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Donegan v. Jackson3/4/2005
Decision
Before the Court is Plaintiff Elizabeth Donegan's ("Plaintiff") amended motion for sanctions and expenses incurred compelling the production of certain documents. At issue is the often deployed pretrial discovery tactic of seizing upon a narrow but objectionable aspect of an otherwise legitimate discovery request in order to avoid providing any response at all, until compelled to do so through added proceedings or the threat of added proceedings.
Specifically at issue are Plaintiff's requests for the "complete copy of the credentials files" of defendant doctors Neil Jackson and Laura Steinhandler, a/k/a Laura Hanley. These requests were numbered 5 and 6, respectively, and were part of a larger discovery effort. Specifically, requests 5 & 6 were but two items contained in a "Request for Production of Documents" served on defendant Women & Infants Hospital ("Women & Infants") on March 7, 2003, and filed in the court records on March 10, 2003. On the same date, Plaintiff also propounded various interrogatories upon defendants Neil Jackson, Laura Steinhandler and Women & Infants. Representing all three of the defendants, defense counsel of record, David Carroll, for the law firm Roberts, Carroll, Feldstein, & Pierce, Inc., responded to the Request for Production by objecting, on April 10, 2003, to all but 3 of the 15 propounded requests. Similarly, on April 15, 2003, Mr. Carroll objected to many of the interrogatory questions.
With respect to Request numbers 5 and 6 -- the requests for the two credentials files - Mr. Carroll objected, seizing upon the word "complete" and stating as a basis for his objection that "complete compliance with this Request for Production may well compromise the peer review privileges and other privileges acknowledged under the law." Mr. Carroll made no attempt to provide even a rudimentary explanation of what or how the claimed peer review privilege applied or what "other privileges" were meant. Nor did he indicate any willingness to produce those documents contained in the credentials files but which were not privileged. Mr. Carroll's objections to the other propounded requests for production were of similar caliber and, although he ultimately responded to those other requests, the history of their production is nearly as wearisome as that of the documents covered by requests numbered 5 and 6.
Of equal importance, many of the objections Mr. Carroll made to the interrogatories rested not upon any substantive failure in the question, but upon Plaintiff's requests that the answering parties respond in "complete detail." According to Mr. Carroll, this requirement rendered the question broad and harassing. Thus, despite the fact that a party must answer every interrogatory "to the extent the interrogatory is not objectionable," S.Ct.R.Civ.P. 33(a), and must show specifically how each discovery request is burdensome (the "mere statement by a party that the interrogatory [or request for production] was 'overly broad, burdensome, oppressive and irrelevant' is not adequate to voice a successful objection." St. Paul Reinsurance Co. v. Commer. Fin. Corp., 198 F.R.D. 508, 511-12 (N.D. Ia. 2000) (citing Josephs v. Harris Corp., 677 F.2d 985, 992 (3d Cir. 1982) (quoting Roesberg v. Johns-Manville Corp., 85 F.R.D. 292, 296-97 (E.D. Pa. 1980)). See also Oleson, 175 F.R.D. 560 at 565 (" he litany of overly burdensome, oppressive, and irrelevant does not alone constitute a successful objection to a discovery request") (citation omitted). "On the contrary, the party resisting discovery 'must show specifically how. . . each interrogatory [or request for production] is not relevant or how each question is overly broad, burdensome or op
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