Lopez v. Lee
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:23-cv-03660
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In Andrew Lopez v. M. Lee, Judge Gilliam ordered witness Richard Winson to show cause and granted discovery-related requests while denying another as moot.
Richard Winson is required to respond to the show-cause order or attend the deposition under the order’s conditions. Defendants may pursue Winson’s deposition under an extended discovery schedule. The order also affects Andrew Lopez’s case schedule but does not decide his underlying claims.
What happened
Andrew Lopez v. M. Lee is a civil-rights case brought by Lopez, an inmate representing himself, over alleged retaliation at Pelican Bay State Prison. He alleges prison officers limited his phone, yard, and shower time because of his grievance activity.
Lopez identified Richard Winson as a witness. Defendants subpoenaed Winson to attend a deposition, but he did not appear. Defendants asked the court to require Winson to explain why he should not be held in contempt and to extend the deadline for completing fact discovery. They also requested more time to seek an order compelling Lopez to respond to a document request.
Judge Haywood Gilliam granted the request requiring Winson to show cause and extended fact discovery so Defendants could try to depose him after serving a second subpoena. The court said Winson could avoid contempt and monetary sanctions by responding or by attending the deposition under the conditions described in the order. The court denied as moot Defendants’ request for more time to seek an order compelling Lopez’s document-request response because Defendants withdrew that request, and it reset several case deadlines.
The detailed version
- Lopez v. Lee · No. 4:23-cv-03660
- Haywood Gilliam
- Nov. 21, 2025
Background
Andrew Lopez filed a pro se civil-rights action concerning events at Pelican Bay State Prison. He alleges that prison officers S. Cupp, Hamner, Cross, M. Lee, Brewer, and K. Davis retaliated against him for his grievance activity between May 2020 and March 2021 by denying or limiting his phone time, yard time, and shower time.
During Lopez’s April 15, 2025 deposition, he identified Richard Winson, another inmate, as a witness. Defendants served Winson with a subpoena commanding him to appear for a deposition on September 11, 2025. The opinion says that Winson confirmed by telephone that he had received the subpoena and would attend, but custody staff later informed defense counsel that Winson did not appear.
Rulings on Defendants’ Requests
The court granted Defendants’ request for an order requiring Winson to show cause—meaning to explain why a contempt citation should not issue—for failing to comply with the deposition subpoena. The court also granted Defendants’ request to extend fact discovery so they could attempt to depose Winson after properly serving a second subpoena.
The court ordered Winson to file a written response by December 5, 2025, explaining why a contempt citation and monetary sanctions should not be imposed. The order states that if Winson did not respond by that date, the court would enter a contempt citation and monetary sanctions. It also states that no contempt citation or monetary sanctions would be imposed if Winson attended and participated in the deposition before the deadline, and that monetary sanctions would be lifted if he attended after sanctions were imposed.
The court denied as moot Defendants’ separate request for more time to file a motion seeking to compel Lopez’s response to Defendant Hamner’s document request. The court stated that Defendants had withdrawn that request.
Schedule and Disposition
The order reset the deadline for Defendants to depose Winson to December 5, 2025, the dispositive-motion deadline to December 29, 2025, the opposition deadline to January 30, 2026, and the reply deadline to February 13, 2026. The schedule also lists September 30, 2025, as the fact-discovery deadline, with an exception for Defendants’ discovery concerning Winson. The order terminates docket entries 79 and 81. It does not decide the underlying civil-rights claims.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.