Eddowes v. Director of State Department of Corrections et al

Filing 59

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER denying 56 MOTION to Compel filed by Shane Eddowes. Signed by Magistrate Judge Martin C. Carlson on December 6, 2018. (kjn)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
SHANE EDDOWES
Plaintiff
v.
DIRECTOR, STATE DEPARTMENT
OF CORRECTIONS, et al.,
Defendants.

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Civil No. 3:18-CV-125
(Judge Caputo)
(Magistrate Judge Carlson)

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
I.

Statement of Facts and of the Case

This is a pro se state prisoner civil rights lawsuit. The plaintiff, Shane
Eddowes, is an inmate housed at the State Correctional Institution (SCI) Rockview.
Eddowes’ current complaint levels allegations that often have the quality of things
that are more imagined than real. In his amended complaint Eddowes names multiple
defendants, and the gravamen of Eddowes’ amended complaint is an allegation that
drug manufacturers, pharmacy personnel and his own treating physicians have
entered into a far-reaching conspiracy to illegally substitute adulterated drugs for his
prescription anti-seizure medications.
With the issues in this litigation framed in this fashion, Eddowes has filed a
motion to compel production of certain information from the defendants. (Doc. 56.)
This motion to compel also has a confused quality to it. Despite the specific
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allegations in his complaint regarding the furtive substitution of a placebo for a
specific medication at a particular time, Eddowes seeks decades worth of seemingly
unrelated information on a host of legal and medical issues from the defendants. In
addition, Eddowes seeks certain documents from the Department of Corrections that
relate to his concerns about C.I.A. and F.B.I. neural implants and mind and body
control, a category of discovery claim that Arelies on >fantastic or delusional
scenarios.= Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 328, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338
(1989).@ DeGrazia v. F.B.I., 316 F. App'x 172, 173 (3d Cir. 2009).
We directed the defendants to respond to these discovery demands to the
extent that they are able to do so (Doc. 57) and they complied by filing a response
which indicates that they have provided Eddowes with approximately 120
documents, all of which confirm that he is receiving his prescribed medication. (Doc.
58.) The defendants have also explained to Eddowes that many of the items he seeks
do not exist and have confirmed for him that they are not engaged in neural implants
or mind and body control experiments. (Id.)
Given this response, for the reasons set forth below, this motion to compel
will be denied.
II.

