Witham v. Hershey Company, The

Background

Christopher Witham sued his former employer, The Hershey Company, alleging religious discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Minnesota Human Rights Act. He alleged that Hershey denied his request for a religious exemption from its COVID-19 vaccine mandate and terminated his employment in January 2022 after he refused vaccination. An earlier order dismissed his age, race, sex, and other claims, leaving his religious-discrimination claims.

This order addressed the parties’ cross-motions to compel discovery. A motion to compel asks the court to require an opposing party to provide discovery that was not adequately provided. The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26, which limits discovery to nonprivileged information relevant to a claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case.

Hershey’s Motion to Compel

The court ordered Witham to produce all text messages and email communications responsive to the previously identified requests for production. The production had to include the metadata and other accompanying information required by Hershey’s requests. The court found that Witham’s use of selected screenshots and other collection methods did not comply with the requests or the court’s earlier order. The court declined to require him to hire a discovery vendor, but warned that further noncompliance could lead to sanctions and that failure to take necessary steps could be considered evidence of willful noncompliance.

The court denied Hershey’s request concerning Witham’s financial information as moot because his counsel represented that he had produced all responsive documents concerning damages and his current employment. The court also denied the parties’ requests for sanctions based on alleged discovery misconduct.

Witham’s Motion to Compel

The court ordered Hershey to produce all accommodation-request files for employees who sought religious accommodation or exemption from Hershey’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Names and personally identifying information were to be redacted, and Hershey could designate the files as Attorneys’ Eyes Only under the protective order. Job titles and the names of requesting employees’ supervisors were not to be redacted. Hershey also had to provide copies of files it had already produced, updated if necessary, with those specified details unredacted.

The court denied Witham’s request to compel depositions of Employee Relations employees Kristie Celleri and Tory Niceswander because their testimony was likely to be unnecessarily duplicative of testimony from LaQuita Gary, who investigated and denied Witham’s accommodation request. The court also denied the request to compel a deposition of Chris Scalia, Hershey’s Chief Human Resources Officer, because Witham provided little legal or factual support for the claim that senior officials were involved in the accommodation process and because Hershey’s intent was not at issue.

The court granted Witham’s motion to compel documents concerning the criteria Hershey used to evaluate the consistency and sincerity of his religious beliefs, but only to the extent responsive documents existed and had not been produced. The court stated that Hershey had represented that it had produced all existing responsive documents and that the court could not order production of nonexistent documents.

The court denied without prejudice the portion of Witham’s motion concerning discovery about the costs and undue hardship associated with accommodating his religious beliefs. It treated that issue as unresolved or potentially settled because the parties gave little additional argument and indicated the information may already have been produced.

Disposition

The court ordered that The Hershey Company’s Motion to Compel was granted in part and denied in part, and that Christopher Witham’s Motion to Compel was granted in part and denied in part, as described in the order. The order was signed by United States Magistrate Judge John F. Docherty.