Bennett v. AT&T Services, Inc.

Background

The parties submitted a joint discovery letter brief. Yolonda Bennett moved to quash six subpoenas that AT&T Services, Inc. issued to her medical providers. The subpoenas sought comprehensive records concerning her medical conditions, testing, and billing beginning January 1, 2017. Bennett claimed several physical and psychological conditions and said she had suffered emotional distress.

Bennett agreed that some medical records were relevant because she placed emotional-distress damages at issue. She argued, however, that she should receive the records from the medical providers first, redact material she considered irrelevant, and provide AT&T with a log describing the redactions. The court declined to use that procedure. It stated that AT&T was entitled to determine whether Bennett’s medical problems, rather than the loss of her job, caused her emotional distress. The court also noted that Bennett had not disclosed all of her medical providers and that a protective order was available to protect the confidentiality of the records.

Discovery Rulings

The court denied Bennett’s motion to quash the subpoenas to third-party medical providers.

For Request for Production of Documents 1, Set 3, Bennett sought a “Report Preview” for Global Front Door projects with headings that would make the report comprehensible. AT&T said it had produced the documents in the format in which they were maintained, as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34(b)(2)(E)(i). The court denied Bennett’s request to require AT&T to create a new report.

For Request for Production of Documents 28, Set 1, Bennett sought documents showing the employees evaluated in the same reduction in force in which she lost her job. The court granted the motion to compel those documents and ordered AT&T to produce them by September 30, 2021.

For Requests for Production of Documents 7, 8, 9, and 10, Set 8, AT&T said it had conducted a reasonable search and could not find the requested documents. Bennett said she could provide a declaration concerning the documents’ location and the identities of the people who maintained them. The court denied this motion to compel without prejudice and stated that Bennett’s counsel should meet and confer with AT&T to ensure that AT&T searched the appropriate locations.

Classification and Effect

This was a discovery order. It resolved requests about subpoenas, document production, and the search for documents; it did not decide the underlying employment dispute. The order therefore affected Bennett’s access to discovery and AT&T’s obligations to produce information, while permitting further efforts concerning the documents that AT&T said it could not locate.