Grizzard v. Cortese

Background

Elijah Grizzard sought an order compelling defendants Thomas Cortese and US Foods to respond to additional discovery demands concerning the accident at issue. He also sought permission to make a motion for a protective order or to enter a stipulated protective order. The defendants opposed the requested discovery, arguing that some requested materials did not exist or were not in their possession, while other requests were irrelevant, overly broad, burdensome, privileged, or equally available to Grizzard.

The court noted that Grizzard filed his request two days before fact discovery closed, despite an earlier 45-day extension and a warning that no further extensions would be granted. Because the discovery deadline had passed, the court ordered the parties to submit a proposal by May 13, 2025, for concluding discovery.

Rulings on the Discovery Demands

- Demand No. 2 — Application denied. The court accepted defense counsel’s representation that defendants were not in possession of the requested instruction manual. - Demand No. 3 — Application granted in part. The court found that written internal communications about the accident could be relevant despite Grizzard’s depositions. Defendants must produce accident-related documents located through a reasonable search, except for documents protected by attorney-client privilege, the work-product doctrine, or another applicable privilege. - Demands Nos. 4, 5, and 6 — Applications granted. Defendants were ordered to produce materials within their possession or control that fall within these requests. - Demand Nos. 14 and 15 — Applications granted. The court found information about Cortese’s prior driving of Route 3270 relevant to his familiarity with the route and ordered production despite the asserted difficulty of searching the database. - Demand Nos. 16 and 19 — Applications granted. Based on the representations before it, the court understood that the Omnitracs software tracks the truck’s movements and speed. The court found data collected on the accident date seemingly relevant and ordered production. The defendants could pursue a protective order if they believed one was necessary. - Demand Nos. 22 through 33 — Applications granted. The court rejected defendants’ position that training materials concerning reporting accidents to the Department of Transportation were entirely irrelevant and ordered production in light of testimony from Mr. Vagianos. - Demand No. 34 — Application granted. If defendants had produced materials to the Department of Transportation because of the accident, they were ordered to produce those materials. If no such materials existed, the request was deemed moot. - Demand No. 35 — Application granted in part. The court accepted that defendants did not possess data extractable directly from the TGT box. But because testimony referred to reports generated from the system, the court expected defendants to produce any relevant reports from the accident date.

Disposition

The court’s order granted, denied, or granted in part the discovery applications as specified above. It directed the clerk to terminate the pending motion at docket 16. The opinion text supplied here is partially corrupted in places, including the sentence stating the overall disposition, but the individual demand-by-demand rulings and the final order are readable.