STATIC CONTROL COMPONENTS, INC. v. SUMMIX, INC.
Filing
65
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER OF UNITED STATES signed by MAG/JUDGE L. PATRICK AULD on 11/22/2011. IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Static Control Components, Inc.'s Motion for Sanctions [sic] Failure to Comply with Court Order (Docket Entry 57 ) is GRANTED IN PART in that: (1) Defendant is ORDERED to reproduce all submitted documents in groupings responsive to no more than two of Plaintiff's document requests on or before December 15, 2011; (2) on or before December 15, 2011, Plaintiff sha ll serve Defendant with a statement of the reasonable expenses, including attorneys fees, caused by Defendant's failure to comply; (3) on or before December 29, 2011, Defendant shall file a memorandum of not more than ten pages showing cause why it and/or its attorneys should not have to pay any expenses identified by Plaintiff, and, if Defendant contests the reasonableness of any such additional expenses, it shall include within its memorandum a certification that it has attempted to confe r in good faith with Plaintiff about that subject; (4) on or before January 19, 2012, Plaintiff may file a response of not more than ten pages to Defendant's foregoing memorandum; and (5) on or before January 26, 2012, Defendant may file a reply of not more than five pages to any such response by Plaintiff. (Taylor, Abby)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA
STATIC CONTROL COMPONENTS,
INC.
Plaintiff,
v.
SUMMIX, INC.,
Defendant.
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1:08CV928
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
OF UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
This case comes before the Court on Static Control Components,
Inc.’s Motion for Sanctions [sic] Failure to Comply with Court
Order.
(Docket Entry 57.)
For the reasons stated below, said
motion will be granted in part.
Factual Background
Defendant sold Plaintiff certain products, which Plaintiff, in
turn, re-sold to Plaintiff’s customers. (See Docket Entry 1, ¶ 7.)
Plaintiff
contends
that
Defendant
was
unable
to
maintain
a
consistent quality in the products it sold to Plaintiff, and some
of the products therefore did not meet Plaintiff’s specifications.
(Id., ¶ 12.)
Plaintiff filed this lawsuit, alleging a claim for
breach of warranty of merchantability. (Id., ¶¶ 10-14.) Defendant
has
counterclaimed,
alleging
that
the
products
were
within
Plaintiff’s specifications and that Plaintiff has failed to pay for
the products.
(See Docket Entry 13 at 3-4.)
Over the course of discovery, a dispute arose regarding what
Plaintiff alleged was Defendant’s failure to adequately respond to
Plaintiff’s requests for the production of documents. As a result,
Plaintiff filed Static Control Components, Inc.’s Motion to Compel
Requests for Production (Docket Entry 36).
Plaintiff represented
in said motion that the documents furnished by Defendant in
response to Plaintiff’s production request “consisted of five
groups of documents bound with rubber bands with a cover sheet
reading ‘RESPONSIVE TO’ followed by a group of numbers.
. . .
The
individual documents were not labeled in any fashion, other than
the cover sheets, so as to indicate which production they were
responsive to.”
(Id. at 3.)
Plaintiff also noted that “[t]he
production of these documents in the form of paper copies rather
than in text-searchable PDF format, places an undue burden on
Plaintiff in searching through the documents to determine which
production requests they may be responsive to and in being able to
obtain translations for the documents written in Japanese.”
(Id.
at 4.)
This Court, by way of an Order of United States Magistrate
Judge Wallace W. Dixon, granted Plaintiff’s motion.
(See Docket
Entry 50.) In doing so, Judge Dixon ordered Defendant to “identify
with specificity which documents are responsive to which requests.”
(Id. at 13.) Judge Dixon also directed that “Defendant must either
respond in detail to the requests for production, or identify
documents that would provide this detailed information.
. . .
[T]he documents must be Bates-stamped; and Plaintiff must be able
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to readily ascertain which documents correspond to which requests
for production.”
(Id.)
In the interim period between the filing of Plaintiff’s motion
to compel and the issuance of Judge Dixon’s Order, Defendant had
“voluntarily reproduced the documents to [Plaintiff] identified by
bates-stamp, and a corresponding Production Log identifying which
documents, by bates-stamp, were responsive to specific document
requests.”
deemed
(See Docket Entry 60 at 2.)
Judge
Dixon’s
documents, moot.
Order,
as
it
Accordingly, Defendant
related
to
production
(See Docket Entry 60-1 at 1.)
of
Plaintiff,
however, contends that Defendant’s production remains insufficient
as Defendant’s Production Log “repeated the procedure [Defendant]
followed in its original production (which was the subject of the
Court’s Order) by listing groups of documents as responsive to
multiple production requests.”
