Tennessee Tractor, LLC on behalf of itself and the Tennessee Tractor, LLC Health and Welfare Benefit Plan et al v. WH Adminstrators, Inc.
Filing
76
ORDER DENYING DEFENDANTS 67 , 70 MOTIONS TO QUASH. Signed by Chief Judge S. Thomas Anderson on 6/13/18. (mbm)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
EASTERN DIVISION
______________________________________________________________________________
KERRY YOUNG,
on behalf of himself and all similarly
situated persons,
)
)
)
)
Plaintiff,
)
)
vs.
)
No. 1:17-cv-02829-STA-egb
)
WH ADMINISTRATORS, INC.,
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Defendant.
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______________________________________________________________________________
ORDER DENYING DEFENDANTS MOTIONS TO QUASH
______________________________________________________________________________
Before the Court are Defendant WH Administrators, Inc.’s Motions to Quash (ECF Nos.
67 & 70). Defendant asks the Court to quash three subpoenas issued by Plaintiffs before any
party was permitted to seek discovery under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Plaintiff
Kerry Young argues, however, that Defendant lacks standing to seek such relief. Defendant’s
Motions therefore raise issues surrounding the nature of standing, the Court’s role in enforcing
the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and the interplay of these distinct legal concepts. But the
precise question presented is whether a party that lacks standing to challenge a subpoena may
nonetheless do so when the subpoena at issue is improper under the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure. The Court holds that the party may not. Standing is derived from the Constitution’s
limitations of this Court’s very power to resolve a dispute, and therefore the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure and the Court itself must both yield. Pursuant to this holding and the Court’s
finding that Defendant lacks standing, Defendant’s Motions are DENIED. The Court does not
reach any issue as to the subpoenas themselves.
BACKGROUND
The Court has recently had occasion to summarize the underlying facts and increasingly
convoluted procedural posture of this case.
Order Deny’g Def.’s Mot. for Stay Without
Prejudice, at 1–2, May 25, 2018, ECF No. 68. It will not take the opportunity to do so again
here. Instead, the Court will state the few facts of immediate relevance to the instant Motions.
Plaintiff Tennessee Tractor, LLC, (“Tennessee Tractor”) and Plaintiff Kerry Young
(“Plaintiff”), on behalf of himself and a class of Tennessee Tractor employees, (collectively,
“Plaintiffs”) filed suit against Defendant under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act
(ECF Nos. 1 & 22). But the Court has since compelled Tennessee Tractor’s claims to arbitration
(ECF No. 44). A Motion for Preliminary Injunction (ECF No. 10) and a Motion to Dismiss
(ECF No. 60) are currently pending, and therefore the Parties have not yet conferred pursuant to
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f).
In the first Motion to Quash filed on May 23, 2018, Defendant states that on May 11,
2018, Tennessee Tractor issued two subpoenas, one to Manufacturers and Traders Trust
Company and one to Wilmington Trust Company. And in the second Motion to Quash filed on
June 4, 2018, Defendant states that on May 29, 2018, Tennessee Tractor issued an additional
subpoena to Cypress Benefit Administrators, LLC. Plaintiffs do not deny or otherwise contest
these assertions as stated by Defendant.
DISCUSSION
Defendant asks the Court to quash three subpoenas issued by Plaintiffs to three entities
that are not parties to this action. Referring to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Defendant notes
that prior to the Rule 26(f) conference, the parties, with some exceptions, “may not seek
discovery from any source.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(d)(1). Plaintiff does not invoke an exception to
2
this Rule. Instead, Plaintiff argues that Defendant lacks standing to bring the instant Motions
because Plaintiff issued the subpoenas to third parties rather than Defendant itself.1 Defendant
has not asserted that it has standing in either of its Motions. The Court thus finds itself torn
between Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(d)(1) and the legal principle of standing in
addressing the question presented.
The Constitution confines the Court “to adjudicating actual cases and controversies.”
Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 750 (1984) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also U.S.
Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1 (“The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases . . . and . . .
Controversies . . . .”). “In essence the question of standing is whether the litigant is entitled to
have the court decide the merits of the dispute or of particular issues. . . . [I]t is founded in
concern about the proper—and properly limited—role of the courts in a democratic society.”
Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498 (1975) (citing Schlesinger v. Reservists to Stop the War, 418
U.S. 208, 221–27 (1974); United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166, 188–97 (1974) (Powell, J.,
concurring)). Constitutional standing requires, at a minimum, three elements: (1) an injury in
fact; (2) a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of; and (3) the
injury must be capable of being “redressed by a favorable decision.” Lujan v. Defenders of
Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560–61 (1992) (quoting Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155
(1990); Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 38, 41–42, 43 (1976)) (citing Allen,
468 U.S. at 756; Warth, 422 U.S. at 508; Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 740 n.16 (1972)).
In the specific context of subpoenas, standing “is a threshold issue which the Court must
consider before addressing the merits of [any] challenges to . . . subpoenas issued to . . . nonparties.” Waite v. Davis, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5253, at *14 (S.D. Ohio Jan. 14, 2013); see also
1
Plaintiff also argues that the information sought is relevant to an upcoming hearing
(ECF No. 72), but the Court does not reach this argument.
3
Mann v. Univ. of Cincinnati, 114 F.3d 1188 (table), 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 19625, at *14–15
(6th Cir. May 27, 1997) (citing 9A Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice
and Procedure § 2459 (2d ed. 1995)); cf. United States v. Llanez-Garcia, 735 F.3d 483, 498–99
(6th Cir. 2013) (citing Langford v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 513 F.2d 1121 (2d Cir. 1975);
Ponsford v. United States, 771 F.2d 1305, 1308 (9th Cir. 1985)) (“[A] party may lack standing to
file a motion to quash a subpoena to a third party.”). In fact, “[o]rdinarily a party has no standing
to seek to quash a subpoena issued to someone who is not a party to the action, unless the
objecting party claims some personal right or privilege with regard to the documents sought.”
9A Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2459 (3d ed.
2008); see also Langford, 513 F.2d at 1126 (citation omitted) (stating the same).
Although the Supreme Court of Tennessee does not derive its authority from the federal
Constitution’s dispensation of the judicial power of the United States as this Court does, the
Court finds the discussion of standing in the context of subpoenas from Tennessee’s high court
instructive:2
The doctrine of standing is used to determine whether a particular plaintiff
is entitled to judicial relief. It is the principle that courts use to determine whether
a party has a sufficiently personal stake in a matter at issue to warrant a judicial
resolution of the dispute. Persons whose rights or interests have not been affected
have no standing and are, therefore, not entitled to judicial relief.
State v. Harrison, 270 S.W.3d 21, 27–28 (Tenn. 2008) (citing Lynch v. City of Jellico, 205
S.W.3d 384, 395 (Tenn. 2006); Knierim v. Leatherwood, 542 S.W.2d 806, 808 (Tenn. 1976);
SunTrust Bank, Nashville v. Johnson, 46 S.W.3d 216, 222 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2000)). For a party
that lacks standing, the Harrison court cuts no distinction between standing to sue and standing
2
Indeed, the Supreme Court of Tennessee has looked to federal discussions of standing,
see, e.g., ACLU v. Darnell, 195 S.W.3d 612, 619–20 (Tenn. 2006) (citations omitted)
(“[S]tanding enforces the constitutional case-or-controversy requirement that is ‘crucial in
maintaining the “tripartite allocation of power” set forth in the Constitution.’”).
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to move to quash a subpoena. See id.; cf. United States v. Tomison, 969 F. Supp. 587, 595–96
(E.D. Cal. 1997) (“Even if Rule 17(c) did not permit defendants to apply for the subpoenas duces
tecum ex-parte, the government has not demonstrated standing to move to quash them. Since
standing goes to the jurisdiction of the court, the government, as the party attempting to invoke
the court’s jurisdiction, has the burden of demonstrating that it has standing.”). This notion is
also present in criminal proceedings when a defendant seeks to suppress unlawfully obtained
evidence: “evidence is excluded to provide a remedy for a wrong done to the defendant, and . . .
accordingly, if the defendant has not been wronged he is entitled to no remedy.” People v.
Martin, 290 P.2d 855, 857 (Cal. 1955); see also United States v. Wright, 635 F. App’x 162, 170
(6th Cir. 2015) (noting that the defendant could not challenge particular applications for wiretaps
because he lacked standing); United States v. Sangineto-Miranda, 859 F.2d 1501, 1511 n.5 (6th
Cir. 1988) (noting that the defendant could not move to suppress certain evidence because he
lacked standing to do so). Standing to seek relief for an injury suffered—whether compensation
for one’s injuries, suppression of unlawfully obtained evidence, or the annulment of a
subpoena—is not prudential but constitutional.3
The Court cannot ignore a deficiency in
standing regardless of the merits of the movant’s substantive argument.
