Terry v. County of Milwaukee et al

Filing 59

ORDER signed by Judge J.P. Stadtmueller on 3/5/2018 GRANTING in part and DENYING in part 49 Plaintiff's Expedited Motion to Compel Discovery Responses. See Order for further details. (cc: all counsel) (jm)

3/5UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
REBECCA TERRY,

v.

Plaintiff,

COUNTY OF MILWAUKEE, DAVID
A. CLARKE, JR., OFFICER BRIAN
WENZEL, UNKNOWN EMPLOYEES
OF MILWAUKEE COUNTY JAIL,
UNKNOWN JAIL SUPERVISORS,
ARMOR CORRECTIONAL HEALTH
SERVICES, CAROLYN EXUM,
MORGAN BEVENUE, MARGARET
HOOVER, UNKNOWN EMPLOYEES
OF ARMOR CORRECTIONAL
HEALTH SERVICES, and
UNKNOWN ARMOR
HEALTHCARE SUPERVISORS,

Case No. 17-CV-1112-JPS

ORDER

Defendants.
On February 22, 2018, Plaintiff filed an expedited motion under Civil
Local Rule 7(h), seeking to compel responses to certain of her discovery
requests from the “Milwaukee County Defendants.” (Docket #49). These
appear to include Defendants Milwaukee County, David A. Clarke, Jr.,
Officer Brian Wenzel, Carolyn Exum, Morgan Benevue, and Margaret
Hoover (“Defendants”). See (Docket #49-1 at 1). In order to address
Plaintiff’s motion expeditiously, the Court assumes familiarity with the
facts and claims in this case.
Plaintiff’s first complaint is that Defendants are withholding a roster
of other inmates who would have been in the infirmary the night of her
childbirth. Defendants respond that they have since provided the roster in

a supplemental discovery response. The issue is now moot and Plaintiff’s
motion will be denied on this point.
Plaintiff’s second concern is with the production of documents
regarding the administration of medical care at the Milwaukee County Jail
(the “Jail”). She says that the broad swathe of documents she seeks is
necessary to support her Monell claim that the Milwaukee County (the
“County”)

and

Armor

Correctional

Health

Services

(“Armor”)

decisionmakers were deliberately indifferent to the harmful consequences
of their healthcare policies. Defendants counter that her requests are too
broad, as her Monell claim must be linked to the specific injury she
suffered—namely, lack of medical care during childbirth. To support a
Monell claim, Plaintiff must show that the challenged policies (or lack
thereof) were the “moving force” behind her individual injury. Dixon v.
Cnty. of Cook, 819 F.3d 343, 348 (7th Cir. 2016).
This issue is far more impactful than the parties’ briefing suggests,
and their disagreement rests on their differing understandings of the Monell
claim. From Plaintiff’s perspective, her Monell claim broadly alleges that the
County and Armor were deliberately indifferent to repeated instances of a
complete lack of medical care for inmates at the Jail. (Docket #1 at 8–12).
The claim is pleaded with little connection to childbirth in particular.
Indeed, only one of the ten instances of lack of care mentioned in the
complaint concerns childbirth. See id. Thus, while the facts of Plaintiff’s
individual claim do indeed relate to childbirth, the Monell claim appears to
be directed at Defendants’ overarching policy of ignoring inmates in need
of care. Viewed in this way, her document requests, though expansive, are

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proper, as the documents could evidence a policy of totally failing to
provide care to inmates, which could, in turn, have been the moving force
behind her deficient care.
Defendants take a narrower view of the Monell claim. They appear
to believe that because Plaintiff’s individual claim is about childbirth, the
Monell claim should be limited to that topic. See, e.g., (Docket #51 at 3) (the
relevant discovery request “is not limited by gender or medical issue. It
does not relate to maternity or obstetrics.”).
Without expressing any view as to the soundness of either party’s
interpretation of the Monell claim, in the context of the present motion the
Court is obliged to side with Plaintiff. Defendants have not sought to
dismiss the claim on the ground that it is overbroad or untethered from
Plaintiff’s individual injury. To rule in their favor here would accomplish
precisely that, for without wide-ranging discovery on the lack of medical
care at the Jail, summary judgment against Plaintiff on her Monell claim is
a foregone conclusion. The scope of discovery is tied to the state of the
pleadings. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1) (discovery may be had on any matter
“relevant to any party’s claim or defense”). While Plaintiff’s Monell claim
remains in its current form, she is entitled to take discovery as to the full
scope of the claim. The Court is sensitive to what will likely be an enormous
document production on Defendants’ part, but if they wish to avoid
litigating the full breadth of Plaintiff’s Monell claim, their only path is
through a dispositive motion.
Plaintiff’s final contention is that Defendants have refused to
appropriately identify the final policymaker responsible for various

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discrete aspects of medical care at the Jail. See (Docket #49-2 at 8-9). Plaintiff
explains that she needs to know who these people are in order to prove that
they had notice of the failure of their medical care policies. Defendants
respond that it would be inaccurate, and indeed untruthful, for them to
point to a single person as responsible for any of these areas, because
“[r]esponsibility is shared and often subject to legal interpretation and
dispute.” (Docket #51 at 4).
The Court disagrees. Contention interrogatories such as this are
perfectly acceptable. See Zenith Elec. Corp. v. WH-TV Broad. Corp., 395 F.3d
416, 420 (7th Cir. 2005). Further, logic dictates that someone in the Jail
hierarchy must be ultimately responsible for the policies in the areas
Plaintiff has identified. Whether that causes consternation and fingerpointing amongst the defendants in this case is beside the point. Plaintiff is
entitled to know who, in Defendants’ opinion, was the final decisionmaker
in the areas specified. Plaintiff’s motion will be granted on this issue.
Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff’s expedited motion to compel
discovery responses (Docket #49) be and the same is hereby GRANTED in
part and DENIED in part in accordance with the terms of this Order.
Dated at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this 5th day of March, 2018.
BY THE COURT:

J.P. Stadtmueller
U.S. District Judge

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