Applegate v. California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation

Background

The court had scheduled an evidentiary hearing for June 23, 2022, to resolve factual disputes about whether Brian C. Applegate exhausted, or completed, the available administrative remedies for his claim that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) violated his requests for accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Applegate was representing himself at the time. The discovery dispute concerned the sufficiency of the CDCR’s responses to requests served by Applegate’s former counsel in October 2021 and the CDCR’s refusal to provide additional discovery requested by Applegate in March 2022.

The court had previously denied the CDCR’s motion for summary judgment and ordered an evidentiary hearing on exhaustion. The court had set November 19, 2021, as the cutoff for written discovery. Applegate’s former counsel served requests for admissions and requests for production on October 7, 2021. Counsel later withdrew, and Applegate made additional discovery requests on March 17, 2022.

Court’s Analysis

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) limits discovery to information relevant to a claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case. The court concluded that the disputed requests generally sought information relevant to the exhaustion hearing, but that the requests for admissions were not a useful way to resolve the disputed factual issues. The court said those issues could instead be explored through witness testimony and other evidence at the hearing.

For the October 2021 requests for production, the CDCR had generally stated that it was searching for responsive documents, would produce them, or would supplement its responses. The court treated the requested information as relevant and not burdensome. For request for production number 3, subpart 1, the court ordered the CDCR to produce responsive information concerning SVSP’s response to the Prison Law Office’s reporting of allegations that staff interfered with inmate appeals. The CDCR could withhold material protected by attorney-client privilege or the work-product doctrine and could redact information to address privacy concerns. The court directed production to Applegate by June 14, 2022.

The court found Applegate’s March 2022 discovery requests untimely because they were served after the November 19, 2021 deadline. To the extent those requests sought prison manuals about appeal processing, the court found that the subject was already covered by an earlier request for production. The CDCR could not, however, use the timing of the March requests to refuse to supplement its response to that earlier request if the later requests merely clarified it.

Applegate also requested sanctions for the CDCR’s discovery responses. The court denied sanctions. It found that the requests for admissions were not an effective method for narrowing the disputed issues, that the CDCR generally responded to the requests for production, and that the CDCR appropriately raised privilege and privacy concerns about request for production number 3, subpart 1.

Disposition

Judge Laurel Beeler denied Applegate’s motion to compel except that she ordered the CDCR to respond to request for production number 3, subpart 1, by delivering the discovery directly to Applegate by June 14, 2022, subject to the stated privilege, work-product, and privacy protections. Judge Beeler also denied the motion for sanctions. The order resolved ECF No. 101.