Falk v. HP Inc.

          MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER

          B. Lynn Winmill Chief U.S. District Court Judge

         INTRODUCTION

         Pending before the Court is Plaintiff's Motion to Compel (Dkt. 37) and Defendant's Memorandum Brief on Disputed Discovery (Dkt. 36). For the reasons described below, the Court will grant Plaintiff's motion in part, deny it in part, and reserve ruling in part.

         LEGAL STANDARD

         Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b), as amended effective December 1, 2015, provides that:

[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, considering 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.

         This change to Rule 26(b) brings proportionality to the forefront in defining the appropriate scope of discovery. However, as explained in the Advisory Committee's note, the 2015 amendment was merely intended to codify principles that have long been implicit in this analysis:

This change reinforces the obligation of the parties to consider these [proportionality] factors in making discovery requests, responses or objections. Restoring the proportionality calculation to Rule 26(b)(1) does not change the existing responsibilities of the court and the parties to consider proportionality, and the change does not place on the party seeking discovery the burden of addressing all proportionality considerations.

Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b) advisory committee's note to 2015 amendment (emphasis added); see also Dao v. Liberty Life Assurance Co. of Boston, No. 14-CV-04749-SI (EDL), 2016 WL 796095, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 23, 2016) (“[W]hile the language of the Rule has changed, the amended rule does not actually place a greater burden on the parties with respect to their discovery obligations, including the obligation to consider proportionality, than did the previous version of the Rule.”); Vaigasi v. Solow Mgmt. Corp., No. 11-CV5088, 2016 WL 616386, at *13 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 16, 2016) (“[T]he 2015 Amendments constitute a reemphasis on the importance of proportionality in discovery but not a substantive change in the law.”).

         Pursuant to Rule 37, a party seeking discovery may move for an order compelling production by a party who has failed to answer an interrogatory or produce requested documents. Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(a)(3). While the moving party must make a threshold showing of relevance, see, e.g., Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 352 (1978), the party resisting discovery carries the “heavy burden” of showing specifically why the discovery request is irrelevant, unduly burdensome, disproportional to the needs of the case, or otherwise improper. See Blankenship v. Hearst Corp., 519 F.2d 418, 429 (9th Cir. 1975).

         ANALYSIS

         1. Organizing Production

         Pursuant to Rule 34(b)(2)(E)(i), Plaintiff had requested that Defendant organize or label the documents produced to correspond to the specific requests for production propounded by Plaintiff. Defendant has now agreed to provide indices which correspond Bates numbers with the Requests by number.^[1] In so doing, Defendant reiterates that they do not waive any work product privilege associated with identifying the documents by request, and that they preserve any relevant objections. Counsel notified the Court that this production had been made on July 30, 2018. The Court therefore finds that this issue is resolved.

         2. RFP 3 - Supervisor ...