Libertarian Party of Ohio et al v. Husted

Filing 133

ORDER : 116 MOTION to Compel is GRANTED as it relates to Mr. Felsoci's deposition. Any party may, within five (5) days after this Order is filed, file and serve on the opposing party a motion for reconsideration by a District Judge. Responses to objections are due five (5) days after objections are filed; replies due three (3) days thereafter. Signed by Magistrate Judge Terence P Kemp on 7/11/2014. (agm1)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
EASTERN DIVISION

Libertarian Party of Ohio,
et al.,

:

Plaintiffs,

:

v.

:
:

Jon Husted, et al.,
Defendants.

Case No. 2:13-cv-953
JUDGE MICHAEL H. WATSON
Magistrate Judge Kemp

:
OPINION AND ORDER

This ballot access case, brought by the Libertarian Party of
Ohio and three individuals, has recently produced a flurry of
discovery-related motions.

The Court will not set forth the

facts extensively (they appear in the Court of Appeals’ decision
of May 1, 2014, see Doc. 107) but will limit its recitation of
the facts to those that relate to the precise issues presented by
each motion being ruled upon.

This Opinion and Order deals with

Plaintiffs’ motion to compel depositions (Doc. 116), the separate
response filed by Intervenor Gregory Felsoci (Doc. 120), and
Plaintiffs’ reply to that response (Docs. 124).

The other issues

raised in the motion to compel will be the subject of a
subsequent Opinion and Order.

For the following reasons, the

motion to compel Mr. Felsoci’s deposition will be granted.
I.

A Brief Factual Background

Gregory Felsoci is a party to this case, having successfully
intervened as a defendant.

See Doc. 85.

As the Court of Appeals

noted, Mr. Felsoci “is the individual whose protest of the
certification of LPO candidates resulted in [Libertarian Party
gubernatorial candidate Charlie] Earl’s removal from the ballot.”
Doc. 107, at 3.

He has never been deposed.

Plaintiffs tried

unsuccessfully to arrange his deposition; when that effort
failed, they served a notice of deposition on June 13, 2014,
setting the deposition for July 7, 2014.

See Doc. 115.

Almost

immediately thereafter, Plaintiffs moved to compel the
deposition.

Although that is procedurally unusual, the parties

agreed, during a telephone conference with the Court, that they
had reached an impasse over whether the deposition would go
forward as noticed, and agreed to have the issue resolved through
briefing on the motion to compel.

That briefing is now complete.

Mr. Felsoci’s unwillingness to be deposed rests on three
grounds: that any deposition would simply duplicate the questions
asked and answers given during the preliminary injunction
hearing; that the parties made an agreement that Mr. Felsoci
would not be deposed in this case; and that Mr. Felsoci has no
relevant testimony to offer concerning any of the claims which
are still “on the table” in this case.
arguments are discussed below.

The merits of these

Here, the Court sets out the

factual predicates for each party’s position.
Plaintiffs called Mr. Felsoci as a witness at the
preliminary injunction hearing.
is Doc. 86.

The transcript of that testimony

His testimony covers 26 pages.

Plaintiffs’

counsel’s examination appears at pages 3-21; the remainder of the
transcript consists of questions posed by Mr. Felsoci’s attorney
and by the Court.

To summarize the testimony very briefly, Mr.

Felsoci described how he was made aware of the facts underlying
his protest, why he filed it, how his attorney (John Zeiger) or
someone from Mr. Zeiger’s firm contacted Mr. Felsoci about the
protest, and the fact that he was not paying Mr. Zeiger’s firm
and did not know if anyone else was.
Shortly after the preliminary injunction hearing, Plaintiffs
served interrogatories on Mr. Felsoci.

A copy of those

interrogatories is attached as an exhibit to Doc. 91, which is a
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motion for a protective order filed by Mr. Felsoci in response to
an earlier deposition notice.

The basis for that motion, apart

from issues about the unavailability of Mr. Felsoci’s counsel, is
that the subject of the deposition related exclusively to a third
amended complaint which had been proposed but not filed.

The

five interrogatories which had been sent asked if Mr. Felsoci was
paid by or through Mr. Zeiger, his law firm, John Musca (who
brought the paid circulator issue to Mr. Felsoci’s attention), or
anyone else, for filing his protest, and, if so, when and how
much.

Plaintiffs responded to the motion for a protective order

by filing a motion to compel both answers to the interrogatories
and a deposition.

