Hood-Harrison v. HallKeen Management et al

Filing 23

ORDER - Plaintiff's motion to quash (ECF No 19) is GRANTED to the extent that the subpoenas seek medical records relating to the time period prior to January 1, 2019; otherwise, the motion to quash is DENIED. 19 Motion to Quash. So Ordered by Magistrate Judge Patricia A. Sullivan on 8/30/2024. (Noel, Jeannine)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
KYIOSHI L. HOOD-HARRISON,
Plaintiff,

:
:
:
v.
:
:
HALLKEEN MANAGEMENT, INC.,
:
SPRINGFIELD ARMOURY LIMITED
:
PARTNERSHIP, and HALLKEEN
:
WOODLAND LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, :
Defendants.
:

C.A. No. 23-481-WES

ORDER
PATRICIA A. SULLIVAN, United States Magistrate Judge.
Now pending before the Court is the motion of pro se Plaintiff Kyioshi L. Hood-Harrison
to quash Defendants’ subpoenas for her physical and mental health medical records. ECF No.
19. The motion has been referred to me for determination. In considering Plaintiff’s arguments,
the Court has afforded Plaintiff the leniency due to any pro se litigant. See De Barros v. From
You Flowers, LLC, 566 F. Supp. 3d 149, 152 (D.R.I. 2021).
In this case, Plaintiff alleges that, since 2021, she has resided in housing owned and
managed by Defendant HallKeen Management, Inc. (“HallKeen”). ECF No. 11 ¶ 9. Plaintiff
contends that, beginning in 2022, Defendants engaged in housing discrimination by denying a
reasonable accommodation of her disabling leg condition, by refusing to move her from a thirdfloor apartment and denying her handicap and/or accessible parking. Id. ¶¶ 10-35. She also
claims that this conduct has caused her “significant physical and emotional distress.” E.g., id. ¶¶
43, 45. As part of her initial disclosures, Plaintiff produced selected medical records pertaining
to her leg disability and one medical record pertaining to her allegation of a significant mental
health injury caused by her “ongoing struggles from her lack of having been granted reasonable

housing accommodations sooner.” ECF No. 19-2 at 7; see ECF Nos. 19 at 5, 19-2. Plaintiff now
challenges Defendants’ subpoenas, which seek complete medical records regarding these two
conditions with a five-year lookback for the period prior to the alleged discrimination (and a
four-year lookback from when Plaintiff first resided in a HallKeen apartment). She argues that
her partial production of medical records is enough, that the remainder are irrelevant,
disproportional, and burdensome, and that further production would be a privacy invasion.
A week after she docketed her motion with the supporting argument, Plaintiff filed a
“Supplemental Argument,” for which she did not seek leave of Court. ECF No. 20. In this
submission she argues that the subpoenas in issue were signed by Samatha Hand Garnet who
Plaintiff alleges is “an unknown party,” and not a party or an attorney authorized to practice in
this Court, as required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(a)(3). Id. at 1-2. On reply, Plaintiff doubles down
on this argument, adding the contention that Ms. Hand Garnet has engaged in the unauthorized
practice of law. ECF No. 22 at 3-4. There are two serious problems with this argument. First,
Plaintiff supports the argument not with a copy of the subpoenas, but with a copy of a transmittal
letter signed by Ms. Hand Garnet (who appears to be a paraprofessional with Defendants’
counsel’s law firm as she is not listed as an attorney on the letter she signed). ECF No. 22-1.
With no copies of the subpoenas in issue the Court is unable to ascertain who signed them. Thus,
Plaintiff has failed to demonstrate that the subpoenas in fact were signed by an unauthorized
person. Second, Plaintiff’s “Supplemental Argument” was docketed (without leave of Court) at
12:19 pm on August 22, 2024, and Defendants’ opposition was docketed the same day (at 5:07
pm). Because neither Plaintiff’s motion nor Defendant’s opposition address this argument at all,
the Court is compelled to find that Plaintiff’s failure to comply with DRI LR Cv. 71 has caused

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This Local Rule is designed to avoid the precise confusion that Plaintiff’s “Supplemental Argument” has caused in
this case. It requires a litigant to include argument as part of the motion to compel (either in the motion itself or in a

2

Defendants’ omission in failing to address this argument, resulting in confusion for the Court and
potential delay of the proceeding.
Based on the foregoing, the Court finds that the subpoenas in issue seek the production of
documents that are highly relevant to Plaintiff’s claims, as Plaintiff herself tacitly concedes by
having made a partial production of them.2 See Iniguez v. Wayfair LLC, No. 5:21-cv-00880MWF (SPx), 2022 WL 2168152, at *2-3 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 11, 2022) (in case alleging
discrimination, defendant reasonably seeks mental and physical medical records given that
plaintiff placed mental and physical health at issue by claiming physical disability and related
emotional distress). Nevertheless, the Court finds that the temporal scope of the subpoenas – a
five-year pre-injury buffer – is somewhat overbroad and that three years is a more reasonable
approach to ensuring that the production will pick up relevant pre-injury consideration of the
physical and mental health medical conditions that Plaintiff has squarely put in issue.3 See
Hooks v. Target Corp., No. 5:22-cv-00052-SSS (SPx), 2022 WL 18142528, at *3 (C.D. Cal. Dec.
29, 2022) (when plaintiff seeks redress for discrimination based on physical disability and
intentional infliction of emotional distress, medical records for period beginning three years prior
to injury are relevant). Importantly, Plaintiff has not presented reasons why a narrower temporal
scope would be more appropriate. The Court further finds that, with the temporal scope limited,
the subpoenas are proportional and not burdensome, as well as that Defendants’ need for the

contemporaneously filed memorandum), and then to limit the reply to what was addressed in the opposing party’s
response.
2
Confirming that she considers these documents to be highly relevant, Defendants reveal that Plaintiff herself has
also issued subpoenas to her medical providers, but that Plaintiff has cherrypicked what has been produced so they
do not yet have a complete set of relevant records. ECF No. 21 at 3.
3

This ruling is not intended to preclude Defendants from seeking records from the earlier period if complete
production for the period from January 1, 2019, to the present reveals that more is needed.

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information sought clearly outweighs the privacy interest of Plaintiff. See R.I. Gen. Laws § 537.3-6.1. Accordingly, as limited, the motion to quash is denied.
The Court pauses briefly to address the issue of who signed the subpoenas. The Court
does not find such an error to be grounds to quash them in the circumstances presented here.
Rather, if the subpoenas were not signed by an attorney or person as required by Fed. R. Civ. P.
45(a)(3), the Court directs that Defendants shall reissue them, signed by an authorized person.
Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff’s motion to quash (ECF No 19) is GRANTED to the
extent that the subpoenas seek medical records relating to the time period prior to January 1,
2019; otherwise, the motion to quash is DENIED.
/s/ Patricia A. Sullivan
PATRICIA A. SULLIVAN
United States Magistrate Judge
August 30, 2024

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