ROCHE et al v. AETNA, INC. et al

Filing 206

OPINION. Signed by Judge Noel L. Hillman on 8/7/2018. (dmr)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

JAY MINERLEY, Individually
and as Class Representative,

No. 13-cv-1377 (NLH/KMW)
OPINION

Plaintiff,
v.
AETNA, INC., AETNA HEALTH
INC., AETNA HEALTH INSURANCE
CO., AETNA LIFE INSURANCE
CO., and THE RAWLINGS
COMPANY, LLC,
Defendants.

APPEARANCES:
CHARLES THOMAS KANNEBECKER
THE LAW OFFICE OF CHARLES KANNEBECKER
104 W. HIGH STREET
MILFORD, PA 18337
On behalf of Plaintiff
RYAN N. BOLAND
JOSEPH M. ARMSTRONG
DON P. FOSTER (admitted pro hac vice)
MATTHEW D. ANNUNZIO (admitted pro hac vice)
OFFIT KURMAN, P.A.
TEN PENN CENTER
1801 MARKET STREET, SUITE 2300
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19103
On behalf of Plaintiff
ANTHONY MICHAEL CHRISTINA
LOWEY DANNENBERG, P.C.
200 BARR HARBOR DRIVE
SUITE 400
WEST CONSHOHOCKEN, PA 19428
On behalf of Defendants

PETER D. ST. PHILLIP, JR.
URIEL RABINOVITZ
RICHARD W. COHEN (admitted pro hac vice)
GERALD LAWRENCE (admitted pro hac vice)
LOWEY DANNENBERG, P.C.
44 SOUTH BROADWAY, SUITE 1100
WHITE PLAINS, NY 10601
On behalf of Defendants

HILLMAN, District Judge
This matter concerns alleged violations of New Jersey
insurance regulation laws.

Plaintiff Jay Minerley appeals

Magistrate Judge Karen Williams’s December 15, 2017 Discovery
Order.

For the reasons that follow, the Magistrate Judge’s

December 15, 2017 Discovery Order will be affirmed.
I.
The Court held a status hearing in this matter on June 26,
2017, in which the Court discussed some additional discovery
that might be useful in this case, including discovery on
certain claims history.

On July 11, 2017, the Court issued the

following text order:
The Court having considered the parties’ letters at
docket entries 154 and 156 concerning the current scope
of permitted discovery following the status hearing held
on June 26, 2017, it shall be, and hereby is ORDERED
that Aetna shall provide to Plaintiff the identification
of names and addresses of every Weiss-Aug employee, and
any covered family member, against whose third party
tort recovery Aetna and/or Rawlings asserted, and
collected, a subrogation lien.

2

Thereafter, the parties had a dispute over the scope of
discovery.

On November 28, 2017, Plaintiff filed a letter with

the Court addressed to the Magistrate Judge concerning “the
parties’ dispute regarding Defendants’ objections to Plaintiff’s
four interrogatories and four document requests.”

Namely, the

dispute concerned Plaintiff’s request for discovery on the
history of Defendants’ assertion of subrogation liens in plans
involving other New Jersey employers.
Following a telephone conference, on December 15, 2017, the
Magistrate Judge entered a Discovery Order stating: “The request
to conduct discovery as to other plan members in analogous plans
who have out of state employees with subrogation claims is
DENIED.”

Plaintiff filed an appeal of the Discovery Order on

December 29, 2017.
II.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a) provides:
When a pretrial matter not dispositive of a party’s claim
or defense is referred to a magistrate judge to hear and
decide, the magistrate judge must promptly conduct the
required proceedings and, when appropriate, issue a
written order stating the decision. A party may serve
and file objections to the order within 14 days after
being served with a copy.
A party may not assign as
error a defect in the order not timely objected to. The
district judge in the case must consider timely
objections and modify or set aside any part of the order

3

that is clearly erroneous or is contrary to law. 1
Thus, Rule 72(a) requires this Court adhere to a “clearly
erroneous” or “contrary to law” standard of review.

This

standard requires the Court accord the Magistrate Judge “wide
discretion.”

United States v. Sensient Colors, Inc., 649 F.

Supp. 2d 309, 314-15 (D.N.J. 2009) (quoting Miller v.
Beneficiary Mgmt. Corp., 844 F. Supp. 990, 997 (D.N.J. 1993)).
“A magistrate judge’s decision is clearly erroneous ‘when,
although there may be some evidence to support it, the reviewing
court, after considering the entirety of the evidence, is “left
with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been
committed.”’”

Id. at 315 (quoting Kounelis v. Sherrer, 529 F.

Supp. 2d 503, 518 (D.N.J. 2008)).

“A magistrate judge’s

decision is contrary to law when he or she has ‘misinterpreted
or misapplied applicable law.’”
Supp. 2d at 518).

Id. (quoting Kounelis, 529 F.

