Vaughn v. Solera Holdings LLC et al

Filing 60

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER: The Court grants Defendants' 38 Motion to Compel Discovery Responses and grants in part and denies in part Vaughn's 41 Motion to Compel. (Ordered by Chief District Judge David C Godbey on 3/12/2025) (cfk)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
DALLAS DIVISION
WISDOM VAUGHN,
Plaintiff,
v.
SOLERA HOLDINGS, LLC, et al.,
Defendants.

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Civil Action No. 3:23-CV-02612-N

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
This Order addresses Defendants Solera Holdings, LLC (“Solera”) and Spireon,
Inc.’s (“Spireon”) motion to compel discovery responses [38] and Plaintiff Wisdom
Vaughn’s motion to compel discovery responses [41]. For the following reasons, the Court
grants Defendants’ motion and grants in part and denies in part Vaughn’s motion.
I. ORIGINS OF THE DISPUTE
This is an employment discrimination case. Vaughn was an IT employee at Spireon,
which was acquired by Solera after Vaughn’s termination. Pl.’s Compl. ¶¶ 15, 31 [1]. She
alleges sex and race discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII and 42 U.S.C.
§ 1981. Id. ¶¶ 34–42. Defendants filed a motion to compel responses to several requests
in their Third Set of Interrogatories and First Set of Requests for Admission. See Defs.’
Mot. 1 [38]. Additionally, Vaughn filed a motion to compel responses to several requests
in her First Set of Interrogatories and First Set of Requests for Production. See Pl.’s Mot.
1 [41]. The parties independently resolved several of the issues in this dispute. This Order
addresses the remaining disputed issues.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER – PAGE 1

II. LEGAL STANDARD FOR DISCOVERY
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 allows parties to “obtain discovery regarding
any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional
to the needs of the case.” FED. R. CIV. P. 26(b)(1). A litigant may request the production
of documents falling “within the scope of Rule 26(b)” from another party if the documents
are in that party’s “possession, custody, or control.” FED. R. CIV. P. 34(a). A litigant may
also serve on another party “a written request to admit . . . the truth of any matters within
the scope of Rule 26(b)(1)” regarding the facts, application of law to facts, or opinions
about either. FED. R. CIV. P. 36(a)(1). Further, a litigant may serve interrogatories on
another party relating “to any matter than may be inquired into under Rule 26(b).” FED. R.
CIV. P. 33(a)(2). To enforce discovery rights, a “party seeking discovery may move for an
order compelling an answer, designation, production, or inspection.” FED. R. CIV. P.
37(a)(3)(B). The Fifth Circuit requires the party seeking to prevent discovery to specify
why the discovery is not relevant or show that it fails the proportionality requirements.
McLeod, Alexander, Powel & Apffel, P.C. v. Quarles, 894 F.3d 1482, 1485 (5th Cir. 1990);
see also Merrill v. Waffle House, Inc., 227 F.R.D. 475, 477 (N.D. Tex. 2005).
Courts construe relevance broadly, as a document need not, by itself, prove or
disprove a claim or defense or have strong probative force to be relevant. Samsung Elecs.
Am. Inc. v. Chung, 321 F.R.D. 250, 280 (N.D. Tex. 2017). A district court has wide
discretion to supervise discovery, however, and may limit discovery if it would be
unreasonably cumulative, could be obtained more easily from a different source, is not
proportional to the needs of the case, or if the burden or expense of proposed discovery
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER – PAGE 2

