Regal v. County of Santa Clara

Background

Plaintiffs sought review of a nondispositive pretrial order—an order resolving a pretrial issue without finally deciding the case—issued by Magistrate Judge Nathanael M. Cousins. The dispute concerned Plaintiffs’ request to depose a designee of Defendant County of Santa Clara under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6) about specified topics.

Judge Cousins denied the request after finding that the proposed topics were unreasonably duplicative of Plaintiffs’ first Rule 30(b)(6) notice and not proportional to the needs of the case under Rule 26(b)(1). He also found that the burden of the proposed discovery outweighed its likely benefit, particularly because fact discovery was scheduled to close the next day.

Standard of Review

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a), the district court could modify the magistrate judge’s nondispositive discovery order only if it was clearly erroneous or contrary to law. A finding is clearly erroneous when the reviewing court is left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake was made. An order is contrary to law when it fails to apply or misapplies relevant statutes, case law, or procedural rules. The district court may not simply substitute its judgment for the magistrate judge’s judgment.

Ruling

Judge Freeman found that Plaintiffs had not shown that relief was warranted. Although Plaintiffs’ brief did not expressly identify or argue the Rule 72(a) standard, the court understood it to challenge Judge Cousins’ factual findings about duplication and the relative burdens and benefits of the proposed discovery. The court held that those findings were not clearly erroneous. It also found that Judge Cousins had not failed to apply or misapplied the relevant law.

The court denied Plaintiffs’ motion for relief from Judge Cousins’ nondispositive pretrial order.