“Particular deference is accorded to

magistrate judges on discovery issues.”

1

Costa v. County of

Local Civil Rule 72.1(c) provides similarly:
Any party may appeal from a Magistrate Judge’s
determination of a non-dispositive matter within 14 days
after the party has been served with a copy of the
Magistrate Judge’s order . . . . A Judge shall consider
the appeal . . . and set aside any portion of the
Magistrate Judge’s order found to be clearly erroneous
or contrary to law.
4

Burlington, 584 F. Supp. 2d 681, 684 n.2 (D.N.J. 2008).
“The burden of demonstrating clear error rests with the
appealing party.”

Sensient Colors, 649 F. Supp. 2d at 315

(citing Kounelis, 529 F. Supp. 2d at 518).
III.
This dispute concerns the scope of discovery.

Federal Rule

of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) governs the scope of discovery:
Unless otherwise limited by court order, 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.
Plaintiff argues the Magistrate Judge’s Order “is contrary
to the spirit of the Court’s July 11, 2017 Order.”

However, the

Court’s July 11, 2017 Order concerned other Weiss-Aug employees.
While Plaintiff argues the discovery ordered there is “similar”
to the discovery requested, Plaintiff is reading this into the
Court’s Order based on its understanding of the Order’s
“spirit.”

The Court’s Order, which speaks for itself, did not

order discovery as broadly as Plaintiff suggests, and to the
extent the Court’s comments at the June 26, 2017 hearing could
5

have indicated a broader “spirit” of the Order, they did not
sanction or suggest that such broad discovery was necessary or
appropriate in this case, nor do they support the assertion that
the Magistrate Judge’s decision was clearly erroneous or
contrary to law.
The Court’s colloquy with counsel at the June 26, 2017
hearing, to the extent it touched on further discovery, was
focused on two discrete issues: (1) Aetna’s account executive
and (2) Plaintiff’s claims history.

Plaintiff focuses on the

following statement from the Court at the June 26, 2017 hearing:
Well, here’s what I think we need to do.
I have
identified two areas of discovery that I think would be
helpful, and that is the history of the claims, and the
other would be this account executive from Aetna who was
there at the time . . . the package of benefits was put
together . . . .
(Tr. at 95-96).

Plaintiff interprets the Court’s reference to

“history of the claims” to refer broadly to “Aetna’s subrogation
claims.”

However, taken in context with the full scope of the

hearing, Plaintiff’s interpretation of the Court’s comments is
erroneous.

Specifically, the Court said:

I think I would like to see the whole history of the
relationship just to assure myself that, leaving aside
whether or not there are factual disputes that need to
be resolved by a jury, just to make sure that Aetna was
consistent in its treatment of Mr. Minerley over time.
(Tr. at 65 (emphasis added)).

The Court also expressed interest
6

in whether “Mr. Minerley’s ordinary and routine medical expenses
were being paid out of a New Jersey HMO.”

(Tr. at 58).

The

Court’s focus was clearly on the claims history of Plaintiff.
Further colloquy with counsel regarding this discovery
reinforces this conclusion:
MR. LAWRENCE:

And, your Honor, just because Mr.
Rabinovitz and I are going to have to be
the ones that do this work, the issue of
the materials to produce with respect to
the claims, I would envision taking the
claims report for the claims prior to the
time of his accident.

. . . .
MR. LAWRENCE:

And identifying with respect to each of
those claims what entity paid for the
claim, just like a chart showing those
two facts.

THE COURT:

That’s something
helpful.

MR. FOSTER:

What would also be helpful, what we got
was a spreadsheet that simply had a lot
of
numbers
and
there
was
an
identification of number 200 as being
Aetna, Inc. of Pennsylvania.
I don’t
dispute that because I’ve also seen a
list that actually showed that.
But I
think that if we had the actual checks,
if they’re still available in electronic
format, rather than just a spreadsheet
showing the check numbers.

THE COURT:

I would think the backup for the
spreadsheet would be helpful.
The
perfect world would be all of them. . . .

7

I

think

would

be

. . . .
MR. LAWRENCE:

Your honor, . . . we ran his claims for
this case already, and we ran the report
from 12/31/08 going forward.
Can we
start at 12/31/08?

. . . .
MR. FOSTER:

I think that’s fine.

THE COURT:

Let’s see what that shows and that will
be good. . . .

(Tr. at 97-99).
The Court disagrees with Plaintiff’s interpretation of its
Order and any broader “spirit” expressed in the Order.

The

Court finds the Magistrate Judge’s Discovery Order consistent
with the prior Orders of the Court and not clearly erroneous or
contrary to law.

The Court will affirm the Magistrate Judge’s

decision.
An appropriate Order will be entered.

Date: August 7, 2018
At Camden, New Jersey

s/ Noel L. Hillman
NOEL L. HILLMAN, U.S.D.J.

8