Discussion
A. Motions to Compel—Guiding Principles

Several basic guiding principles inform our resolution of the instant discovery
dispute. At the outset, Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure governs
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motions to compel discovery, and provides that:
(a) Motion for an Order Compelling Disclosure or Discovery
(1) In General. On notice to other parties and all affected persons, a
party may move for an order compelling disclosure or discovery. . . .
Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a).
The general scope of discovery is defined by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
26(b)(1) in the following terms:
Parties 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, considering the importance of the issues at stake
in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties' relative access
to relevant information, the parties' resources, the importance of the
discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense
of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit. Information
within this scope of discovery need not be admissible in evidence to
be discoverable.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1).
Issues relating to the scope of discovery permitted under Rule 26 rest in the
sound discretion of the court. Wisniewski v. Johns–Manville Corp., 812 F.2d 81, 90
(3d Cir. 1987). Thus, a court's decisions regarding the conduct of discovery, and
whether to compel disclosure of certain information, will be disturbed only upon a
showing of an abuse of discretion. Marroquin–Manriquez v. I.N.S., 699 F.2d 129,
134 (3d Cir. 1983). See Wertz v. GEA Heat Exchangers Inc., No. 1:14-CV-1991,
2015 WL 8959408, at *1 (M.D. Pa. Dec. 16, 2015). This broad discretion extends to
discovery rulings by magistrate judges. In this regard:
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District courts provide magistrate judges with particularly broad
discretion in resolving discovery disputes. See Farmers & Merchs. Nat'l
Bank v. San Clemente Fin. Group Sec., Inc., 174 F.R.D. 572, 585
(D.N.J.1997). When a magistrate judge's decision involves a
discretionary [discovery] matter . . . , “courts in this district have
determined that the clearly erroneous standard implicitly becomes an
abuse of discretion standard.” Saldi v. Paul Revere Life Ins. Co., 224
F.R.D. 169, 174 (E.D.Pa.2004) (citing Scott Paper Co. v. United States,
943 F.Supp. 501, 502 (E.D.Pa.1996)). Under that standard, a magistrate
judge's discovery ruling “is entitled to great deference and is reversible
only for abuse of discretion.” Kresefky v. Panasonic Commc'ns and
Sys. Co., 169 F.R.D. 54, 64 (D.N.J.1996); see also Hasbrouck v.
BankAmerica Hous. Servs., 190 F.R.D. 42, 44-45 (N.D.N.Y.1999)
(holding that discovery rulings are reviewed under abuse of discretion
standard rather than de novo standard); EEOC v. Mr. Gold, Inc., 223
F.R.D. 100, 102 (E.D.N.Y.2004) (holding that a magistrate judge's
resolution of discovery disputes deserves substantial deference and
should be reversed only if there is an abuse of discretion).
Halsey v. Pfeiffer, No. 09-1138, 2010 WL 3735702, *1 (D.N.J. Sept. 17, 2010).
This discretion is guided, however, by certain basic principles. Thus, when
assessing discovery disputes we are enjoined that:
“Discovery need not be perfect, but discovery must be fair.”
Boeynaems v. LA Fitness Int'l, LLC, 285 F.R.D. 331, 333 (E.D. Pa.
2012) (Baylson, J.). “The responses sought must comport with the
traditional notions of relevancy and must not impose an undue burden
on the responding party.” Hicks v. Arthur, 159 F.R.D. 468, 470 (E.D.
Pa. 1995). “[T]he scope of [ ] discovery is not without limits.” Kresefky
v. Panasonic Commc'ns & Sys. Co., 169 F.R.D. 54, 64 (D.N.J. 1996).
As such, “[d]iscovery should be tailored to the issues involved in the
particular case.” Id.
Fassett v. Sears Holdings Corp., 319 F.R.D. 143, 149 (M.D. Pa. 2017).
Further, in making these judgments:
To determine the scope of discoverable information under Rule
26(b)(1), the Court looks initially to the pleadings.” Trask v. Olin Corp.,
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298 F.R.D. 244, 263 (W.D. Pa. 2014) (Fischer, J.). In ascertaining
which materials are discoverable and which are not, a district court
must further distinguish between requests that “appear[ ] reasonably
calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence,” Bell v.
Lockheed Martin Corp., 270 F.R.D. 186, 191 (D.N.J. 2010), and
demands that are “overly broad and unduly burdensome.” Miller v.
Hygrade Food Products Corp., 89 F.Supp.2d 643, 657 (E.D. Pa. 2000).
Id.
Likewise:
[I]t is clear that Rule 26's definition of that which can be obtained
through discovery reaches nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any
party's claim or defense. Therefore, valid claims of relevance and
privilege still cabin and restrict the court's discretion in ruling on
discovery issues. Furthermore, the scope of discovery permitted by
Rule 26 embraces all relevant information a concept which is not
confined to admissible evidence but is also defined in the following
terms: “Information within this scope of discovery need not be
admissible in evidence to be discoverable.” Rather, “[p]arties may
obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to
any party's claim or defense.” This concept of relevance is tempered,
however, by principles of proportionality. Thus we are now enjoined to
also consider whether the specific discovery sought is “proportional to
the needs of the case, considering the importance of the issues at stake
in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties' relative access to
relevant information, the parties' resources, the importance of the
discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of
the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.” Fed. R. Civ. P.,
Rule 26(b)(1).
Grayson v. Dewitt, No. 1:15-CV-453, 2016 WL 5801699, at *3 (M.D.
Pa. Oct. 5, 2016).
A party moving to compel discovery bears the initial burden of proving the
relevance of the requested information. Morrison v. Philadelphia Housing Auth., 203
F.R.D. 195, 196 (E.D.Pa. 2001). Once that initial burden is met, “the party resisting
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the discovery has the burden to establish the lack of relevance by demonstrating that
the requested discovery (1) does not come within the broad scope of relevance as
defined under Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(1), or (2) is of such marginal relevance that the
potential harm occasioned by discovery would outweigh the ordinary presumption
in favor of broad disclosure.” In re Urethane Antitrust Litigation, 261 F.R.D. 570,
573 (D.Kan. 2009).
Another immutable rule defines the court’s discretion when ruling on motions
to compel discovery. It is clear that the court cannot compel the production of things
that do not exist. Nor can the court compel the creation of evidence by parties who
attest that they do not possess the materials sought by an adversary in litigation. See,
e.g., AFSCME District Council 47 Health and Welfare Fund v. Ortho-McNeilJanssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., No. 08-5904, 2010 WL 5186088 (E.D.Pa. Dec. 21,
2010); Knauss v. Shannon, No. 08-1698, 2009 WL 975251 (M.D.Pa. April 9, 2009).
B. This Motion to Compel Will be Denied
Guided by these legal tenets this motion to compel will be denied.
At the outset, it is evident that the defendants have attempted to provide
fulsome responses to a challenging series of discovery demands, discovery demands
which, on occasion, have had the quality of something imagined. Nonetheless the
defendants have provided Eddowes with approximately 120 documents which
confirm that he is receiving his prescribed medication and rebut any claims of farreaching neural implant or mind control experiments. Given the completeness of
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these responses, we find that further disclosures are not required, or are not possible,
in the instant case.
For example, we understand that the defendants have reported that much of
what Eddowes requests simply does not exist. These responses are clearly adequate,
and, therefore, the motion to compel as to these matters will be denied. Victor v.
Lawler, No. 3:08-CV-01374, 2010 WL 2326248, at *3 (M.D. Pa. June 2, 2010). In
addition, while Eddowes’ legal claims are specific, narrow and discrete, many of his
discovery demands seek decades worth of documents that are unrelated to the
specific medical concerns described in this lawsuit. In this setting, Eddowes’
discovery demands founder on two legal shoals. First, those demands fail because
they do not satisfy the threshold requirement of relevance in that much of what
Eddowes requests seems unrelated to the issues in this lawsuit. In addition, to the
extent that these requests may have some marginal, tangential relevance, the requests
for decades worth of material run afoul of the rule of proportionality in that these
discovery demands are grossly disproportionate to the issues in the case and the
needs of the parties.
Taking all of these considerations into account, we will deny this motion to
compel. (Doc. 56.) An appropriate order follows.

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III.

Order

AND NOW this 6th day of December, 2018, in accordance with the
accompanying Memorandum Opinion, IT IS ORDERED that the plaintiff’s motion
to compel, (Doc. 56) is DENIED.

S/Martin C. Carlson
Martin C. Carlson
United States Magistrate Judge

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