MILLER v. RICCI et al
Filing
74
MEMORANDUM OPINION filed. Signed by Judge Freda L. Wolfson on 2/26/2013. (eaj)
*** NOT FOR PUBLICATION ***
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
LIONELL G. MILLER,
Plaintiff,
vs.
MICHELLE R. RICCI, et al.,
Defendants.
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Civil Action No. 11-859 (FLW)
MEMORANDUM
OPINION
WOLFSON, United States District Judge:
Presently before the Court is pro se Plaintiff Lionel Miller’s (“Plaintiff's”) appeal
of Magistrate Judge Lois H. Goodman’s (“the Magistrate Judge’s”) November 30, 2012
ruling, denying his motion to compel discovery. For the reasons stated below, the
Court affirms the Magistrate Judge’s ruling and dismisses Plaintiff’s appeal.
BACKGROUND
Briefly, the facts relating to Plaintiff’s motion are as follows.1 Plaintiff alleges
that he was beaten by correctional officers at the New Jersey State Prison on February
24, 2009. According to Plaintiff, he began to suffer harassment once he chose to
discontinue communications with a female acquaintance of his—Ms. Yolanda Hall
(“Ms. Hall”)—upon learning in September 2007 that she was “fraternizing” with a
1
A more detailed description of Plaintiff’s allegations can be found in my
Opinion dated April 28, 2011.
correctional officer employed at the prison.2 Pl. Mov. Br. at 6. Plaintiff further alleges
that the correctional officer asked an inmate, whose identity Plaintiff does not know,
to place Ms. Hall on that inmate’s visiting list.
At the sua sponte dismissal stage, this Court dismissed the majority of Plaintiff’s
claims, which included, inter alia, due process claims, a failure-to-protect claim, and
a retaliation claim. In dismissing the retaliation claim, the Court questioned the
relevance of the alleged relationship between Ms. Hall and the correctional officer to
Plaintiff’s retaliation claim:
One [of Plaintiff’s allegations] is [his] personal involvement
with a certain woman; that activity seemingly ended long
before the February 24, 2009, events, i.e., when the prison
officers began harassing Plaintiff in retaliation for Plaintiff’s
decision to cease contacts with this woman. However,
befriending or being romantically involved with someone, or
breaking up such a relationship is not a constitutionally
protected activity upon which a retaliation claim could be
based.
Alternatively, Plaintiff asserts that the February 24, 2009,
altercation was a result of the Officers’ retaliation against
Plaintiff for filing, long ago, a grievance [with] the warden.
However, if Plaintiff is asserting that his personal romantic
affairs resulted in a steady animosity between him and the
Officers, and that animosity long preceded Plaintiff’s filing
of his grievance and sustained unchanged long after such
filing, Plaintiff cannot establish causation between the
incident that took place in the afternoon of February 24,
2
Plaintiff’s reasoning as to why he believes Ms. Hall has a relationship
with a correctional officer is difficult to comprehend He states in his deposition that
he believes as much because, during a landline phone call between Plaintiff and Ms.
Hall (during the timeframe when they were still on speaking terms) she interrupted
him to make a call on her cell phone and, thereafter, “a phone in the unit began to
ring.” Miller Dep. 48:1-9.
2
2009, and his protected activity in the form of filing a
grievance long before the altercation.
Id. at 23-24.
The only claim that withstood sua sponte screening was Plaintiff’s excessive
force claim based upon the February 24, 2009 altercation. Significantly, in permitting
this claim to proceed, the Court ruled that the two-year statute of limitations
applicable to section 1983 actions had the effect of circumscribing Plaintiff’s excessive
force claim to “events that took place prior to February 9, 2009.” Opinion dated April
28, 2011 at 26.
In his motion to compel before the Magistrate Judge, Plaintiff sought the name
of the inmate and the name of the “visiting hall supervisor” who would have authorized
the addition of Ms. Hall to the inmate’s visiting list. Pl. Mov. Br. at 6. In addition, he
sought documents pertaining to why he was sent, in 2006 and 2008, to the Security
Threat Group Management Unit (“STGMU”). Plaintiff argues that the Magistrate
Judge erred in concluding that this requested discovery was irrelevant to his suit and,
consequently, in denying his motion to compel.