(Docket Entry 58 at 2.)
Plaintiff filed the instant motion urging the Court to “order
[Defendant] to reproduce all the submitted documents with documents
labeled as being responsive to no more than two requests.” (Id. at
7.)
Plaintiff also argues that Defendant “should be denied from
conducting any additional discovery and [Plaintiff] should not be
required to respond to any discovery requests already submitted.”
(Id.)
Discussion
I. Compliance
Defendant’s most recent production identified six groupings of
documents
(totaling
near
3,000
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documents),
with
each
being
responsive to as few as two and as many as eight of Plaintiff’s
production requests.
(See Docket Entry 58-2 at 1.)
Plaintiff
argues that “[t]he documents cannot be responsive in the manner
stated by [Defendant]” (Docket Entry 58 at 3), as the requests to
which each group is purported to respond are so distinct as to make
a single document unable to be relevant to each of the multiple
requests (id.).
In support of this contention, Plaintiff offers
the Court specific examples of non-responsive documents (see Docket
Entry 58 at 3-6) as well as the wording of certain of Plaintiff’s
document requests (see Docket Entry 62 at 2-4). Defendant contends
that each of the documents in the six groupings identified in the
Production Log are indeed responsive to each of the requests as
noted and that Plaintiff’s instant motion “rests entirely upon
[Plaintiff’s] disagreement with [Defendant’s] interpretation of the
breadth of certain requests and [Defendant’s] identification of
documents responsive thereto.”
(Docket Entry 60 at 5.)
The Court
finds Plaintiff’s argument persuasive.
Defendant’s production failed to “identify with specificity
which documents are responsive to which requests” as ordered by
Judge Dixon (Docket Entry 50 at 13), and, at the very least, causes
substantial confusion regarding responsiveness of certain documents
to
Plaintiff’s
production
requests.
For
example,
one
of
Defendant’s groupings, which contains over 1400 documents, is
purportedly responsive to eight of Plaintiff’s requests, including:
2.
Produce all records of communication relating to
any complaints including, but not limited to
malfunctions and defects, you received in the last
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3 years from any individual, corporation or other
entity for which you manufactured PCRs.
6.
Produce the results of all inspections, analyses or
tests done on any [Defendant] PCRs returned by
[Defendant’s] customers from January 1, 2007 until
December 31, 2008.
. . . .
28.
Produce
all
contracts
entered
into
between
[Defendant] and [Plaintiff] from January 1, 2007
until December 31, 2008.
(Docket Entry 62 at 2-3.)
The Court fails to see how documents
responsive to request 28 can also be responsive to requests 2 and
6.
Another of Defendant’s groupings, which includes only six
documents,
is
also
purported
to
be
responsive
to
eight
of
Plaintiff’s requests, including:
1.
Produce all documents relating to any complaints
including, but not limited to malfunctions and
defects you received in the last 3 years from any
individual, corporation or other entity for which
you manufactured PCRs.
. . . .
8.
Produce all documents and things relating to the
production and manufacture of [Defendant] PCRs from
January 1, 2007 until December 31, 2008.
(Id. at 3-4.) Again, the Court cannot understand how each document
can be responsive to each of Plaintiff’s requests as listed.
Furthermore,
the
Court
notes
that
Defendant’s
method
of
grouping in its May 10, 2010, production is substantially similar
to its original production, which was the subject of Judge Dixon’s
Order.
Defendant’s original production “consisted of five groups
of documents bound with rubber bands with a cover sheet reading
‘RESPONSIVE TO’ followed by a group of numbers.”
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(Docket Entry 36
at 3.)
Said numbers indicated to which production requests each
stack of documents was meant to respond.
(Id.)
Plaintiff’s May
10, 2010, production, though performed electronically and including
bates-stamped documents, altered the specificity of the production
only slightly in that Defendant offered six groups of documents and
again listed each as responsive to multiple production requests.
(See Docket Entry 58-2.)
Finally, in what only contributes to the lack of specificity
and likelihood of confusion surrounding Defendant’s production, the
groupings
in
Defendant’s
original
production
correspond
only
loosely with, and sometimes contradict, the groupings noted in
Defendant’s more recent production.
with
Docket
Entry
58-2.)
For
(Compare Docket Entry 36-3
example,
Defendant’s
original
production included a stack of documents responsive to Plaintiff’s
production requests 8, 10 and 19.
