STANFORD v. WALTON et al

Filing 147

ORDER denying 146 Response to Defendants' Objections, which is construed as a Motion to Compel. Signed by Magistrate Judge Maureen P. Kelly on 1/17/19. A copy of this order will be mailed this day, 1/17/19, to Plaintiff at his address of record. (ard)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
ORLANDO STANFORD,
Plaintiff,
v.
JOHN WALTON, ERIC SCHWARTZ,
STEVEN CMAR, BRAD TOMASELLO,
GEORGE LOWTHER, DAWN
BICKERTON, AMY WIDMAR,
WESTMORELAND COUNTY PRISON, and
WESTMORELAND COUNTY PRISON
BOARD,
Defendants.

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Civil Action No. 16-1584
Judge Mark R. Hornak
Magistrate Judge Maureen P. Kelly
Re: ECF No. 146

ORDER OF COURT
Presently before the Court is Plaintiff’s Response to Defendants’ Objections, ECF No.
146, in which Plaintiff seeks an order from this Court directing Defendants to comply with
Plaintiff’s First Set of Requests for Production of Documents and Interrogatories. On December
6, 2018, in response to a previous Motion to Compel, Defendants represented to the Court that
they mailed to Plaintiff that day the discovery responses and documents that he had requested.
ECF No. 140. Presumably, Plaintiff is in receipt of those discovery responses and objections
lodged therein by Defendants. The Court will construe the instant document as a Motion to
Compel; however, the Court is unable to grant relief on the basis of the record before it.
As this Court has explained:
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) defines the scope of discovery as "any
nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense and
proportional to the needs of the case." …
Rule 37 provides the mechanism to compel discovery from a person or party who
refuses to provide discovery. The party moving to compel discovery under Rule

37 bears the initial burden of proving the relevance of the material requested. See
Morrison v. Phila. Hous. Auth., 203 F.R.D. 195, 196 (E.D. Pa. 2001) (citations
omitted). If the movant meets this initial burden, then the burden shifts to the
person resisting discovery to establish that discovery of the material requested is
inappropriate. Momah v. Albert Einstein Med. Ctr., 164 F.R.D. 412, 417 (E.D. Pa.
1996) (citation omitted). The person resisting discovery must explain with
specificity why discovery is inappropriate; the boilerplate litany that the discovery
sought is overly broad, burdensome, oppressive, vague, or irrelevant is
insufficient. See Josephs v. Harris Corp., 677 F.2d 985, 991-92 (3d Cir. 1982).
PEG Bandwidth PA, LLC v. Salsgiver, Inc., Civ. A. No. 16-178, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 108516,
at *3-4 (W.D. Pa. July 13, 2017).
Plaintiff has failed to identify any requests or interrogatories to which Defendants
objected or offer anything other than a boilerplate statement that “all of his Request &
Interrogatories are relevant & essential.” ECF No. 146 at 2. Plaintiff has thus failed meet his
burden to prove the relevance of the material requested.
AND NOW, this 17th day of January, 2019, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiff’s
Response to Defendants’ Objections, construed as a Motion to Compel, ECF No. 146, is
DENIED.
In accordance with the Magistrate Judges Act, 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1), and Rule 72.C.2 of
the Local Rules of Court, the parties are allowed fourteen (14) days from the date of this Order to
file an appeal to the District Judge which includes the basis for objection to this Order. Any
appeal is to be submitted to the Clerk of Court, United States District Court, 700 Grant Street,
Room 3110, Pittsburgh, PA 15219. Failure to file a timely appeal will constitute a waiver of any
appellate rights.
BY THE COURT:
/s/ Maureen P. Kelly
MAUREEN P. KELLY
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

cc:

The Honorable Mark R. Hornak
United States District Judge
ORLANDO STANFORD
KP 0191
SCI Houtzdale
P.O. Box 1000
Houtzdale, PA 16698