United States District Court, D. Alaska
ORDER AND OPINION [RE: MOTIONS AT DOCS. 21,
26]
JOHN
W. SEDWICK SENIOR JUDGE, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
I.
MOTION PRESENTED
At
docket 21 Plaintiff Eileen Johnson ("Plaintiff")
filed a motion to compel discovery from Defendant Solara, LLC
(“Solara”) arguing that Solara has refused to
cooperate with her discovery requests by making generalized
objections. Solara responded at docket 25. Plaintiff replied
at docket 27. Oral argument was requested at docket 26 but
would not be of assistance to the court.
II.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff
had been employed by Solara for over ten years before her
termination in February of 2018. During the relevant time
period, Plaintiff held the position of Solara's
“Practice Manager” and was paid a salary plus
commission. After her termination, she filed this lawsuit
against Solara alleging labor law violations and age
discrimination. She alleges that “she was improperly
classified as an exempt employee, even though her primary
duties were clearly not supervisory” and consequently
she was never paid for her overtime work in violation of the
Fair Labor Standards Act[1] and the Alaska Wage and Hour
Act.[2]
She also alleges that her supervisor “treated her [in]
a disparate manner based on her age” in violation of
the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.[3] Specifically, she
alleges that her supervisor, Joe Saunders, treated new
employee Trisha Torborg, who unlike Plaintiff was under 40,
more favorably.
III.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
Pursuant
to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) “[p]arties
may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that
is relevant to any party's claim or defense and
proportional to the needs of the case . . .
.”[4] Proportionality is determined by "the
importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount
in controversy, the parties' relative access to relevant
information, the parties' resources, the importance of
the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden
or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely
benefit."[5] Relevant information does not need to be
admissible to be discoverable.[6] The court must limit the
requested discovery if it is shown to be “unreasonably
cumulative or duplicative”; if “the party seeking
discovery has had ample opportunity to obtain the
information”; or if needed to enforce the appropriate
scope of discovery.[7]
On a
motion to compel, the party seeking to compel discovery has
the initial burden of establishing that her request satisfies
the relevancy requirements of Rule 26(b).[8] In turn, the
party opposing discovery has the burden to demonstrate that
discovery should not be allowed and must explain and support
its objections with competent evidence.[9]
IV.
DISCUSSION
Plaintiff
propounded nine interrogatories and forty-three requests for
production to Solara. Solara responded by objecting to most
all of the requested discovery based on a boilerplate
assertion of irrelevance, vagueness, overbreadth, and
privilege. After some correspondence between the parties,
they were able to narrow the dispute to cover about twenty of
Plaintiff's discovery requests. The parties remain in
conflict over the scope of Plaintiff's request for
emails; what evidence is relevant and reasonable in relation
to the issue of Plaintiff's job duties; what is
discoverable with regard to other employees' time and
pay; and whether financial information about Solara is
relevant.
Emails
RFP
No. 1.
Plaintiff
requests all emails sent to or from her work email address
from April 2015 through April 5, 2018. Solara objected to the
request, arguing that it is far too broad and ambiguous.
While not at all ambiguous, the request is broad in its
scope. Not each and every email in Plaintiff's email
accounts is relevant or necessary to prove the claims in this
case. However, emails located in Plaintiff's work email
account that relate to her performance, duties, and pay
clearly are and should be provided. Solara contends that it
has since turned over thousands of emails, but it has not
provided information about what types of emails were turned
over, where the emails came from, and whether they include
emails from Plaintiff's work accounts. Solara is directed
to comply with Plaintiff's request for relevant emails
from her work account or certify that it has already provided
them to her.
RFP
No. 2.
Plaintiff
requests all emails from April 2015 through April 5, 2018
sent by or to Joe Saunders that mention her name. Again,
while the request is quite broad in its scope, it does touch
on relevant material. Any emails sent by or to
Plaintiff's supervisor on his Solara email accounts
relating to Plaintiff's performance, duties, pay, or age
are relevant here and should be turned over. To the extent
Plaintiff asks that emails from her supervisor's personal
accounts be turned over, there is no basis to suggest that
Solara has possession or control over such emails or that her
supervisor conducted business through his personal email
accounts. Again, Solara contends that it has since turned
over thousands of emails but has not provided information
about what types of emails were turned over, where the emails
came from, and whether they include emails from Joe
Saunders's work accounts. Solara is directed to comply
with Plaintiff's request for relevant emails from Joe
Saunders's work email accounts or certify that it has
already provided them to her.
RFP
No. 3.
Plaintiff
requests all emails from April 2015 through April 5, 2018
sent to or by Trisha Torborg through her personal email
accounts and any other email or messaging accounts
“that Defendant has possession and/or control to
access” and that mention Plaintiff's name. Emails
sent to or by Trisha Torborg that are covered by RFP Nos. 1
and 2 are of course discoverable. That is, relevant email
exchanges between Plaintiff and Trisha Torborg or Joe
Saunders and Trisha Torborg found in Solara email accounts
are within Solara's ...