Opinion
Civil Action No. 3:02-CV-2095-D
May 9, 2003
ORDER
Before the Court are Defendant MS. Carriers, Inc.'s Motion for Reconsideration/Clarification of the Magistrate Judge's Discovery Order, filed April 9, 2003; Plaintiffs' Response to Defendant M.S. Carriers, Inc.'s Motion for Reconsideration/Clarification of the Magistrate Judge's Discovery Order and Motion for Sanctions, filed April 25, 2003; and Defendant M.S. Carriers, Inc.'s Reply to Plaintiffs' Response to the Motion for Reconsideration/Clarification, filed April 30, 2003. The preceding motion was referred to the United States Magistrate for hearing, if necessary, and for determination pursuant to the District Court's Order of Reference, filed April 10, 2003. The Court held a hearing on the motion on May 1, 2003. Based on the motion, the response, the oral argument, evidence and applicable law, the Court is of the opinion that Defendant M.S. Carriers, Inc.'s Motion for Reconsideration/ Clarification of the Magistrate Judge's Discovery Order should be DENIED.
I. BACKGROUND
On June 25, 2002, Plaintiffs served interrogatories on Defendant, and Defendant served their objections to the interrogatories on August 8, 2002. Plaintiffs moved to compel Defendant to respond on December 23, 2003. In the Joint Submission ordered by the Court and filed by the parties on January 16, 2003, the parties indicated that they had resolved all issues except one pertaining to the following interrogatory:
INTERROGATORY NO. 21: Identify all lawsuits filed against M.S. Carriers, Inc. In [sic] the preceding five(5) years involving claims of personal injury resulting from motor vehicle accidents.
ANSWER: Defendant objects to this Interrogatory in that it is overly broad, irrelevant, and not reasonably calculated to the discovery of admissible evidence.
In the Joint Submission, Defendant argued that the Interrogatory was overly broad because it was not specifically tailored to identify only information pertaining to "substantially similar lawsuits," and that five years was an unreasonable time period. Id. By Order dated January 30, 2003, this Court found that "substantially similar" was the standard for admissibility at trial, not discovery. Accordingly, the Court granted Plaintiffs' Motion to Compel and ordered Defendant M.S. Carriers, Inc. to fully respond to Plaintiffs' Interrogatory No. 21.
On February 19, 2003, Plaintiffs filed Plaintiffs' Motion to Enforce and Motion for Sanctions Against Defendant M. S. Carriers, Inc. to enforce the Court's January 30, 2003 Order. This Court held a hearing on Plaintiffs' motion to enforce on March 7, 2003. As of that date, Defendant had not produced any information to Plaintiffs pursuant to the January 30, 2003 Order. Defendant argued that complying with the Order would be "burdensome" because the "voluminous request" lacked a "geographical limitation" or "causal connection," and that answering it would require a "nationwide search." Def. Br. at 2-3. Because Defendant made no showing of how or why compliance would be burdensome, the Court granted Plaintiffs' motion to enforce orally and by Order dated March 10, 2003. The March 10, 2003 Order directed Defendant to provide all responsive non-objectionable information no later than 5:00 P.M., on Friday, March 14, 2003. Because Defendant's objections to the January 30, 2003 Order were pending before the District Court, this Court stayed its March 10, 2003 Order, in part, to avoid any potential conflict between the two courts' orders. Accordingly, the March 10, 2003 Order stated that to the extent that the District Court overruled Defendant's objections, Defendant shall provide Plaintiffs with a full and complete answer to Plaintiffs' Interrogatory no later than 5:00 P.M. on the fifth business day after the date on which the District Court's decision is filed. The District Court's decision overruling Defendant's objections was filed on March 26, 2003. The March 10, 2003 Order therefore required Defendant to produce to Plaintiffs all remaining responsive information no later than 5:00 P.M. on April 2, 2003. Defendant failed to produce any information to Plaintiffs on April 2, 2003 in accordance with the March 10, 2003 Order.
On April 9, 2003, after the date for complying with this Court's March 10, 2003 Order had passed, Defendant filed this motion for reconsideration of the Court's January 30, 2003 Order.
Defendant's failure to comply with the Court's Orders will be addressed separately.
II. ANALYSIS
A. Standard of Review for Motion for Reconsideration
"Although the federal rules do not recognize a motion for reconsideration as such, a party may file a motion 'to correct manifest errors of law or fact or to present newly discovered evidence.'" Seibu Corp. v. KPMG LLP., 2001 WL 1658130, at *2 (N.D. Tex. Dec. 20, 2001) (citing Waltman v. International Paper Co., 875 F.2d 468, 473 (5th Cir. 1989) and Texas Instruments, Inc. v. Hyundai Electronics Industries, Co. Ltd., 50 F. Supp.2d 619, 621 (E.D. Tex. 1999)). "The purpose of such a motion is extremely narrow. Motions for reconsideration are not 'the proper vehicle for rehashing old arguments or advancing legal theories that could have been presented earlier.'" Id. (citations omitted). "[L]itigants are expected to present their strongest case when the matter is first considered." Texas Instruments, Inc. v. Hyundai Electronics Industries, Co. Ltd., 50 F. Supp.2d 619, 621 (E.D. Tex. 1999) (quoting State v. Sprint Comm. Co., 899 F. Supp. 282, 284 (M.D.La. 1995)). A ruling should only be reconsidered where the moving party presents substantial reasons for requesting reconsideration. Baustian v. Louisiana, 929 F. Supp. 980, 981 (E.D. La. 1996); Louisiana v. Sprint Communications Co., 899 F. Supp. 282, 284 (M.D. La. 1995).