See Doc. 92.

One of Plaintiffs’ attorneys, Mark Brown, submitted a
declaration in support of that motion.

Mr. Brown explained that

he had intended to recall Mr. Felsoci as a witness later in the
preliminary injunction hearing but was unable to do so because
Mr. Felsoci did not attend the last day of the hearing, and that
he had additional questions to which he wanted answers in order
to supplement the record filed with the Court of Appeals.

Mr.

Brown also stated that “Mr. Felsoci may present answers, under
oath, in lieu of the scheduled deposition, to the Interrogatories
propounded to him through counsel by me on Saturday, March 22,
2014,” or, alternatively, he could appear for a deposition at any
time before March 28, 2014.

Doc. 92, Attachment 1.

Three more memoranda were filed relating to those motions,
all on April 15, 2014.

See Docs. 100, 101, and 102.

Collectively, they reflect that as of that date, Mr. Felsoci had
neither answered the interrogatories nor been deposed - facts
that none of the parties dispute.

Further, in their reply,

Plaintiffs renewed their request that Mr. Felsoci be required to
appear for a deposition.

See Doc. 102, at 1 “(Felsoci should

be compelled to sit for his deposition”).
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Documents attached to

Plaintiffs’ reply memorandum on the later motion to compel (which
are not authenticated, but which the Court accepts as genuine for
purposes of ruling on the motion), show that Mr. Felsoci’s
answers to the five interrogatories were served on April 16,
2014.

They also show that Mr. Brown sent Mr. Zeiger an email on

March 25, 2014, asking for those answers by “Friday” (i.e. March
28, 2014) or, alternatively, a deposition by that date.
Finally, some discussion about further questioning of Mr.
Felsoci (although not in the context of a deposition) took place
on the last day of the preliminary injunction hearing.
Plaintiffs asked to recall Mr. Felsoci to ask “just one question
....”

Mr. Felsoci’s counsel took the position that Mr. Felsoci

had been released by Judge Watson from further attendance at the
hearing and they advised Mr. Brown that Mr. Felsoci was not
present.

Judge Watson then asked for a proffer; counsel

responded that he would ask Mr. Felsoci “if he’s being paid by
either the law firm or the Republican Party to protest.”

It

appears that Plaintiffs wished to call Mr. Musca to ask similar
questions.

He, too, was not present.

Plaintiffs then attempted

to call Mr. Zeiger as a witness in order to ask “who is paying
him to represent Mr. Felsoci; whether he is coordinating his
activities with anyone in the Ohio Republican Party.”

The

parties argued about whether Mr. Zeiger could properly be called;
another attorney for Mr. Felsoci, Mr. Tigges, argued that Mr.
Zeiger would be breaching client confidentiality if he answered
such questions and that in any event such evidence was not
relevant to any claim in the case.

Judge Watson concluded, after

hearing from both sides, that “I don’t think Mr. Zeiger’s
testimony is going to be relevant.”

He also commented that Mr.

Musca’s testimony on this subject might be “an inquiry for
another day” and that the relevance of this testimony might
depend “upon whether the case expands or contracts....”
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See Doc.

132, at 2-10.
II.

Analysis

The key undisputed facts are these: Mr. Felsoci is a party;
he has not been deposed in the case; and his deposition was
properly noticed pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 30(b).

The general

rule which applies to these facts is that “[u]nder the liberal
discovery principles of the Federal Rules” a party is “required
to carry a heavy burden” to show why a properly-noticed
deposition should not go forward.

See Blankenship v. Hearst

Corp., 519 F.2d 418, 429 (9th Cir. 1975).
Although difficult to do, a party may meet that burden in a
number of different ways.

For example, the party may prove that

he or she has already been deposed in the case or that the
deposition would exceed the ten-deposition limit.
Fed.R.Civ.P. 30(a)(2).

See

The party might also show that the

deposition has been noticed too early (before the Rule 26(f)
conference) or too late (after the discovery cutoff date); or
that he or she falls into a category of witnesses, like heads of
agencies, CEOs of large corporations, or the opposing party’s
attorney, who are easy targets for harassment, and for whom the
burden of showing the appropriateness of the deposition may shift
to the requesting party.

