Estate of James Franklin Perry v. Wenzel et al

Filing 76

ORDER signed by Judge Rudolph T. Randa on 1/26/2015 GRANTING 73 Milwaukee County's Motion for Production of Documents. Plaintiff's counsel sanctioned for unreasonable and vexatious conduct under 28 USC § 1927. (cc: all counsel) (cb)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
ESTATE OF JAMES FRANKLIN PERRY, et al.,
Plaintiffs,
-vs-

Case No. 12-C-664

CHERYL WENZEL, et al.,
Defendants.
DECISION AND ORDER
Counsel for Milwaukee County, one of the defendants, asked
plaintiffs’ counsel, James Gende, to produce the information outlined in
Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(4)(C) in advance of a video deposition of an expert
witness scheduled for January 30. Instead of being agreeable, Gende was
belligerent. Gende refused to produce the documents and told defense
counsel that he should file a request for production under Fed. R. Civ. P.
34, which would then give the plaintiffs 30 days to respond thereto.
Gende may be technically correct in his interpretation of the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure, but his stance means either that the deposition
will have to be rescheduled, or that counsel for Milwaukee County will be
forced to conduct a deposition without documents that are necessary to
facilitate meaningful examination. This runs counter to the scope and

purpose of the rules which should be “construed and administered to secure
the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and
proceeding.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 1.
Common sense and common courtesy suggest that Gende should
have produced the documents (nothing in his response suggests that they
are unavailable or otherwise difficult to obtain, aside from the fact that
they are “out of state”). At minimum Gende should have tried, but by all
accounts he didn’t. So now Gende must, but only after he wasted time and
resources by forcing the defendants to file an unnecessary motion.
Milwaukee County’s motion [ECF No. 73] is GRANTED. Gende is
sanctioned for his unreasonable and vexatious conduct under 28 U.S.C. §
1927.
Dated at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this 26th day of January, 2015.
SO ORDERED:
__________________________
HON. RUDOLPH T. RANDA
U.S. District Judge

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