Patterson v. Hepp et al

Filing 66

ORDER signed by Judge J.P. Stadtmueller on 5/9/2017 DENYING 43 Plaintiff's Motion to Compel Discovery Responses. (cc: all counsel, via mail to Shannon Patterson at Fox Lake Correctional Institution) (jm)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
SHANNON PATTERSON
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No. 16-CV-942-JPS

RANDALL HEPP, CHARLES LARSON,
RICHARD STELIGA, ROBERT FRANK,
HOLLY MEIER, JOHN
MAGGIONCALDA, PAULA STELSEL,
and JOHN and JANE DOES 1–10,

ORDER
Defendants.

Plaintiff, who is incarcerated at Fox Lake Correctional Institution,
filed a pro se complaint alleging that his civil rights were violated. (Docket
#1). His complaint centers around a slip and fall he attributes to
dangerous prison conditions, as well as allegedly inadequate medical care
Plaintiff received after the fall, and a cover-up of both by prison officials in
order to avoid responsibility for the incident. See id. at 3. Before the Court
is Plaintiff’s motion to compel certain discovery responses. (Docket #43).
Defendants oppose the motion. (Docket #48).
In his motion, Plaintiff seeks supplemental document production as
to his Requests for Production Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 12. (Docket #43 at 2). Those
requests are as follows:
Request No. 1: Provide a copy of any and all
documents concerning misconduct, reprimands, internal
administrative complaints filed, or disciplinary action taken
against the defendants from the year 2006 to present date.

Request No. 2: A complete copy of any and all
documents showing work performance evaluations of the
defendants, while employed within the Department of
Corrections from 2006 to present date.
Request No. 3: A complete copy of Plaintiff’s medical
files concerning the claims raised in Plaintiff’s complaint,
files which consist of: (a) progress notes; (b) prescriber’s
orders; (c) off-site service request & report; (d) nursing
encounter protocols; (e) any doctor’s or radiology reports; (f)
any DOC-3559 evaluation reports; (g) any DOC-3484 Form
[for] correction of health information; (h) any DOC-3035
Health Service request forms; [and] (i) any written or
electronic notes between staff on Plaintiff’s injury.
Request No. 12: A complete copy of any documents
that show a detailed listing of Fox Lake Correctional
Institution (FLCI) institutional complaint[s] filed by inmates
to the ICRS, regarding physical conditions at FLCI. This
includes dispositions and recommendations made.
See (Docket #44-1 at 1–7). Defendants objected to each of these requests
and have apparently provided no responsive documents. See (Docket #491 at 12–14). Plaintiff claims that Defendants’ responses to these requests
were “generalized, evasive, incomplete, and non-responsive.” (Docket #44
at 1). He requests an order pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
37(a) to compel compliance with these requests. Id.; Fed. R. Civ.
37(a)(3)(iv).
District courts have broad discretion in deciding matters relating to
discovery. Packman v. Chicago Tribune Co., 267 F.3d 628, 646–47 (7th Cir.
2001); Rennie v. Dalton, 3 F.3d 1100, 1110 (7th Cir. 1993). Under Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), parties may obtain discovery “regarding
any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense
and proportional to the needs of the case.” Id. 26(b)(1). The information

sought need not itself be admissible to be discoverable. Id. In considering
matters of proportionality, the Rule directs courts to consider “the
importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy,
the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources,
the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the
burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.”
Id. While these proportionality concerns have always been a part of the
Rule, they now enjoy pride of place after the 2015 Rule amendments and
must form a part of the Court’s discoverability analysis. See Fed. R. Civ. P.
26(b)(1), advisory committee notes, 2015 Amendment; Elliot v. Superior
Pool Prods., LLC, No. 15-cv-1126, 2016 WL 29243, at *2 (C.D. Ill. Jan. 4,
2016). The Supreme Court has instructed that “discovery, like all matters
of procedure, has ultimate and necessary boundaries. . . . [L]imitations
come into existence when the inquiry touches upon the irrelevant or
encroaches upon the recognized domains of privilege.” Hickman v. Taylor,
329 U.S. 495, 507–08 (1947).
The Court finds that Plaintiff’s motion must be denied in all
respects at this time. First, Requests Nos. 1 and 2 are overbroad and
premature. At its core, Plaintiff’s case concerns dangerous prison
conditions, inadequate health care, and a cover-up of both. Requesting all
documents concerning any misconduct by Defendants, however minor, or
their work evaluations, of whatever type, is not tailored to such claims.
Notably, Plaintiff concedes in his brief that he plans to use this evidence to
show Defendants’ “propensity to turn a blind eye to misconduct,” a
purpose for which such evidence may not be offered. See Fed. R. Evid.
404(b) (“Evidence of a crime, wrong, or other act is not admissible to
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prove a person’s character in order to show that on a particular occasion
the person acted in accordance with the character.”). In United States v.
Gomez, 763 F.3d 845, 853 (7th Cir. 2014), the court stressed that “the district
court should not just ask whether the proposed other-act evidence is
relevant to a non-propensity purpose but how exactly the evidence is
relevant to that purpose—or more specifically, how the evidence is
relevant without relying on a propensity inference.”
Here, contrary to Gomez, Plaintiff gives no explanation of the
relevance of this evidence other than to prove Defendants’ propensity to
commit

the

same

bad

acts

alleged

in

this

case.