See, e.g., Salter v. Upjohn Co., 593

F.2d 649 (5th Cir. 1979); see also Shelton v. American Motors
Corp., 805 F.2d 1323 (8th Cir. 1987).
It is also possible, but much more difficult, to obtain an
order precluding a party’s deposition from taking place on
grounds that the party has no relevant knowledge, or that,
despite the fact that the party has not been deposed even once,
the deposition would be “unreasonably cumulative or duplicative”
or “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
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at stake in the action, and the importance of the discovery in
resolving the issues.”

Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(2)(I), (iii).

However, granting such orders absent a specific and persuasive
showing of good cause would cut against the fact that, under Rule
30(a), “[a] party may ... depose any person, including a party,
without leave of court....”

The fact that depositions “relate to

[a party’s] trial preparation and defense .... [which] are
important interests, and great care must be taken to avoid their
unnecessary infringement,” Farnsworth v. Procter & Gamble Co.,
758 F.2d 1545, 1547 (11th Cir. 1985), explains why the courts
impose a heavy burden on the movant in these circumstances.

As

the court in EEOC v. Freeman, 2012 WL 2370122, *1 (D. Md. June
21, 2012) aptly observed,
In general, motions for protective orders “seeking to
prevent the taking of a deposition [are] regarded
unfavorably by the courts.” Minter v. Wells Fargo
Bank, N.A., 258 F.R.D. 118, 125 (D. Md. 2009). Such
orders “should be rarely granted absent extraordinary
circumstances;” therefore, the moving party bears a
“heavy burden.” Id. (quoting Static Control
Components, Inc. v. Darkprint Imaging, 201 F.R.D. 431,
434 (M.D.N.C. 2001)) (internal quotation marks
omitted).
Mr. Felsoci’s motion to avoid being deposed even once, despite
the fact that he is a party to this case (and a voluntary one at
that) must be judged under these principles.
A.

Duplication or Harassment

Mr. Felsoci’s first argument is that he was asked, and
answered, every question relevant to this case at the preliminary
injunction hearing.

Consequently, he contends that Plaintiffs’

“duplicitous [sic - probably should be duplicative] examination
of him at deposition would serve no purpose other than to harass
him.”

Memorandum in Opposition, Doc. 120, at 9.

He bases this

argument, at least in part, on the fact that Plaintiffs have not

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identified any topics about which he would be deposed that were
not already covered by his preliminary injunction hearing
testimony.
One conceptual problem with such an argument is that it can
be used to force a party noticing a deposition to describe, in
advance, the subjects to be covered, when that party ordinarily
has no such obligation.

The only time that, by Rule, a party

must specify the subjects about which it wishes to depose a
witness is when noticing a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition.

Other

deposition notices need not contain that information.

See

Fed.R.Civ.P. 30(b)(1), (3); see also Bennett v. The Westover,
Inc., 27 F.Supp. 10, 11 (S.D.N.Y. 1938)(“The Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure do not require that the ‘notice to take
deposition’ state the matters upon which the examination is
sought”).
The noticing party may be required to explain its purposes
in taking a deposition, however, if the facts suggest that those
purposes are improper.

That concept underlies the “apex

deposition” rule applied in some jurisdictions, see Salter v.
Upjohn, supra, where the identity of the deponent itself
indicates an intent to harass rather than an intent to engage in
legitimate discovery.

It also explains the restriction on a

second deposition of the same witness; once the deposing party
has had a full opportunity to question a witness, doing that for
a second time is presumptively duplicative and it is appropriate
to ask the requesting party to explain what else might be asked
that has not already been covered adequately in the first
proceeding.

Cf. Powell v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 2011 WL

124600, * (S.D. Ind. Jan. 13, 2011)(in order to grant leave to
take a second deposition of the same witness, the Court’s order
must be “consistent with Rule 26(b)(2), which provides that
discovery must be limited when it is unreasonably
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duplicative...”).

Otherwise, however, the courts should be

reluctant to permit a party who wishes not to be deposed to use a
procedural device such as a motion for a protective order to
force the requesting party to specify, in advance, the subject of
the deposition as a precondition to proceeding.
Here, there is at least some justification (although not a
very compelling one) for forcing Plaintiffs to disclose in
advance the subject matter of Mr. Felsoci’s proposed deposition the fact that he has testified before in the case, although not
at a deposition, and only for the limited purposes of a
preliminary injunction hearing.

And Plaintiffs have volunteered

certain information about the subject of the deposition.

