Miller v. St. Charles Health System, Inc.
Filing
27
OPINION AND ORDER: TheCourt DENIES plaintiff's Motion to Quash 22 . Signed on 2/7/19 by Magistrate Judge Patricia Sullivan. (dsg)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON
PENDLETON DIVISION
MAYA MILLER, an individual,
Plaintiff,
Case No. 2:18-cv-00762-SU
OPINION
AND ORDER
v.
ST. CHARLES HEALTH SYSTEM,
INC., an Oregon nonprofit corporation
doing business as St. Charles
Prineville,
Defendant.
_________________________________________
SULLIVAN, United States Magistrate Judge:
Plaintiff Maya Miller brings this employment action against her former employer,
defendant St. Charles Health System, Inc. Plaintiff contends that defendant terminated her from
her employment as a nurse for multiple discriminatory and retaliatory reasons. See Compl.
Page 1 – OPINION AND ORDER
(Docket No. 1). Defendant argues that it terminated plaintiff because she repeatedly failed to
perform the basic requirements of her job. See Def. Answer (Docket No. 12).1
Defendant has served third-party subpoenas on plaintiff’s two subsequent employers,
Mosaic Medical and Mid-Columbia Medical Center, for employment records concerning
plaintiff’s job performance, protected leave requests, and earnings. Ames Decl. ¶¶ 5 & 6, Exs. 3
& 4 (Docket Nos. 24-3 & 24-4). Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(d)(3)(A), plaintiff has moved to quash
the subpoenas. (Docket No. 22). Plaintiff argues that the subpoenas are irrelevant, unduly
burdensome, and intrusive on her privacy rights. On February 5, 2019, the Court held a hearing
on plaintiff’s Motion. (Docket No. 26). At the hearing, the Court DENIED plaintiff’s Motion to
Quash, for the reasons stated on the record and as would be provided in a subsequent order. This
Opinion and Order follows.
Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), “[p]arties 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 . . . .” “Information within this scope of discovery need not be admissible in evidence
to be discoverable.” Id. Here, the subpoenaed documents are relevant in multiple ways. The
performance records are relevant to defendant’s defense that it terminated plaintiff due to poor job
performance. The leave request records are relevant to rebutting plaintiff’s claim about her
properly requesting, but being denied, protected medical and family care leave. The earnings
records are relevant to plaintiff’s obligations to mitigate damages by seeking new employment.
Further, plaintiff has not shown that the records requests are burdensome to the extent of being
disproportional to the case. Although plaintiff mentions “undue burden” in her briefing, she makes
1
The parties have consented to the jurisdiction of the Magistrate Judge pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 636. (Docket No. 20).
Page 2 – OPINION AND ORDER
no legal argument as to how the subpoenas would be burdensome, nor presents any evidence.
Further, because this is plaintiff’s Motion, the relevant inquiry is whether the subpoenas would be
unduly burdensome on plaintiff herself. See Malbco Holdings, LLC v. Patel, No. 6:14-cv-00947PK, 2015 WL 4773202, at *3 (D. Or. Aug. 12, 2015). However, these are third-party subpoenas,
so any burden on plaintiff is not presented. It would be up to the responding parties, Mosaic
Medical and Mid-Columbia Medical Center, to move to quash if they wanted to argue undue
burden on them, and they have not done so.
Additionally, plaintiff’s privacy arguments are not successful. Plaintiff conjectures that
subsequent employers could be prejudiced against plaintiff by learning that she sued a prior
employer. However, it is plaintiff who has elected to bring this action. Plaintiff does not provide
a source or authority for the privacy interests she alludes to. The Court has entered a protective
order in this case. (Docket No. 19). Any privacy interest in third-parties’ employment records of
the routine type at issue here do not raise serious privacy concerns, and are not sufficient to
outweigh defendant’s ability to seek the requested materials under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26.
In Tran v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., No. 3:15-cv-00979-BR, 2017 WL 1234131 (D. Or. Jan.
20, 2017), District Judge Anna Brown of this District Court denied a motion to quash a third-party
subpoena in circumstances very similar to this case. In Tran, the plaintiff brought discrimination
and retaliation claims against his former employer. Id. at *1. Defendant sought employment
records from plaintiff’s current employer. Id. The court held that the employment records were
relevant to plaintiff’s employment law claims. The court also found the asserted privacy interests
insufficient to preclude discovery: “courts have allowed production of personnel files when the
party seeking production has shown the information is relevant.” Id. at *3. This Court finds the
reasoning in Tran persuasive and independently sufficient to decide the present dispute.
Page 3 – OPINION AND ORDER
For these reasons, and the reasons stated on the record at the February 5, 2019, hearing, the
Court DENIES plaintiff’s Motion to Quash (Docket No. 22).
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED this 7th day of February, 2019.
/s/ Patricia Sullivan
PATRICIA SULLIVAN
United States Magistrate Judge
Page 4 – OPINION AND ORDER
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