Opinion
No. 01 C 2290.
March 18, 2002
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiff in this employment discrimination case has filed two more discovery motions seeking to obtain evidence from the defendant, Northern Trust. One seeks leave to compel the defendant to comply with various parts of her fifth set of document requests, fourth set of requests for admissions, sixth set of interrogatories, and an extra interrogatory she served with leave of court. The second motion asks that the Court determine the sufficiency of defendant's objections to her fifth set of requests for admissions. As is apparent from the mere recitation of the substance of the motions, discovery in the case is getting out of hand. A review of the plaintiffs requests indicates that many of them relate to discovery issues that the parties have been discussing and disputing for months, and which the plaintiff believes have not been adequately addressed. We do not entirely agree with plaintiffs characterization of what documents are still outstanding and/or even relevant to her claims, but find that in order to put an end to some of the outstanding discovery disputes they need to be addressed. Therefore, since plaintiffs motion for leave to file a motion to compel contains argument and nine exhibits, we will consider it her motion to compel. As explained below, we grant some of her requests and deny some others outright, and allow the defendant to file a response to the remaining requests before we make a final determination about them.
Plaintiffs Fifth Request for Production of Documents:
This request encompassed 14 separate categories of documents, of which plaintiff has withdrawn two and one subpart of a third. Many of the requests cover documents which were (or should have been) already produced. For example, in open court, defendant stated that it would search for any e-mail documents that are referenced in other, already produced e-mails. Thus, to the extent it can, defendant must certify to the plaintiff that it has looked for and produced, or is unable to locate, all documents responsive to each request. For any requests that the defendant objects to on relevance grounds, it may file a short brief explaining its objection, to which the plaintiff may reply. Defendant does not need to identify documents it has already produced by bates label according to the plaintiffs newly listed categories. Northern Trust has already identified the documents as responsive to earlier requests; it does not need to review them a second time and recategorize them according to plaintiffs additional theories of her case. Plaintiffs Fourth Set of Requests to Admit
For example, request seven asks Defendant to produce or identify all documents which it relies on "to support Kay Vicino's alleged reasons for her reluctance to appoint Plaintiff as Valuations Team Leader." Plaintiff has already deposed Vicino and still has time remaining to complete the deposition. She can question Vicino about her alleged reluctance then.
A number of plaintiffs requests to admit are not proper, as they do not seek the admission of facts relevant to the case, but instead attempt to "test" various employees of defendant on their diligence in searching for documents. Rule 36 is not a discovery device, but rather a procedure for obtaining admissions for the record of facts already known by the seeker. 8A Charles Alan Wright. Arthur R. Miller Richard L. Marcus, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2253 (1994). "The purpose of Rule 36 is to allow parties to narrow the issues to be resolved at trial by effectively identifying and eliminating those matters on which the parties agree." United States v. Kasuboski, 834 F.2d 1345, 1350 (7th Cir. 1987) cited in Anderson v. City of Wood Dale, Illinois, No. 93 C 425, 1997 WL 43417 (N.D.Ill., January 28, 1997). Requests to admit 1, 2, and 3 are not designed for this purpose, indeed, they appear to challenge the defendant's veracity regarding its search for documents. Therefore, defendant's objections to requests 1, 2, and 3 are upheld.
Requests to admit 4 through 22 are apparently designed to support plaintiffs belief that defendant's EEO officer, Richard Bordelon, intentionally submitted a position statement and documentary evidence to the EEOC that misrepresented various facts regarding plaintiffs complaints of discrimination and the racial makeup of plaintiff's department and of individuals who were promoted to 2nd Vice President. Regardless of the possible relevancy of this inquiry, requests 8, 9, 10, 13, 21 and 22 are vague, and thus improperly worded, so defendant's objections to them are upheld.
For example, requests 8 and 9 ask defendant to admit whether Bordelon "purposefully" omitted certain information about the plaintiff from his position statement to the EEOC. The word "purposefully" is vague and subject to differing interpretations and thus these requests are improper. Similarly, the words "accurately" and "knowingly misled" (sic) are vague and thus improper subjects of requests to admit.
The remaining requests to admit are arguably proper, even though some of them ask for admissions of opinions. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 36. However, since the subject matter of some of the requests has already been discussed in depositions, interrogatories, and previous briefs filed with the Court, we will allow the defendant to file a response brief before deciding whether to order it to either admit, deny, or set forth in detail the reasons it can do neither to requests 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23 and 24. We recognize that Northern Trust believes that content of its submissions to the EEOC was entirely proper. However, defendant's reasons for making certain submissions, and the plaintiffs different opinion about those reasons, is not a proper subject of this motion. The parties will have the opportunity to discuss the legal implications of each of their actions in the context of a motion for summary judgment or at trial.
Plaintiffs Interrogatory Served With Leave of Court
In open court and pursuant to our January 24, 2002 order, we allowed the plaintiff to serve an additional interrogatory, with subparts, "regarding the identification of team leaders and employees under the supervision of plaintiffs supervisors from January, 1998 to December, 1999." The interrogatory plaintiff eventually served, with eleven discrete subparts, asks for information beyond the scope contemplated by our order. Thus, Northern Trust is ordered to answer subparts a, b, c, and j of the interrogatory only, except that for subpart j, Northern Trust should identify every employee who worked on each team identified in subpart b.
Plaintiffs Sixth Set of Interrogatories
Defendant indicates in its objections to these interrogatories that it intends to file a protective order regarding them and we will allow it to do so before examining the substance of any of the requests. Plaintiff will be given the opportunity to file a brief reply.
For the above reasons, plaintiffs motion for leave to file a motion to compel is granted and the actual motion to compel is granted in part, denied in part and defendant is allowed the opportunity to respond to the remaining matters before we render a decision. Defendant must file its response brief by March 29, 2002; plaintiff must file her reply by April 8, 2002. It is so ordered.