If,

based on this record, the Court was completely satisfied that not
a single additional and relevant question might be asked of Mr.
Felsoci, that might justify an order preventing his deposition
from going forward.
Plaintiffs argue that, to date, they have been unable to
discover who financed Mr. Felsoci’s protest.

They assert that if

the persons behind that protest were representatives either of
the Kasich administration, including the Secretary of State’s
office, or the Ohio Republican Party, that would bolster their
as-applied challenge to Ohio Rev. Code §3501.38(E)(1).

They

acknowledge that he has stated, under oath, that he was unaware
of who was paying his lawyer, but point out that (at least in
their view) counsel had and has an ethical obligation to provide
that information to Mr. Felsoci, and that given the amount of
time which has passed since the preliminary injunction hearing,
he may now know the answer to that question.

They also claim to

have other relevant avenues of questioning to explore, but
provide no specifics about them.

See Plaintiffs’ Reply

Memorandum, Doc. 124, at 16 n. 26.
Leaving aside, for the moment, the potential relevance of
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this testimony, the Court concludes that Mr. Felsoci has not met
his “heavy burden” of showing that his deposition would be
“unreasonably cumulative or duplicative,” as required by Rule
26(b)(2)(C)(I).

Wanting to depose a party to litigation who has

testified only for a brief time at a preliminary injunction
hearing does not create any presumption that the sole purpose of
the deposition is to harass the witness.

Any presumption in this

case runs the opposite way - parties to litigation, even those
who may have offered testimony at an earlier hearing, are still
presumptively subject to being deposed.

Unlike a deposition

taken during full merits discovery, testimony at a preliminary
injunction hearing is usually offered only for a limited purpose
(unless the preliminary injunction hearing is consolidated with
the trial on the merits, which did not occur here).

It is also

not conducted with the same flexibility as is a deposition, and,
significantly, the proper scope of testimony at a court hearing
is governed by the Federal Rules of Evidence, while the more
liberal standard of relevance set forth in Rule 26(b)(1) applies
at a deposition.
deposition.

It is, simply, not a substitute for a

Any party arguing to the contrary has a truly heavy

burden of persuasion, and that has not been met here.
Plaintiffs may well have additional follow-up questions to
ask Mr. Felsoci before summary judgment motions are filed, and
they should be allowed to ask them in the traditional setting of
a deposition.

They have made at least a colorable argument that

Mr. Felsoci may have additional information to offer on the
subject of who is actually behind his protest, and they should be
allowed to update their inquiries about that.

Even if he

continues to profess ignorance on that subject, Plaintiffs ought
to be allowed to test the credibility of that claim through
questioning.

That is a proper subject of discovery, see Davidson

Pipe Co. V. Laventhol and Horwath, 120 F.R.D. 455 (S.D.N.Y.
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1988).

On the other hand, if he claims that he now knows the

answer to that question, but cannot disclose it for reasons of
confidentiality or privilege, Plaintiffs are entitled to ask
questions concerning the basis of that claim.

See Devlyne v.

Lassen Mun. Utility Dist., 2011 WL 4905672, *4 (E.D. Cal. Oct.
14, 2011)(counsel must be permitted to ask foundational questions
before a privilege is asserted).
Additionally, however, the Court does not believe that
Plaintiffs are required to make an additional showing about the
potential subject matters to be discussed.

As the Court’s

analysis shows, Mr. Felsoci simply has not met his initial burden
of showing that a first deposition where the full merits of the
case can be explored imposes an unreasonable burden on him or is
unreasonably cumulative or duplicative.

Further, and as the

parties are aware, there are ways (such as taking a deposition by
remote means) to reduce any physical or monetary burden in order
to achieve the goal of proportionality articulated in Rule
26(b)(2)(C)(iii).

Consequently, the first justification offered

by Mr. Felsoci is insufficient to prevent his deposition from
going forward.
B.

The Alleged Agreement

Mr. Felsoci’s second argument is that the exchange of
correspondence in March of this year constitutes an agreement
that if he answered the five interrogatories served on him
immediately after the preliminary injunction hearing, Plaintiffs
would never depose him in this case.

As he articulates this

argument, because he held up his end of the bargain by answering
the interrogatories, he is now entitled to the promised quid pro
quo.

This argument, while superficially appealing, merits only a

brief discussion.
Fed.R.Civ.P. 29 permits the parties to make agreements about
discovery.