Here, Defendant has not claimed “a personal right or privilege” concerning the
information sought by Plaintiff. Nor has Defendant otherwise laid claim to standing in these
3
The Court does not discuss “prudential standing” here, which the Supreme Court of the
United States has referred to as misleadingly labeled, because it is a further limitation on
statutory causes of action rather than a distinct type of standing. See Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static
Control Components, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1377, 1386 (2014). Thus, even supposing that a subpoena
issued in violation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure conferred prudential standing upon a
party that did not receive the subpoena by virtue of the Rule violated, that party would lack
standing to quash the subpoena unless it also satisfied the requirements for constitutional
standing.
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Motions. Nonetheless, the Court has identified a source of potentially persuasive authority in
Defendant’s favor. United States Magistrate Judge Arlene R. Lindsay of the United States
District Court for the Eastern District of New York considered this very issue in 2010. Finding
for the parties seeking to quash the subpoenas, Magistrate Judge Lindsay wrote that
Although the plaintiff is correct that a party ordinarily lacks standing to challenge
a non-party subpoena with a motion for a protective order or to quash unless the
party is seeking to protect a personal privilege or right, and motions to quash must
be made to the district court were a non-party is served, discovery is premature in
the case. Pursuant to Rule 26(d)(1), a party may not seek discovery from any
source until the parties have conferred as required by Rule 26(f).
Sampson v. MediSys Health Network, Inc., 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 84568, at *1–2 (E.D.N.Y.
Aug. 17, 2010) (Lindsay, M.J.) (citing Malmberg v. United States, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
28784, at *3 (N.D.N.Y. Mar. 24, 2010)) (internal quotation marks omitted); cf. United States v.
Fitzgerald, 416 F. App’x 238, 244 (4th Cir. 2011) (affirming the trial court’s granting of a
motion quash without reaching the defendant’s argument that the government lacked standing);
infra note 5. But this reasoning does not persuade the Court. Magistrate Judge Lindsay includes
“ordinarily” as a qualification to the rule of standing for subpoenas. This qualification is not
original to Magistrate Judge Lindsay’s formulation. And although the qualification may4 leave
open the possibility of additional avenues that would satisfy the standing requirement, it does
not—and indeed could not—permit situations where a party without standing could still get the
relief it seeks.
Neither qualified language in the application of a procedural rule nor the
procedural rule itself can overcome a constitutional rule. There is no getting around the fact that
4
The Court suspects that “ordinarily” is simply the opening for the subsequent
exceptions prefaced by “unless” in most formulations of this rule statement.
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this Court lacks the power under the Constitution to grant Defendant relief for Plaintiffs’
procedural violation because, if an injury has occurred, Defendant did not suffer it.5
For these reasons, the Court holds that a violation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
cannot overcome a lack of standing when moving the Court to quash a subpoena. As Plaintiff
issued all three of the subpoenas in question to third-party entities, and Defendant claims no
privilege or other personal right to contest the subpoenas, the Court further holds that Defendant
lacks standing to bring the present Motions. Accordingly, Defendant’s Motions are hereby
DENIED.
CONCLUSION
The Court holds that a party that lacks standing to challenge a subpoena may not do so
even if the subpoena at issue is improper under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. And
because the Court also finds that Defendant lacks standing, Defendant’s Motions to Quash are
DENIED. The Court does not reach the propriety of Plaintiffs’ subpoenas.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
s/ S. Thomas Anderson
S. THOMAS ANDERSON
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Date: June 13, 2018.
5
On June 8, 2018, Defendant filed a Motion for Leave to File a Reply (ECF No. 74) to
Plaintiff’s Response in Opposition to Defendant’s second Motion to Quash. Therein, Defendant
sought to argue that, despite Defendant’s lack of standing, the Court should either construe the
Motions to Quash as Motions for Protective Orders under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c),
see Washington v. Thurgood Marshall Academy, 230 F.R.D. 18, 21–22, (D.D.C. 2005), or quash
the subpoenas sua sponte. See Pike v. Trinity Indus., Inc., 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79586, at *2–3
(M.D. Fla. June 8, 2012). The Court denied Defendant’s Motion in its June 11, 2018 Order
(ECF No. 75) because the Court found either possibility irrelevant to its analysis. Either
Defendant has standing to seek relief or it does not. The Court sees no value in confusing that
question.
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