DISCUSSION
Generally, a magistrate judge’s ruling on a non-dispositive pretrial matter may
be reconsidered by a district judge “only where it has been shown that the magistrate
judge’s order is ‘clearly erroneous or contrary to law’.” Andrews v. Goodyear Tire &
Rubber Co., 191 F.R.D. 59, 67 (D.N.J. 2000) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)). See also Fed.
R. Civ. P. 72.
“A finding is ‘clearly erroneous’ when, although there is evidence to
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support it, the reviewing court . . . is left with the definite and firm conviction that a
mistake has been committed.” United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S.
364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948). “A district judge’s simple disagreement
with the magistrate judge’s findings is insufficient to meet the clearly erroneous
standard of review.” Andrews, 191 F.R.D. at 68 (citations omitted).
The standard of review is particularly lenient in this case because it involves a
challenge to a discovery ruling—a matter fully within the province of magistrate judges
and subject to their discretion. See Mane Fils S.A. v. Int’l Flavors & Fragrances Inc.,
No. 06–2304, 2008 WL 4606313, *3 (D.N.J. Oct.15, 2008) (“Where the appeal seeks
review of a matter within the broad discretion of the Magistrate Judge, such as a
discovery dispute, an even more deferential standard, the abuse of discretion standard,
is applied.”); cf. Andrews, 191 F.R.D. at 68 (explaining that pretrial discovery matters
are non-dispositive). See also Farmers & Merchants Nat. Bank v. San Clemente
Financial Group Securities, Inc., 174 F.R.D. 572, 585 (D.N.J. 1997) (noting that there
is “particularly broad deference given to a magistrate judge’s discovery rulings.”).
Courts apply the abuse of discretion standard to such challenges. Kounelis, 529
F.Supp.2d at 518.
The federal rule governing discovery is Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26. That
rule grants the Court considerable authority to limit a party’s pursuit of otherwise
discoverable information where the burden of a discovery request is likely to outweigh
the benefits. The Court is directed to
limit the frequency or extent of discovery otherwise allowed
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by these rules or by local rule if it determines that: (i) the
discovery sought is unreasonably cumulative or duplicative,
or can be obtained from some other source that is more
convenient, less burdensome, or less expensive; (ii) the party
seeking discovery has had ample opportunity to obtain the
information by discovery in the action; or (iii) 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 importance of the
discovery in resolving the issues.
Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(2)(C).
Here, with respect to the unknown inmate’s name and the visiting supervisor’s
name, Plaintiff contends that he must discover their names in order to find out the
identity of the correctional officer that Plaintiff believes was in a relationship with Ms.
Hall. Further, Plaintiff intends to “inquire of the inmate to find out if he has any other
relevant information that . . . would contradict the defendants defense that there [sic]
actions in beating plaintiff were not as a result of retaliation and personal reasons ....”
Pl. Mov. Br. at 6. With respect to the STGMU documents, Plaintiff explains that the
documents will support his theory that the New Jersey Department of Corrections
(“NJDOC”) sent Plaintiff to STGMU as retaliation for complaining about staff
harassment.
Plaintiff’s challenge to the Magistrate Judge’s ruling turns on the relevancy of
the documents he seeks, and the courts in this district make clear that “the
determination of relevance is ultimately within the court’s discretion.” Watson v.
Sunrise Sr. Living Services, Inc., Civil Action No. 10-230, 2013 WL 103966, *17 (D.N.J.
Jan. 8, 2013) (citing Salamone v. Carter’s Retail, Inc., No. 09-5856 (GEB), 2011 WL
5
1458063, *2 (D.N.J. Apr. 14, 2011)).
While Plaintiff generally argues that the
information he seeks is relevant, he has not articulated what specific information he
believes he would obtain from the inmate or visiting hall supervisor that would assist
him in proving his only surviving claim—the excessive force claim. He argues, simply,
that the inmate could give him the name of the correctional officer who might have
possibly been in a relationship with Ms. Hall, and that he would “inquire of [the
inmate] and find out if he has any other relevant information . . . that would contradict
the defendants defense ....” Pl. Mov. Br. at 6.
These sort of unguided inquiries amount to the type of fishing expeditions that
Rule 26 was especially crafted to prevent.
