Opinion
No. CIV S-05-2613 FCD JFM P.
April 18, 2007
ORDER
Plaintiff is a state prisoner proceeding pro se with a civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. On March 26, 2007, plaintiff re-filed a motion to compel discovery, contending it was the motion to compel discovery served on the court and on defendant before discovery closed on February 5, 2007. As noted in this court's March 13, 2007 order, defendants filed an opposition to a motion to compel that had not been recorded on the court's docket. It appears the court's copy of the motion was lost in the mail. Good cause appearing, the March 26, 2007 motion to compel will be deemed timely filed and the court will consider defendant's opposition filed February 20, 2007.
Interrogatories
Plaintiff seeks a court order requiring defendant to more fully answer the first set of interrogatories. Plaintiff has not specifically addressed each discovery request and supported his motion to compel the individual response; rather, plaintiff generically claims the interrogatory responses fail to answer "with clarity." (Motion at 4.) This is insufficient under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The court has reviewed the interrogatories and finds that most of the defendants' objections that the interrogatories were vague, ambiguous, overbroad and compound were well taken. Despite valid objections, defendant attempted to answer the interrogatories, with the exception of interrogatory no. 23. In No. 23, plaintiff asked defendant to provide the name of the manufacturer of the grinder used by plaintiff under defendant's direction. Defendant objected to this request on the grounds that the name of the manufacturer is not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. However, because plaintiff contends he was required to operate the grinder without a safety guard, thereby suffering an injury, the name of the grinder and its manufacturer could lead to the discovery of admissible evidence because plaintiff could research the grinder to determine whether the manufacturer recommended that the grinder be used with a safety guard, provided for a safety guard, or expected that the employer would provide the worker with a safety guard when operating the grinder.
It appears, however, that plaintiff was able to obtain this information from the second request for production of documents. In Request No. D (id.), defendant identified the grinder as a DeWalt with the model number DW802. In light of this response, the court will not order further response to request no. 23.
Accordingly, plaintiff's motion to compel further interrogatory answers will be denied. See Davis v. Alamedia, 155 Fed. Appx. 325 (9th Cir. 2005).
First Request for Production of Documents
Plaintiff seeks to compel further production to the first request for production numbers 3, 6 and 8. The court has reviewed request no. 3 and finds defendants' objection that the request is overbroad and requests information beyond defendant's knowledge to be well taken. In his interrogatory responses, defendant stated that he had not received a formal reprimand or formal disciplinary action for insubordinate work performance while employed by the State of California, had not been reprimanded regarding his official work habits or actions, and that aside from the instant action, no person had ever been injured on an inmate work crew defendant supervised. Plaintiff has failed to demonstrate how the work-history file of defendant would lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, particularly in light of defendant's interrogatory responses. Defendant noted that plaintiff could obtain a copy of the accident injury report from plaintiff's central file, which is equally available to plaintiff. Plaintiff's motion to compel further response to request no. 3 will be denied.
In request no. 6, plaintiff seeks copies of his own record of employment and pay at New Folsom Prison. Defendant noted that these records are also located in plaintiff's central file which is available for inspection and copying by plaintiff. Plaintiff's motion to compel further response to request no. 6 will be denied.
In request no. 8, plaintiff seeks a written statement of compliance to the document production requests and asked defendant to
list your reasons for non-production of the items requested per D.O.M. 31020.5.3 and advise how compliance may be obtained. [¶] The aforementioned documents are officially petitioned by the plaintiff of this action and the particular requests are relevant to upcoming litigation and shall be presented as evidentiary productions.
(Request No. 8.) Defendant objected on the grounds that the
request is overbroad, vague, ambiguous, beyond the scope of this defendant's knowledge and is not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Without waiving these objections, I was not a supervisor as described in D.O.M. 31020.5.3.
(Respondent to Request No. 8.) The court finds defendant's objections to be well-taken. Plaintiff's motion to compel further response to request no. 8 will be denied.
Second Request for Production of Documents
Plaintiff seeks further responses to requests A, B, C, D, F, G, H, I, J, and K. Plaintiff has not individually addressed each discovery request and supported his motion to compel the further response; rather, plaintiff generically claims the responses to the discovery requests are insufficient and argues plaintiff is entitled to receive the documents requested. (Motion at 6-9.) This is insufficient under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. However, in an abundance of caution, the court has reviewed the second request and finds that most of the defendants' objections are well taken. For example, requests A, G and K are duplicative of plaintiff's first request for production of documents. Requests B and C seek information readily available to plaintiff from his central file. Requests H, I and J are overbroad and not likely to lead to admissible evidence. Request D is compound; defendant's objection is sustained. Request F is more appropriately raised as an interrogatory in that it fails to identify a document. Accordingly, plaintiff's motion to compel further responses to the second request for production of documents will also be denied.
Second Motion to Compel
Finally, on April 2, 2007, plaintiff filed a second motion to compel which is essentially duplicative of the March 26, 2007 motion. Accordingly, the second motion will be denied.
In accordance with the above, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that:
1. Plaintiff's March 26, 2007 motion to compel is deemed timely filed;
2. Plaintiff's March 26, 2007 motion to compel further responses to the first set of interrogatories is denied.
Plaintiff's March 26, 2007 motions to compel further responses to the first and second requests for production of documents are denied.
3. Plaintiff's April 2, 2007 motion to compel is denied.