Luckert v. Gutierrez
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:19-cv-08204
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Luckert v. Smith, Judge Hamilton granted sealing of medical records and denied discovery while ordering defendants to provide the deposition transcript.
Michael L Luckert, a detained plaintiff proceeding without a lawyer, must receive a copy of his deposition transcript and file an opposition to the summary-judgment motion by June 27, 2022. Defendants must send the transcript, and the medical records covered by the order are to be filed under seal.
What happened
In Luckert v. O. Smith, et al., a detained plaintiff without a lawyer asked for discovery and a copy of his deposition transcript while defendants asked to seal medical records attached to their summary-judgment motion.
The court granted defendants’ request to seal the records because they contained private health information. It denied the plaintiff’s discovery request because he had not followed the court’s earlier instructions, but ordered defendants to send him the deposition transcript. The plaintiff also was ordered to file his opposition to the summary-judgment motion by June 27, 2022.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton issued the order on May 23, 2022. The order addressed sealing and discovery; it did not decide the underlying summary-judgment motion.
The detailed version
- Luckert v. Gutierrez · No. 4:19-cv-08204
- Phyllis Hamilton
- May 23, 2022
Background
Michael L Luckert, a detainee proceeding without a lawyer, brought a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment and included medical records from Jail Health Services and the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Defendants asked the court to file those records under seal because they contained sensitive and private health information.
Luckert also filed a motion seeking discovery and a copy of his deposition transcript. The court noted that his discovery request was only two sentences long and that he had not followed instructions previously given in the case.
Court’s Analysis and Rulings
The court explained that the party seeking to seal documents bears the burden of showing that sealing is justified, and that requests must be narrowly limited to material entitled to legal protection. The court found that defendants met that burden to protect Luckert’s private health information and comply with federal and state law.
The court therefore granted defendants’ motion to file the records under seal and requested that the clerk file the records under seal.
The court denied Luckert’s motion for discovery because he had failed to follow the court’s instructions. It also stated that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure did not require defendants to provide a litigant proceeding without a lawyer and without funds with a copy of his deposition transcript. Nevertheless, because Luckert was incarcerated and proceeding without a lawyer, the court ordered defendants to send him a copy of the transcript.
Disposition
Defendants’ motion to file records under seal was GRANTED. Luckert’s motion was DENIED, but defendants were ordered to send him the deposition transcript. The court directed Luckert to file an opposition to the summary-judgment motion by June 27, 2022, and warned that failing to do so might result in dismissal of the action. Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton signed the order. This order did not rule on the merits of the pending summary-judgment motion.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.