outweighs its potential benefit. FED. R. CIV. P. 26(b)(2)(C); see also Landry v. Air Line
Pilots Ass’n Int’l AFL-CIO, 901 F.2d 404, 436 n.114 (5th Cir. 1990).
III. THE COURT GRANTS DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO COMPEL
Defendants move for the Court to overrule Vaughn’s objections to Defendants’
Request for Admission Nos. 2, 4, 6, and 9 and Interrogatory Nos. 13, 15, and 17 and to
order Vaughn to fully respond to these requests. Defs.’ Mot. 1. Vaughn objects to the
following terms as vague and ambiguous: (1) “derogatory race-based language (such as
racial slurs)” in Request for Admission No. 2 and Interrogatory No. 13; (2) “derogatory
language about sexual orientation (such as slurs against gay, lesbian, or bisexual
individuals)” in Request for Admission No. 4 and Interrogatory No. 15; and (3)
“misogynistic slurs” in Request for Admission Nos. 6 and 9 and Interrogatory No. 17. See
Defs.’ App. 003–04, 007–09 [40].
A “party objecting to discovery as vague or ambiguous has the burden to show such
vagueness or ambiguity” and “must explain the specific and particular way in which a
request is vague.” VeroBlue Farms USA Inc. v. Wulf, 345 F.R.D. 406, 419 (N.D. Tex.
2021) (quoting Lopez v. Don Herring Ltd., 327 F.R.D. 567, 580 (N.D. Tex. 2018)). Here,
the Court finds that Vaughn has not met her burden of showing that the terms she objects
to are vague or ambiguous. Using “reason and common sense to attribute ordinary
definitions” to the terms, the Court finds that the meaning of these terms is clear. See id.
Accordingly, the Court overrules Vaughn’s objections to Request for Admission Nos. 2, 4,
6, and 9 and Interrogatory Nos. 13, 15, and 17, and orders Vaughn to fully respond to these
Requests.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER – PAGE 3

IV. THE COURT GRANTS IN PART AND DENIES
IN PART VAUGHN’S MOTION TO COMPEL
A. Request for Production No. 7
In Request for Production No. 7, Vaughn seeks personnel documents of her
supervisors “which reflect job performance, disciplinary actions, complaints by other
employees concerning the supervisor, performance improvement plans, and termination
documents.”

Pl.’s Mot. Br. 2 [42].

Defendants already produced documents from

Vaughn’s supervisors’ personnel files relating to Vaughn’s termination and searched for
but did not find any documents reflecting complaints of discrimination or retaliation by
other employees against the supervisors. Id.; see also Defs.’ Resp. Br. 7–8 [48]. The
parties dispute whether Defendants should be compelled to produce additional documents
reflecting the job performance of Vaughn’s supervisors. The Court determines that
documents reflecting Vaughn’s supervisors’ job performance — beyond the documents
that Defendants have already produced — are not relevant to Vaughn’s claims and
additionally present concerns about the privacy rights of the nonparty employees. See
Beasley v. First Am. Real Est. Info. Servs., Inc., 2005 WL 1017818, at *4 (N.D. Tex. 2005)
(holding the plaintiff could not “rummage through the personnel files of [the supervisors]
in hopes of discovering information that might possibly be relevant”). Accordingly, the
Court denies Vaughn’s motion to compel production of additional documents responsive
to Request for Production No. 7.1

1

Defendants also argue that the Court should deny Vaughn’s motion as untimely. Defs.’
Resp. Br 6. Because Vaughn filed the motion on the discovery deadline in the Court’s
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER – PAGE 4

B. Request for Production No. 8
In Request for Production No. 8, Vaughn seeks documents relating to her
comparator’s job performance. See Pl.’s Mot. Br. 4.

Defendants produced all the

comparator’s disciplinary actions but objects to producing additional email
communications reflecting complaints from internal customers regarding his IT helpdesk
functions. Defs.’ Resp. Br. 8–10; see also Pl.’s Reply 3–4 [57]. Defendants argue that the
burden and expense of searching these communications to determine whether they reflect
job performance would far outweigh any benefit. Id. Vaughn seeks to compel production
of these documents. Pl.’s Reply 3–4.
As an initial matter, the Court finds that documents relating to the job performance
of comparators are relevant to Vaughn’s claims. See Mathew v. Santander Consumer USA,
Inc., 2024 WL 4995574, at *2 (N.D. Tex. 2024) (citing Oppenheimer Fund v. Sanders, 437
U.S. 340, 351 (1978)); Martin v. Allstate Ins. Co., 292 F.R.D. 361, 365 (N.D. Tex. 2013).
Further, parties must produce “actual evidence” to support an undue burden objection. See
Heller, 303 F.R.D. at 490. Here, the declaration of Tayler Gray — an attorney for
Defendants — does not specifically address the burden of reviewing and producing
documents reflecting complaints from internal customers regarding Vaughn’s
comparator’s IT helpdesk functions. See Gray Decl., Defs.’ Resp. App. 075–77 [49].
Accordingly, the Court grants Vaughn’s motion to compel production of additional

