A.L. v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:24-cv-06580
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
Counsel of record per CourtListener. Firm names are approximate and have been consolidated across spelling variants.
In A.L. v. United States, Magistrate Judge Alex Gy Tse denied the plaintiffs’ requests for documents, a privilege log, and a resumed deposition.
The plaintiffs and the United States, regarding the plaintiffs’ discovery requests in the case.
What happened
In A.L., et al. v. United States of America, et al., the plaintiffs sought criminal-investigation and criminal-case records about certain individuals, a privilege log, and permission to resume a deposition. They argued the records could help address equitable tolling of the statute of limitations.
The United States opposed the requests, arguing that the records were not relevant, that much of the information could be obtained from incarcerated people, and that producing and redacting the records would be too burdensome. The court agreed that the requests were overly broad, insufficiently connected to equitable tolling, and disproportionate to the needs of the case.
The court denied all of the plaintiffs’ requests, including the request for a privilege log because no additional document production was ordered and the request to resume the deposition. Magistrate Judge Alex Gy Tse issued the order.
The detailed version
- A.L. v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA · No. 4:24-cv-06580
- Yvonne Rogers
- Sept. 9, 2026
Background
The plaintiffs sought discovery from the United States in the form of nonprivileged, nonduplicative criminal-investigation and criminal-case materials concerning certain named individuals. They said the materials could show which incarcerated people complained to the Bureau of Prisons or other entities, what those communications said, and what government investigators did in response.
The plaintiffs also requested privilege logs for withheld materials and asked to resume a deposition. The United States opposed the requests.
Reasons for the Ruling
The court agreed with the United States that the requested documents were not shown to be relevant to the equitable-tolling analysis at issue for the bellwether plaintiffs. Equitable tolling is a fact-specific exception that may extend a filing deadline. The court stated that the plaintiffs sought an overly broad group of documents without sufficiently showing how they related to that analysis, and that discovery may not be used as a fishing expedition.
The court also considered the parties’ relative access to the information. The United States argued that plaintiffs could obtain much of it by asking incarcerated people directly. Although the plaintiffs responded that witness recollections were not a substitute for government records made at the time, the court concluded that ordering the United States to produce the records would not be proportional to the needs of the case.
Finally, the United States argued that responding to the requests would be unduly burdensome because innumerable documents would require manual review and redaction. The plaintiffs did not address that burden in their letter brief. The court found that the burden outweighed the likely benefit of the proposed discovery.
Disposition
The court denied the plaintiffs’ requests in Docket No. 263. It would not order the United States to produce the requested documents. Because the court was not ordering further production, it found the privilege-log issue moot, meaning that issue no longer required a ruling. The court also denied the request to resume the deposition. Magistrate Judge Alex Gy Tse signed the order.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.