Id. (“It’s not enough for the proponent of the other-act evidence simply to
point to a purpose in the ‘permitted’ list and assert that the other-act
evidence is relevant to it.”). Further, Plaintiff offers no reason why a
decade-long time frame for the requests, even if offered for a nonpropensity purpose, is proportionate to the issues raised in the complaint,
which concern a single incident that occurred in January 2015. Thus, there
is an insufficient basis on which to conclude that the discovery sought is
relevant and proportional to the issues at stake. See Fed. R. Civ. P.
26(b)(1).1

Plaintiff’s citations to King v. Conde, 121 F.R.D. 180 (E.D.N.Y. 1988), and
Inmates of Unit 14 v. Rebideau, 102 F.R.D. 122 (N.D.N.Y. 1984), are inapposite.
King involved the assessment of an “official information” privilege asserted on
behalf of police officers, King, 121 F.R.D at 188, but no such privilege is at issue
here. Similarly, Rebideau contained claims arising under Monell v. Department of
Social Services of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), against a prison for creating
a policy or practice of abuse, but Plaintiff’s claims are confined to the individual
actions of certain prison officials, despite his broad allegations of a cover-up
conspiracy. Likewise, Curry v. Scott, 249 F.3d 493, 498 (6th Cir. 2001), has no
bearing on this case, because unlike Curry, here Plaintiff does not allege that
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To the extent these documents may become relevant, it will only be
to assist the jury in making credibility determinations at trial. Since courts
do not consider the credibility of witnesses at the summary judgment
stage, the documents will not be relevant unless this case proceeds past
that stage. Springer v. Durflinger, 518 F.3d 479, 484 (7th Cir. 2008). If this
occurs, Plaintiff may raise his motion again as to these requests. See Peace
v. Pollard, Case No. 15–cv–481–pp, 2017 WL 564016, at *3 (E.D. Wis. Feb.
10, 2017) (denying without prejudice a motion to compel disciplinary
records since their only use “would be to challenge the defendants’
credibility,” making them irrelevant at the summary judgment stage).
Next, the Court must deny Plaintiff’s motion with respect to
Request No. 3 because he is not entitled to have Defendants pay for copies
of his medical records. Rule 34 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
requires only that a party answering a request for production make the
responsive documents available; the answering party need not actually
undertake the expense of copying. Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a)(1) (requiring a
party in response to a document request to “to produce and permit the
requesting party or its representative to inspect [or] copy” the
documents); Singletary v. Reed, No. 06-C-323-C, 2006 WL 3591868, at *1
(W.D. Wis. Dec. 8, 2006) (“Rule 34 does not require the defendant to
provide [plaintiff] with free copies of the documents he wants. If plaintiff
Defendants have a long history of misconduct targeted at him or at a class of
inmates to which he belongs. Put simply, Plaintiff seeks discovery of materials
that might be relevant for several types of claims, none of which are actually
raised in his complaint.
The Court does not consider at this time whether Defendants’ assertion of
confidentiality and security concerns, (Docket #48 at 2–3), would independently
support denial of the motion as to these requests.

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wishes to have copies of materials in defendant’s possession for his own
records, he will be responsible for paying the costs of duplicating the
material.”). In this case, Plaintiff has always had the ability to obtain, at his
cost, copies of his medical records. He cannot foist the expense onto
Defendants through a discovery request. The fact that he has been granted
in forma pauperis status does not change this. Porter v. Dep’t of Treasury, 564
F.3d 176, 180 n.3 (3d Cir. 2009) (noting that “granting of IFP status
exempts litigants from filing fees only. It does not exempt litigants from
the costs of copying and filing documents; service of documents other
than the complaint; costs; expert witness fees; or sanctions.”) (internal
citations omitted); see also Lindell v. McCallum, 352 F.3d 1107, 1111 (7th Cir.
2003) (“[L]ike any other civil litigant, [a prisoner] must decide which of
[his] legal actions is important enough to fund.”).
Finally, the Court is obliged to deny Plaintiff’s motion as to Request
No. 12 because it is overbroad and infringes on the privacy interests of
non-parties. To the extent Plaintiff seeks copies of his own grievances,
Defendants may make them available to him as permitted under Rule 34.
But to the extent Plaintiff seeks copies of other inmates’ grievances, he has
not raised any argument as to why such grievances are relevant, except to
say that he will “show a pattern and practice of deliberate indifference by
medical staff that is continuous and ongoing at FLCI.” (Docket #43 at 4).
This explanation fails to satisfy, since Plaintiff’s complaint concerns only
his individual treatment, not a prison policy or practice. See (Docket #1);
see also Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978);
Freeman v. City of Milwaukee, 994 F. Supp. 2d 957, 965–70 (E.D. Wis. 2014)
(describing different standards applicable to Monell and civil conspiracy
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claims). Additionally, the Court credits Defendants’ assertion that other
inmates’ grievances are generally confidential pursuant to Wis. Admin.
Code § DOC 310.16, and are not opened up to discovery simply because
Plaintiff has filed a lawsuit. (Docket #48 at 3); Cherry v. Bray, No. 03–C–
129–C, 2003 WL 23100287, at *1 (W.D. Wis. Dec. 5, 2003). Indeed, as
observed in Cherry, open-ended discovery of a broad swath of inmate
grievances would lead to distracting mini-trials on other inmates’ possibly
unsubstantiated claims. Cherry, 2003 WL 23100287, at *1. For these
reasons, the Court will deny Plaintiffs’ motion to compel in its entirety at
this time.
Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff’s motion to compel discovery
responses (Docket #43) be and the same is hereby DENIED.
Dated at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this 9th day of May, 2017.
BY THE COURT:

J.P. Stadtmueller
U.S. District Judge

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