See Tarlton v. Cumberland County
Correctional Facility, Civ. Action No. 98-4478, 192 F.R.D. 165, 170 (D.N.J. Apr. 4,
2000). Accord Professional Recovery Services, Inc. v. General Elec. Capital Corp., Civ.
Action No. 06-2829, 2009 WL 137326, *4 (D.N.J. Jan. 15, 2009) (“To cast a wide net for
discovery of information in the hopes that something of use may come back is the
essence of a fishing expedition precluded by the rule of proportionality.”). Morever, as
explained in my April 28, 2011 Opinion, Plaintiff’s excessive force claim narrowly
escaped the statute of limitation bar, thus, his reliance on pre-February 2009 events
is suspect, at best. And, noticeably, the allegations relating to Ms. Hall appear to
mirror the retaliation-related allegations already dismissed by this Court at the sua
sponte dismissal stage.
With regard to the STGMU documents, while Plaintiff argues that the
documents may show that the NJDOC sent him to STGMU as retaliation for
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complaining about staff harassment, see Pl. Mov. Br. at 10, these allegations too sound
in retaliation rather than excessive force. Moreover, the STGMU documents, which
relate to actions that took place in 2006 and 2008, are also not relevant to Plaintiff’s
2009 excessive force claim. Furthermore, to the extent Plaintiff appears to argue that
these documents could establish that the officers held longstanding animus towards
him, the New Jersey Appellate Division has previously ruled that Plaintiff’s
harassment allegations are without merit. As explained in my April 28, 2011 decision,
Plaintiff was disciplined following the 2009 excessive force incident and appealed his
disciplinary ruling to the Appellate Division, which affirmed the disciplinary charges
on appeal. See Opinion dated April 28, 2011 at 7 (quoting from New Jersey Appellate
Division opinion ruling).
Indeed, one could view Plaintiff’s reinsertion of the
harassment allegations at this stage of litigation as an attempt to circumvent prior
court rulings against him.
In sum, Rule 26 grants courts the discretion to weigh the burden or expense of
the proposed discovery against its likely benefit, considering the needs of the case and
the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues. Balancing these sorts of
interests in this case, the Magistrate Judge’s decision to deny the motion to compel was
neither erroneous nor contrary to law. Courts afford magistrate judges the full breadth
of their discretion in cases like this one where the Magistrate Judge “has managed
th[e] case from the outset and developed a thorough knowledge of the proceedings.”
Lithuanian Commerce Corp., Ltd. v. Sara Lee Hosiery, 177 F.R.D. 205, 214
(D.N.J.1997) (internal quotations omitted). Given the specious nature of Plaintiff’s
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discovery requests, I see no basis for finding that the Magistrate Judge abused that
discretion here.
Plaintiff further argues that the Magistrate Judge should not have allowed the
defendants to object to Plaintiff’s document requests, and that the Judge’s ruling
violated Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45(c)(1)(B). However, Plaintiff has not
indicated that he made this argument to the Magistrate Judge in the first instance.
It is axiomatic that this Court may not consider new arguments made for the first time
on appeal. See Weiss v. First Unum Life Ins. Co., Civil Action No. 02-4249 (GEB), 2008
WL 5188857, *3 (D.N.J. Dec. 10, 2008) (“[A] party’s failure to present arguments to the
magistrate judge constitutes a waiver of those arguments on appeal.”) (citing
Lithuanian, 177 F.R.D. at 209-13).
Finally, Plaintiff argues that the Magistrate Judge erred in conducting oral
argument for the motion via telephone on November 26, 2012, when he did not have
advance notice of the call or its purpose. Plaintiff contends that he was not allowed to
properly respond to the defendants’ written objections, which had been filed only a few
days earlier on November 21, 2012. It appears, however, that the Magistrate Judge
gave Plaintiff the opportunity to adjourn the call so as to allow him additional time to
prepare. Plaintiff acknowledges this in his own moving brief. Pl. Mov. Br. at 5.
Accordingly, as the Magistrate Judge gave Plaintiff the opportunity to adjourn and he
chose to proceed notwithstanding the Judge’s offer, I find no clear error in the decision
to conduct oral argument via teleconference that day.
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CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Magistrate Judge’s decision is AFFIRMED and
Plaintiff’s appeal is DENIED.
Dated: February 26, 2013
/s/ Freda L. Wolfson
Hon. Freda L. Wolfson, U.S.D.J.
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