Hawkins v. Schwans Home Service Inc

Filing 45

ORDER granting in part and denying in part plaintiff's 30 motion to compel discovery...see order for specifics. Signed by Honorable Joe Heaton on 12/03/2012. (lam)

THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA
DAVID HAWKINS,
Plaintiff,
vs.
SCHWAN’S HOME SERVICE, INC.,
Defendant.

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NO. CIV-12-0084-HE

ORDER
Plaintiff has moved to compel production of certain requested discovery as to which
the parties have been unable to agree. Defendant has responded and plaintiff has filed a reply
brief.
Certain of defendant's relevance or scope objections are based on its view of the
circumstances surrounding the conclusion of plaintiff's employment. For example, it argues
that plaintiff resigned and that there are no similar circumstances for which documents could
be produced. However, the circumstances of plaintiff's resignation/termination/suspension
are disputed and plaintiff is not required to accept defendant's characterization of the facts
as the basis for limiting responses.
To the extent defendant objects to the requests or their scope based on privacy or
confidentiality concerns, the court concludes that the following resolution of the various
issues as to scope and relevance, coupled with the confidentiality order previously entered
by the court [Doc. #23], sufficiently addresses those concerns.
The court's resolution of the disputed issues has been considerably complicated by the

very limited information provided by both parties as to the nature and geographic scope of
defendant's operations as pertinent here. Plaintiff suggests some information sought should
be for the "Oklahoma region," but there is no indication whether that region involves two or
twenty individual warehouses or depots. Similarly, the parties frame their scope arguments
with reference to "the region supervised by Jeff Booth" or "the region supervised by Roger
Hillaker" without any clear indication of what those regions are.1
In any event, the court makes the following determinations, applying the principles
of Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b):
1. RFP 15 - D&E. At issue is a request for defined personnel information for persons
holding the same or similar position as plaintiff for the period from January 1, 2007, to the
present. It is unclear what the original scope of the request was intended to be or what the
parties have since agreed to, but it appears they have agreed that the information should be
produced for persons at the Alva facility. Defendant says it has produced the information for
the two persons within that scope. Plaintiff says it also wants the information for Melvin
Cashion "who was also a Facility Supervisor in Oklahoma ...."2 Rather than belabor the
question of what scope was intended or agreed to, defendant is directed to provide the
requested information for Mr. Cashion.
1

Plaintiff's reply brief implies that Hillaker's region is Oklahoma, but that is not altogether

clear.
2

The reference may mean he was another supervisor at the Alva facility. If the whole State
of Oklahoma, which presumably (though not clearly — see above) includes multiple warehouses or
depots of defendant, was the frame of reference, it seems likely more than one additional person
would be involved.
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2. RFP 15 - A, B & C. Defined personnel information is sought for Pat Lyons, Sara
Brinks and Jeff Booth. Defendant is directed to produce the requested information for Brinks
and Booth. It need not as to Lyons. Plaintiff appears not to dispute that Lyons last
supervised plaintiff some two years prior to the events in this case. Whatever opinions he
may have expressed about plaintiff at that point appear to have a sufficiently tenuous
connection to the issues here that production of his personnel information is unwarranted.
Plaintiff's reply brief suggests it has also not received this information for Roger
Hillaker and takes defendant to task because its response did not even mention Mr. Hillaker
[Doc. #39, p. 7, n. 7]. That is likely due to the fact that plaintiff's opening brief also did not
mention Mr. Hillaker in this context. Similarly, the pertinent portion of RFP 15 does not
mention Mr. Hillaker. There is no apparent deficiency in defendant's production as to Mr.
Hillaker.
3. RFP 15 - F & G. Plaintiff seeks defined personnel information for persons who
were disciplined or terminated for the same or similar reason for the period from January 1,
2007, to the present. Defendant argues it did not discipline or terminate defendant, that he
resigned, and that there are therefore no responsive documents. As noted above, the
circumstances surrounding the conclusion of plaintiff's employment are disputed. Defendant
is directed to produce the requested information for any person terminated, disciplined,
suspended, or put on unpaid leave, due to circumstances substantially similar to those
involved here, for the indicated period. The parties' submissions do not reference a dispute
as to geographic scope as to this element, which is apparently limited to the Oklahoma
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region.
4. RFP 15 - I, J & M. These requests seek defined personnel documents for persons
who have requested accommodation based on disability, persons claiming disability
discrimination, and for persons whose physical examination results were "rejected by the
Defendant," from January 1, 2007, to the present. The original request did not specify a
geographic scope and defendant has argued burden on the basis of responding to a request
for nationwide information. But plaintiff offered, or at least has now offered, to limit the
request to the State of Oklahoma and there is no apparent reason why that is not a reasonable
resolution.3 The court is unpersuaded that, in the circumstances existing here, production
should be limited to those persons supervised by a particular supervisor. Defendant is
directed to produce the requested information for the period from January 1, 2007, to the
present for its operations in the State of Oklahoma.
5. RFP 21. Plaintiff requests information as to anti-discrimination training given to
defendant's employees. The parties agreed to limit the scope of the request to the Alva
facility. Defendant says it has now provided the requested information and plaintiff's reply
brief does not dispute that response. The court concludes the motion is moot as to training
records.
6.

RFP 22, 24.

Plaintiff requests designated information as to charges of

discrimination from January 1, 2003, and as to lawsuits or demands from January 1, 2004.

3

Defendant asserts, incorrectly, that there was no limit on the types of documents requested.
The definitions in the request specify certain documents and exclude others.
4

Defendant objects on the basis of burden and the geographic and temporal scope of plaintiff's
requests. Plaintiff has apparently agreed to limit the request to "the region supervised by Mr.
Booth" while defendant would limit the production to the region supervised by Mr. Hillaker,
presumably the State of Oklahoma. The court concludes defendant should be required to
produce information for charges/lawsuits/etc. since January 1, 2007, for the State of
Oklahoma.

The information will be limited to charges/lawsuits involving disability

discrimination.
Plaintiff's motion to compel discovery [Doc. #30] is GRANTED IN PART and
DENIED IN PART as stated above.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated this 3rd day of December, 2012.

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