That rule is generally construed to be “quite clear
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... in requiring, as a condition of enforcement, that the
agreements be in writing and in the form of a stipulation.”
Pescia v. Auburn Ford-Lincoln Mercury Inc., 177 F.R.D. 509, 510
(M.D. Ala. 1997).

Some courts have required an actual

stipulation, holding that even an exchange of letters does not
satisfy the Rule’s requirement.

See, e.g., Cochran v. City of

Huntington, 2006 WL 897443 *2 (N.D. Ind. March 31, 2006); see
also Bryant v. Mattel, Inc., 2007 WL 5416681 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 26,
2007)(“[b]ecause the parties did not execute a binding
stipulation, there is no legal basis to enforce the terms
contained in the draft stipulation”).

Even if this principle is

not strictly applied (and there is currently some ambiguity about
that, see Bricker v. R & A. Pizza, Inc., 2011 WL 3941982 (S.D.
Ohio Sept. 6, 2011)), the Court has an obligation to read any
purported written discovery agreement fairly and reasonably, and
to place the burden of persuasion on the party asserting that an
agreement has been reached.

See id. at *6, citing Huffer v.

Herman, 168 F. Supp. 2d 815, 823 (S.D. Ohio 2011).
Here, a fair reading of the exchanged correspondence which
allegedly constitutes a stipulation concerning Mr. Felsoci’s
position does not support his argument that Plaintiffs waived,
for all purposes, their right to depose him in connection with
the merits of the case.

That is one possible interpretation, but

Plaintiffs’ view of the proposal they made - that they wanted
additional evidence for the appeal and would take either a
deposition or interrogatory answers if those were provided before
March 28, 2014 - is at least as plausible, if not more so.
Further, they did not get those answers by that date, so that
even if there was an agreement, Mr. Felsoci did not provide the
performance Plaintiffs asked for in exchange for their supposed
promise not to take his deposition.

Something much more definite

would be needed to persuade the Court that this exchange of
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correspondence constituted a binding and enforceable stipulation
that Mr. Felsoci would never be deposed by Plaintiffs.
C.

Relevance

The third argument which Mr. Felsoci advances is that he has
no relevant testimony to offer.

He makes this argument very

briefly and in a specific context: as he phrases it, “Plaintiffs
should not be permitted to depose Mr. Felsoci because they have
abandoned all remaining claims in the operative complaint that
pertain to him.”

Memorandum in Opposition, Doc. 120, at 10.

He

bases this argument on the fact that Plaintiffs are seeking to
amend Count Seven of the existing complaint, a request not yet
ruled upon, noting that “it makes little sense to subject Mr.
Felsoci to a deposition on a claim that Plaintiffs themselves are
seeking to replace with a different one.”

Id. at 10-11.

The

Secretary of State makes a similar argument in his opposing
memorandum.

See Doc. 121.

This Court is unaware of any authority suggesting either
that, by moving to amend a complaint, a plaintiff has “abandoned”
the claims in the currently operative complaint.

As one court

has observed, “[i]f it were true that a motion for leave to file
an amended complaint was an abandonment of the existing
complaint, then every denial of leave to amend would result in
the dismissal of a case.
rejects that argument.”

This is not the case, so the court
Goodman v. Clark, 2010 WL 2838396, *18

(N.D. Ind. July 12, 2010).

Similarly, there is no basis for the

claim that discovery should be stayed while a motion for leave to
amend is pending.

At any specific time in a pending case, the

claims before the Court are those in a properly-filed complaint not ones which were in a complaint since amended, and certainly
not those in a complaint which has yet to be filed, and may never
be.

In fact, Mr. Felsoci also argues that it would be improper

for him to be deposed on any claims contained only in the
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proposed Third Amended Complaint, a proposition with which the
Court generally agrees (although the Court has the discretion,
under Rule 26(b)(1), to allow discovery which is broader than the
issues framed by the existing pleadings); but that means, if his
argument were accepted, that just by moving to amend, a plaintiff
relegates the case to a kind of judicial limbo where discovery
cannot be taken either on the existing complaint or the proposed
one.

There is certainly nothing in the text of any rule relating

to discovery which suggests that result, nor does common sense
support it.
The broader argument that Mr. Felsoci has nothing relevant
to say, and should not be deposed for that reason, is not one
which has gained much traction in the federal courts.

