United States District Court, D. Idaho
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.
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