Scheduling Order [34], the Court finds that the motion is timely and thus declines to deny
Vaughn’s motion on this ground.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER – PAGE 5

documents responsive to Request for Production No. 8 reflecting complaints from internal
customers regarding Vaughn’s comparator’s IT helpdesk functions.
C. Interrogatory No. 14 and Request for Production Nos. 9 and 10
In Interrogatory No. 14 and Request for Production Nos. 9 and 10, Vaughn seeks
communications between employees regarding her factual allegations. See Pl.’s Mot. Br.
8–10. She seeks to compel Defendants to produce responsive documents from Slack and
Chatter, employee-communication platforms. Id. at 11.
Regarding the Slack communications, Defendants explained that they do not have
possession, custody, or control of documents from Slack because Spireon’s Slack license
never included message retrieval or exportation and Spireon did not otherwise store or
archive Slack messages. Defs.’ Resp. Br. 15. Because the Slack documents are not in
Defendants’ possession, custody, or control, the Court denies Vaughn’s motion to compel
the Slack documents.
Next, regarding the Chatter communications, Defendants argue that these
communications are not relevant because sales employees, not IT employees, used Chatter,
so Vaughn, her comparator, and her supervisors did not use the platform. Id. However,
Vaughn produced a declaration of a former Spireon sales employee, Chris Constancio, in
which he stated that Jim Kronenberger — a Spireon sales executive — had discriminated
against Vaughn, including by making bigoted, sexist, and homophobic comments about
her. Constancio Decl. ¶¶ 5–6, Pl.’s App. 509–10 [43-2]. Accordingly, there could be
statements made by Kronenberger on Chatter that are relevant to Vaughn’s claims. The
Court thus grants her motion to compel production of documents from Chatter involving
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER – PAGE 6

Kronenberger that are responsive to Request for Production Nos. 9 and 10 and to compel
a supplemental response to Interrogatory No. 14.
D. Request for Production No. 12
In Request for Production No. 12, Vaughn seeks documents relating to her
complaints of discrimination or retaliation and documents relating to Defendants’
investigations of such complaints. See Pl.’s Mot. Br. 11. Vaughn seeks to compel
production of documents from Slack that are responsive to this Request. As the Court
previously discussed, documents from Slack are not in Defendants’ possession, custody,
or control, so the Court denies Vaughn’s motion to compel production of documents from
Slack that are responsive to Request for Production No. 12.
CONCLUSION
First, the Court grants Defendants’ motion to compel and overrules Vaughn’s
objections to Request for Admission Nos. 2, 4, 6, and 9 and Interrogatory Nos. 13, 15, and
17. Thus, the Court orders that within twenty-one (21) days of this Order, Vaughn will
amend her responses to these Requests. Next, the Court grants in part and denies in part
Vaughn’s motion to compel. The Court denies her motion to compel responses to Request
for Production Nos. 7 and 12 and grants her motion to compel a response to Request for
Production No. 8. Regarding Interrogatory No. 14 and Request for Production Nos. 9 and
10, the Court grants her motion as it relates to documents on Chatter and otherwise denies
the motion. Thus, the Court orders that within twenty-one (21) days of this Order,
Defendants will amend their responses to Interrogatory No. 14 and Request for Production
Nos. 8, 9, and 10.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER – PAGE 7

Signed March 12, 2025.
___________________________
David C. Godbey
Chief United States District Judge

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER – PAGE 8