Opinion
Case No. 04 C 50342.
October 26, 2005
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
This matter is before the court on Defendant's October 3, 2005 Motion for Clarification of August 3, 2005 Docket Entry Concerning Sales History. For the reasons stated below, Defendant's Motion is denied.
I. History
A brief discussion of the events leading up to Defendant's October 3, 2005 Motion to Clarify is necessary. The docket entry at issue in Defendant's Motion is the court's August 3, 2005 Order regarding Defendant's July 25, 2005 Motion to Compel Documents Relevant to Damage Issues.
On August 3, 2005, the court took oral arguments on Defendant's Motion to Compel Documents Relevant to Damage Issues. Defendant moved the court to compel five types of documents: (1) financial statements, including income statements and balance sheets for 1999-2000; (2) sales history, by customer and item, for 1999-2001; (3) tax returns for 1999-2000 including schedules and statements; (4) schedules and statements for 2001-2004 tax returns; and (5) un-redacted "Employers Quarterly" federal tax returns. The court granted Defendant's Motion except as to request item (2): sales history, by customer and item, for 1999-2001.
At the hearing, the court noted that gathering sales history by customer and item was substantially more burdensome than production of already prepared documents, such as those requested in (1), (3), (4), and (5). The court balanced this burden with the potentiality for discovering relevant documents. As request (2) covered sales history for 1999-2001, and the contract at issue was entered into in 2002, the court found that the burden of preparing the documents outweighed the potential for discovering relevant documents and denied Defendant's request.
One month later, on September 2, 2005, fact discovery closed, though specific and limited extensions were allowed for the continued depositions of Mr. Bergdahl (two hours) and Mr. Selmon (one hour). The court looked forward to the parties wrapping up discovery and scheduled a discovery conference to set a dispositive motion due date for November 2, 2005.
Unfortunately, something went wrong. Defendant apparently served a Fifth Request for Production on September 5, 2005 requesting items such as "Schedule of Siemens sales history for the years 2000 and 2001" and "Schedule of revenue by product for Climco sales for each of the years ended December 31, 2000 through 2004." (Pl.'s Reply, at 3). Plaintiff's Responses to these untimely Requests would be due on or about October 17, 2005, well over a month past the court established fact discovery cut-off. As such, the Fifth Request for Production appears to be in violation the court's Scheduling Order and federal and local rules.
Plaintiff does not raise the issue of the late discovery requests, but does protest Defendant's pending Motion for Clarification of the court's August 3, 2005 docket entry concerning the court's ruling on sales history. Defendant states in its Motion for Clarification that it seeks the following:
The docket entry at issue states in part:
Defendant's Motion to compel is granted in part and denied in part. As stated in open court, Plaintiff to produce financial statement, tax returns, Schedules and Unredacted empolyers queartly [sic] tax returns. Plaintiff does not have to produce sales history.See Def.'s Mtn., at Ex. A (emphasis added).
schedules of revenue by product for Climco sales for the years 2000 through 2005 and schedules of Siemens sales history, for 2000 and 2001
because:
such information is directly relevant to Climco's ability to mitigate its damages and Climco's alleged lost profits.
In qualification, Defendant adds that it:
does not need the names of non-SEA customers and agrees that the identities of Climco's other customer's can be redacted.
(Def.'s Mtn., at 3). Plaintiff contends that Defendant's Motion to Clarify is less about clarification, and more about an untimely attempt to reverse the court's previous ruling denying, in part, Defendant's Motion to Compel Documents Relevant to Damage Issues. As such, Plaintiff asks the at court deny Defendant's "ostensible" Motion to Clarify. (Pl.'s Mtn., at 3-4).
II. Analysis
This court presumes that a Motion to Clarify will clearly set forth an issue for the court to clarify. At the very least, such a Motion should contain some indication of what part of the court's Order is unclear or confusing to a party, so that the court may clear up that confusion if necessary.
Here, it is entirely unclear what Defendant would like the court to clarify. The court's best guess is that Defendant wants to know if the court's August 3, 2005 Order (that "Plaintiff does not have to produce sales history") rules out Plaintiff's production of "schedules of revenue by product for Climco sales for the years 2000 through 2005" and "schedules of Siemens sales history, for 2000 and 2001." The court assumes this is the proper request for clarification because Defendant's prayer for relief requests production of this information.
If the court's assumption is correct, Defendant seeks to accomplish more with its Motion for Clarification than such a Motion allows. At most, the court can only clarify that the docket entry "Plaintiff does not have to produce sales history" was the court's ruling denying Defendant' July 27, 2005 Motion to Compel "sales history, by customer and item, for 1999-2001." Undoubtedly, Defendant hoped to learn more from the court, but anything more would be speculation on potential discovery issues that have not been properly brought before the court. Though Defendant states the court "has broad discretion regarding these discovery matters," the court cannot issue an order compelling Plaintiff to "completely comply with [Defendant's] discovery requests" on a Motion to Clarify an Order that the court believes is already clear. (Def.'s Reply, at 3).
III. Conclusion
Accordingly, Defendant's October 3, 2005 Motion for Clarification of August 3, 2005 Docket Entry Concerning Sales History is denied.