Chinitz v. Intero Real Estate Services
- Beth Freeman
- 5:18-cv-05623
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Chinitz v. Intero Real Estate Services, Judge Freeman denied Intero’s request to overturn a magistrate judge’s discovery ruling.
Intero Real Estate Services, which sought additional discovery, and plaintiffs Ruby Mitchell and Edward J. Kelly, who opposed that request.
What happened
In Chinitz v. Intero Real Estate Services, Intero Real Estate Services asked the court to overturn a magistrate judge’s refusal to require additional documents from plaintiffs. The dispute involved several interrogatories and document requests.
Intero argued that its requests were not too broad and were reasonable for the needs of the case. Plaintiffs Ruby Mitchell and Edward J. Kelly responded that they had adequately answered and that the additional documents were too broad and invasive.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman found no clear error and ruled that the magistrate judge’s legal conclusion did not conflict with the law. She denied Intero’s motion for relief from the magistrate judge’s pretrial discovery order.
The detailed version
- Chinitz v. Intero Real Estate Services · No. 5:18-cv-05623
- Beth Freeman
- July 28, 2021
Background
Intero Real Estate Services asked Judge Beth Labson Freeman to provide relief from a non-dispositive pretrial order issued by Magistrate Judge Nathanael M. Cousins. The challenged order denied Intero’s motion to compel documents in response to Interrogatories Nos. 1 and 8 and Requests for Production Nos. 6 and 9.
Intero argued that its discovery requests were not overbroad and were proportional to the needs of the case. Plaintiffs Ruby Mitchell and Edward J. Kelly opposed the motion, asserting that they had adequately responded and that the additional documents Intero sought were overbroad and invasive.
Legal standard and analysis
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a), a district court may modify or set aside a magistrate judge’s non-dispositive pretrial order if it is clearly erroneous or contrary to law. The court reviews factual determinations for clear error and legal conclusions to determine whether they are contrary to law.
After reviewing the briefing and Judge Cousins’s decision, Judge Freeman found no clear error and determined that Judge Cousins’s legal conclusion was not contrary to law. The opinion states that Judge Cousins found Intero’s requested information overly broad and not proportional to the needs of the case. The provided opinion text ends during that discussion.
Ruling
The court denied Intero Real Estate Services’s motion for relief from the non-dispositive order of the magistrate judge. The order was signed by United States District Judge Beth Labson Freeman.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.