B. Change in Law
Defendant argues that it should not be required to comply with the Court's Orders to respond to Interrogatory No. 21 based on the recent Supreme Court decision, State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 123 S.Ct. 1513 (2003). Def. Br. at 4-6. Defendant claims that the Campbell decision "unequivocally resolved confusion as to the scope of [system-wide] evidence by holding that a party may not be condemned for nationwide policies rather than for the conduct made directly against the relevant plaintiffs." Id. at 4. Defendant further claims that "[i]n doing so, the Campbell court expressly rejects a damage model permitting the consideration of a 'system-wide' allegation that crosses a particular state's borders." Id. at 5-6. Thus, Defendant argues that because discovery of nationwide information cannot now as a matter of law lead to the discovery of relevant and admissible evidence, it should not now be required to comply with the Court's orders to provide nation-wide discovery. Id. at 6.
In Campbell, the Supreme Court held that a punitive damages award of $145 million, where full compensatory damages were $1 million, was excessive and violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 123 S.Ct. at 1526. The Supreme Court found that the Utah courts erred in relying and awarding punitive damages on evidence of lawful out-of-state conduct that bore no relation or was dissimilar to the conduct which harmed the plaintiffs. Id. at 1523-26. The Court expressly stated, however, that "evidence of other acts need not be identical to have relevance in the calculation of punitive damages." Id. at 1523. Thus, evidence of similar conduct or conduct having a nexus to the specific harm suffered by the plaintiff may still be admitted and considered in assessing punitive damages.
Campbell addressed the scope of admissible evidence, not discoverable evidence. Discoverability is a separate issue from admissibility at trial; all that is required under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 is that the requested discovery would likely lead to discovery of useful relevant/material evidence. See Lohr v. Stanley-Bostitch, Inc., 135 F.R.D. 162, 164 (W.D. Mich. 1991) ("for discovery purposes, the court need only find that the circumstances surrounding the other accidents are similar enough that discovery concerning those incidents is reasonably calculated to lead to the uncovering of substantially similar occurrences"); Briney v. Deere Co., 150 F.R.D. 159, 163 (S.D. Ia. 1993), citing 8 Wright Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure, Civil § 2008 (1970) ("it is not too strong to say that a request for discovery should be considered relevant if there is any possibility that the information sought may be relevant to the subject matter of the action"). This Court has previously found that the discovery requested by Plaintiffs is reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Given the recent amendment of Plaintiffs' complaint, the requested discovery is even more relevant.
Defendant again conflates the strictures of admissibility at trial with the broad scope of the federal discovery rules. The holding of Campbell is not inconsistent with the Court's January 30, 2003 ruling that "substantial similarity" is the standard for admissibility at trial, not discovery. Defendant has not met its burden to establish that the Court's January 30, 2003 ruling was a manifest error of law. Accordingly, reconsideration on this ground is denied.
C. Undue Burden
Defendant again asserts that compliance would be unduly burdensome, this time offering a supporting affidavit by one of Defendant's employees. It is well-settled that a motion for reconsideration is "not 'the proper vehicle for rehashing old arguments or advancing legal theories that could have been presented earlier.'" Seibu Corp., 2001 WL 1658130, at *2. Indeed, the language of Rule 33 and the Advisory Committee Notes strongly suggests a presumption that all objections should be interposed in one consolidated response filed within the period allowed by Rule 33(b). This approach is consistent with the general philosophy of the pretrial disclosure discovery rules, namely to facilitate the swift and efficient disclosure of all information relevant to the subject matter of a case. See 8 Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller Richard L. Marcus, Federal Practice Procedure: Civil § 2001 (2d ed. 1994) ("The basic philosophy underlying [discovery] procedure was that prior to trial every party to a civil action is entitled to the disclosure of all relevant information in the possession of any person, unless the information is privileged."); FED. R. Civ. P. 26 (a)(1)-(4) (requiring that certain information be disclosed even without service of formal discovery requests); see also FED. R. Civ. P. 1 (describing the overall purpose of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as the "just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action."). Therefore, "litigants are expected to present their strongest case when the matter is first considered." Texas Instruments, Inc., 50 F. Supp.2d at 621.
Assuming, without deciding, that Defendant did not waive the undue burden objection by failing to specifically state it in its response to Interrogatory No. 21, Defendant wholly failed to meet its burden to show how the request was burdensome in its previous filings. A party opposing discovery bears the burden of showing why discovery should be denied. Beach v. City of Olathe, KS, 203 F.R.D. 489, 493 (D. Kan. 2001); Alexander v. FBI, 192 F.R.D. 50, 53 (D.D.C. 2000). In order to satisfy its burden, the objecting party must make a specific, detailed showing of how an interrogatory is burdensome. Alexander, 192 F.R.D. at 53. A mere statement by a party that an interrogatory is "overly broad, burdensome, oppressive and irrelevant" is not adequate to voice a successful objection. St. Paul Reinsurance Co. v. Commercial Financial Corp., 198 F.R.D. 508, 511-12 (N.D. Ia. 2000). Broad-based, non-specific objections are almost impossible to assess on their merits, and fall woefully short of the burden that must be borne by a party making an objection to an interrogatory or document request. Harding v. Dana Transport Inc., 914 F. Supp. 1084, 1102 (D.N.J. 1996).
Defendant has offered its evidence in a seriatim fashion after losing on its initial arguments and after the time for compliance has passed. Defendant has not shown why, through the exercise of due diligence, it could not have presented evidence of undue burden in its earlier filings. Further, the proffered evidence is not sufficiently specific to show why Defendant cannot comply at least in part with the Court's Orders, or what efforts it has made to try to comply with the Court's Orders. It is clear from the representations at the hearing that Defendant can produce at least some information responsive to Interrogatory No. 21. Accordingly,
M.S. Carriers, Inc.'s Motion for Reconsideration/Clarification of the Magistrate Judge's Discovery Order is hereby DENIED.