/14

Dispositive motion(s) reply brief(s) due

SO ORDERED.

Dated:

July 30, 2013

s/PATRICK J. DUGGAN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Copies to:
Counsel of Record

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