Oates v. Target Corporation

Filing 72

ORDER Overruling 62 Defendant's Objections to Magistrate Judge's October 2, 2012 Order. Signed by District Judge Gerald E. Rosen. (Chubb, A)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
SAUNDRA OATES,
Plaintiff,
Case No. 11-14837
Hon. Gerald E. Rosen
Magistrate Judge Mona K. Majzoub

v.
TARGET CORPORATION,
Defendant.
_______________________________/

ORDER OVERRULING DEFENDANT’S OBJECTIONS
TO MAGISTRATE JUDGE’S OCTOBER 2, 2012 ORDER
At a session of said Court, held in
the U.S. Courthouse, Detroit, Michigan
on December 18, 2012.
PRESENT: Honorable Gerald E. Rosen
Chief Judge, United States District Court
By order dated October 2, 2012, Magistrate Judge Mona K. Majzoub ruled on
motions to compel brought by each party. In objections filed on October 16, 2012,
Defendant challenges two aspects of this ruling: (i) the Magistrate Judge’s denial of
Defendant’s request that Plaintiff be compelled to sign authorizations for the release of
information and documents from her prior employers, and (ii) the Magistrate Judge’s
purported instruction that Defendant produce documents that allegedly are outside its
possession, custody, or control. As discussed below, the Court overrules these objections
and affirms the Magistrate Judge’s October 2 order.
First, Defendant asserts that the Magistrate Judge erred in determining that

Defendant’s “attempts to discover information from Plaintiff’s previous employers are
not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence” bearing upon
any issue of relevance to this suit. (10/2/2012 Order at 5.) In Defendant’s view, the
records it seeks to obtain from Plaintiff’s prior employers are relevant to three issues:
“(1) Plaintiff’s claims for damages and any alleged mitigation thereof; (2) Plaintiff’s
credibility and [Defendant’s] asserted after-acquired evidence defense; and (3) Plaintiff’s
job qualifications.” (Defendant’s Objections at 4.)
Turning first to Defendant’s contention that the records from Plaintiff’s past
employers are relevant to the issue of damages, the Court finds that these records would
be merely cumulative, at best, of information Defendant evidently has obtained from
other sources. Most notably, it appears from the record that Defendant sought and
obtained Plaintiff’s past tax returns, and Defendant presumably had the opportunity to
further explore the issue of Plaintiff’s past compensation and benefits in the course of
Plaintiff’s deposition and in other discovery efforts directed at Plaintiff herself.
Moreover, Plaintiff’s claims for lost wages and benefits, as well as the issue of mitigation
of damages, are matters which will undoubtedly turn almost exclusively on Plaintiff’s
several years of employment with Defendant, as well as her work history after Defendant
discharged her in December of 2009. In light of these avenues of discovery, the Court
agrees with the Magistrate Judge that Plaintiff’s records from her past employers are
unlikely to shed additional light on her alleged damages or the mitigation of damages.
Next, Defendant points to its assertion of an after-acquired evidence defense, and it
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contends that the records of Plaintiff’s prior employers will enable it to determine
whether Plaintiff misrepresented her work history or was otherwise untruthful in
completing her application for employment with Defendant. Yet, throughout Defendant’s
objections and its underlying motion to compel, Defendant has utterly failed to identify
any basis for its bare speculation that Plaintiff might have made misrepresentations on her
employment application. Absent any reason to believe that the records of Plaintiff’s prior
employers would reveal Plaintiff’s lack of truthfulness when she applied for employment
with Defendant, the Court concurs in the Magistrate Judge’s determination that
Defendant’s effort to obtain these records would be an unwarranted fishing expedition.
See Tribula v. SPX Corp., No. 08-13300, 2009 WL 87269, at *2 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 12,
2009) (quashing subpoenas for the records of the plaintiff’s prior employers, where the
defendant employer failed to identify any specific basis for its belief that these records
would support an after-acquired evidence defense).
Likewise, Defendant’s appeal to the issue of Plaintiff’s qualifications rests upon
rank speculation, as opposed to a specific basis for believing that the records of Plaintiff’s
prior employers might lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Defendant suggests
that these records would be “directly relevant to Plaintiff’s qualifications for positions
because they shed light on her prior job duties, experiences, skills, and qualifications.”
(Defendant’s Objections at 9.) Again, however, Defendant fails to suggest any reason for
suspecting that Plaintiff might have lacked any qualifications for the positions she held
during the several years she was employed by Defendant. In any event, these issues as to
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Plaintiff’s qualifications and past job duties, experience, and skills could readily be
explored (and presumably were explored) in Defendant’s discovery efforts directed at
Plaintiff herself. It follows that Defendant’s attempt to obtain the records of Plaintiff’s
past employers would, at best, be cumulative of other discovery efforts already
undertaken by Defendant.
This leaves only Defendant’s objection that the Magistrate Judge’s October 2 order
could arguably be construed as requiring that Defendant produce documents without
regard for whether these materials are within Defendant’s possession, custody, or control.
Defendant’s stated basis for this concern is that the October 2 order specifically states at
one point that Defendant need only produce documents relating to certain of its
employees to the extent that Defendant has “possession, custody, or control” of these
documents, (10/2/2012 Order at 11-12), while the order lacks this express limiting
language as to other documents Defendant must produce. Yet, as the Magistrate Judge
observed, (see id. at 11), the plain language of Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a)(1) limits any
document request to materials “in the responding party’s possession, custody, or control,”
and there is no reason to interpret the Magistrate Judge’s order as requiring Defendant to
go above and beyond this Rule 34 obligation in responding to Plaintiff’s document
requests in this case. Rather, since the pertinent portion of the Magistrate Judge’s
October 2 order deals exclusively with document requests served by Plaintiff pursuant to
Rule 34, (see 10/2/2012 Order at 8-13), the Court is confident that this order is not meant
to override the terms and limitations set forth in the Rule itself.
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For these reasons,
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant’s October 16,
2012 objections (docket #62) to the Magistrate Judge’s October 2, 2012 order are
OVERRULED.

s/Gerald E. Rosen
Chief Judge, United States District Court
Dated: December 18, 2012
I hereby certify that a copy of the foregoing document was served upon the parties and/or
counsel of record on December 18, 2012, by electronic and/or ordinary mail.
s/Julie Owens
Case Manager

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