(See Docket Entry 36-3 at 5.)
Defendant’s Production Log included in the more recent production
indicates that there are approximately 1,300 documents responsive
to production requests 10 and 11, that none of those documents are
responsive to production request 8, and that there are no documents
responsive to production request 19 in the entire production. (See
Docket Entry 58-2.)
In another example, Defendant’s original
production contained two stacks which correspond closely to two of
Defendant’s groupings in its more recent production (see Docket
Entry 36-3 at 3, 4), except that the documents responsive to those
requests are now noted as being responsive to production request 2
as well (see Docket Entry 58-2).
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II. Sanctions
Plaintiff urges the Court to “order [Defendant] to reproduce
all
the
submitted
documents
with
documents
responsive to no more than two requests.”
Plaintiff
also
argues
that
Defendant
labeled
as
being
(Docket Entry 58 at 7.)
“should
be
denied
from
conducting any additional discovery and [Plaintiff] should not be
required to respond to any discovery requests already submitted.”
(Id.)
Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b)(2)(A) lists the sanctions a court may
order for the failure of a party to comply with discovery.
They
include:
(i) directing that the matters embraced in the order or
other designated facts be taken as established for
purposes of the action, as the prevailing party claims;
(ii) prohibiting the disobedient party from supporting or
opposing designated claims or defenses, or from
introducing designated matters in evidence;
(iii) striking pleadings in whole or in part;
(iv) staying further proceedings until the order is
obeyed;
(v) dismissing the action or proceeding in whole or in
part;
(vi) rendering a default judgment against the disobedient
party; or
(vii) treating as contempt of court the failure to obey
any order except an order to submit to a physical or
mental examination.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b)(2)(A).
A district court has discretion regarding whether, and to what
extent, it should apply sanctions under Rule 37.
Nat’l Hockey
League v. Metro. Hockey Club, Inc., 427 U.S. 639, 643 (1976).
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In
so deciding, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit requires the Court to look to four factors: “(1) whether
the noncomplying party acted in bad faith, (2) the amount of
prejudice that noncompliance caused the adversary, (3) the need for
deterrence of the particular sort of noncompliance, and (4) whether
less drastic sanctions would have been effective.” See Southern
States Rack & Fixture, Inc. v. Sherwin-Williams Co., 318 F.3d 592,
597
(4th
Cir.
2003)
(quoting
Anderson
v.
Foundation
for
Advancement, Educ, & Emp’t of Am. Indians, 155 F.3d 500, 504 (4th
Cir. 1998)).
Defendant concedes that this Court may sanction Defendant
pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b)(2)(A)(iv), as Plaintiff suggests,
by prohibiting Defendant from engaging in further discovery.
Docket Entry 60 at 4.)
(See
Based on the above four factors, however,
the Court deems such a prohibition on discovery unnecessary under
the instant facts.
Defendant
to
The Court is confident that an Order requiring
reproduce
all
submitted
documents
in
groupings
responsive to no more than two requests as Plaintiff requests (see
Docket Entry 58 at 7), combined with a warning that further failure
to comply will lead to additional sanctions, up to and including
default judgment pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b)(2)(A)(vi), will
suffice.
Conclusion
Defendant’s production failed to comply with Judge Dixon’s
Order requiring Defendant to “identify with specificity which
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documents are responsive to which requests.”
(Docket Entry 50 at
13.)
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Static Control Components, Inc.’s
Motion for Sanctions [sic] Failure to Comply with Court Order
(Docket Entry 57) is GRANTED IN PART in that:
(1) Defendant is ORDERED to reproduce all submitted documents
in groupings responsive to no more than two of Plaintiff’s document
requests on or before December 15, 2011;
(2) on or before December 15, 2011, Plaintiff shall serve
Defendant with a statement of the reasonable expenses, including
attorney’s fees, caused by Defendant’s failure to comply;
(3) on or before December 29, 2011, Defendant shall file a
memorandum of not more than ten pages showing cause why it and/or
its attorneys should not have to pay any expenses identified by
Plaintiff, and, if Defendant contests the reasonableness of any
such additional expenses, it shall include within its memorandum a
certification that it has attempted to confer in good faith with
Plaintiff about that subject;
(4) on or before January 19, 2012, Plaintiff may file a
response of not more than ten pages to Defendant’s foregoing
memorandum; and
(5) on or before January 26, 2012, Defendant may file a reply
of not more than five pages to any such response by Plaintiff.
/s/ L. Patrick Auld
L. Patrick Auld
United States Magistrate Judge
November 22, 2011
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