Again, it

bears repeating that “[i]n general, protective orders totally
prohibiting a deposition should be rarely granted absent
extraordinary circumstances,” N.F.A. Corp. v. Riverview Narrow
Fabrics, Inc., 117 F.R.D. 83, 84 (M.D.N.C. 1987), and that “it is
exceedingly difficult to demonstrate an appropriate basis for an
order barring the taking of a deposition.”

Naftchi v. New York

University Medical Center, 172 F.R.D. 130, 132 (S.D.N.Y. 1997).
As that court said, “in ordinary circumstances, [it] does [not]
matter that the proposed witness is a busy person or professes
lack of knowledge of the matters at issue, as the party seeking
the discovery is entitled to test the asserted lack of
knowledge.”

Id; see also Amherst Leasing Corp. v. Emhart Corp.,

65 F.R.D. 121, 122 (D. Conn. 1974)(“the general rule is that a
claimed lack of knowledge does not provide sufficient grounds for
a protective order; the other side is allowed to test this claim
by deposing the witness”).
Although he did not specifically make this argument in his
Memorandum in Opposition, Mr. Felsoci, through counsel and at a
status conference dealing with other discovery motions which was
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held on July 9, 2014, asked the Court to review certain comments
made by Judge Watson as part of the preliminary injunction
proceeding - those quoted above as part of the factual background
- and to reach the conclusion that Judge Watson has already ruled
that Mr. Felsoci has no additional relevant testimony to offer.
The Court declines to reach that conclusion for several reasons.
First, Mr. Felsoci is assuming that the only questions he will be
asked at his deposition concern who is paying his attorneys.

The

record does not demonstrate that conclusively, and, again,
Plaintiffs are not required to disclose in advance of a
deposition either each subject on which they wish to examine a
witness - especially one who has voluntarily become a party to a
lawsuit - or every single question they intend to ask.

Second,

Judge Watson’s comments were made in the context of an
evidentiary hearing where the Federal Rules of Evidence apply.
He was not purporting to make a discovery-based ruling, nor is
that what the parties had asked him to do.

The issue presented

by the pending discovery motions is legally distinct from the one
argued to Judge Watson, and to the extent that his comments, made
in the context of a preliminary injunction hearing and not a
trial on the merits of Plaintiffs’ as-applied claim, constituted
a ruling that information about who was financing Mr. Felsoci’s
protest might be relevant only if the case changed in posture,
those comments do not bind the Court concerning this discovery
ruling.

See Levick v. Malmonides Medical Center, 2011 WL

1673782, *3 (E.D.N.Y. May 3, 2011)(“just because something may
not be admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence does not
mean that it is not discoverable”).
III.

Conclusion and Order

Reduced to its essence, Plaintiffs’ motion to compel the
deposition of Gregory Felsoci presents a simple question: ought a
party to litigation be required to sit for a deposition?
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The

case law holds, uniformly, that “the burden to show good cause
for an order prohibiting the taking of a deposition is especially
heavy.”

Wood v. Harshbarger, 2014 WL 3056855, *3 (S.D. W.Va.

July 7, 2014).

Mr. Felsoci has simply not met that burden here.

He has intervened in this case; he filed the protest which
resulted in Mr. Earl’s exclusion from the ballot; and he cannot
legitimately claim to be exempt from the ordinary rule that, as a
party and a witness, he is subject to being deposed.

For the

reasons cited above, the motion to compel (Doc. 116) is granted
as it relates to Mr. Felsoci’s deposition.

Further, given the

need for all decisions in this case to be expedited, the Court
will shorten the time for seeking reconsideration of this order
to five days and will shorten the other related deadlines
accordingly.
IV.

Motion for Reconsideration

Any party may, within five days after this Order is filed,
file and serve on the opposing party a motion for
reconsideration by a District Judge.

28 U.S.C. §636(b)(1)(A),

Rule 72(a), Fed. R. Civ. P.; Eastern Division Order No. 14-01,
pt. IV(C)(3)(a).

The motion must specifically designate the

order or part in question and the basis for any objection.
Responses to objections are due five days after objections are
filed and replies by the objecting party are due three days
thereafter.

The District Judge, upon consideration of the

motion, shall set aside any part of this Order found to be
clearly erroneous or contrary to law.
This order is in full force and effect even if a motion for
reconsideration has been filed unless it is stayed by either the
Magistrate Judge or District Judge.

S.D. Ohio L.R. 72.3.

/s/ Terence P. Kemp
United States Magistrate Judge
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