Loeber v. United States of America

Background

The plaintiffs brought claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act, a law that allows certain claims against the United States for conduct by its employees, based on alleged failures to report, warn, and protect and on negligence. The claims arose from Albert Wong’s shooting and killing of Marie Loeber at The Pathway Home in March 2018. The plaintiffs had also settled a related state-court case with California.

The United States argued that the settlement information was relevant because California Civil Code section 877 can prevent double recoveries from alleged joint tortfeasors. The plaintiffs sought to postpone answering some interrogatories, which asked for facts supporting their claims, and argued that the settlement documents were irrelevant and privileged.

Interrogatories

The court treated interrogatories numbered three and ten through sixteen as contention interrogatories, or questions seeking the factual basis for a party’s legal claims or defenses. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 33(a)(2) allows a court to delay answers to such questions until designated discovery is complete or until another appropriate time.

The court held that the plaintiffs could wait until discovery was almost complete to answer the disputed interrogatories. It noted that the plaintiffs would then have a more complete understanding of who they believed should have reported Wong’s threats. The court allowed any further disputes to be raised later and stated that it doubted the interrogatories were not proportional.

The plaintiffs also argued that interrogatory sixteen contained enough separate parts to exceed the 25-interrogatory limit. The court treated the interrogatory as covering six requests for admission and concluded that the United States had served 22 interrogatories on Donald Loeber and 23 on Marie Loeber. It therefore ruled that the United States had not exceeded the limit.

Settlement documents

The court ordered production of the settlement agreement, the state’s payee data record, and the order modifying the settlement agreement. It found the documents relevant and therefore discoverable, particularly because section 877 applied as substantive law in the case. The court rejected the plaintiffs’ reliance on evidence rules concerning admissibility, explaining that the standard for discovering information is different from the standard for admitting it at trial. The court also stated that the plaintiffs’ assertion that the settlement covered only noneconomic damages could be tested through discovery.

Disposition

The court ordered the plaintiffs to produce the three settlement documents but allowed them to wait to respond fully to the disputed contention interrogatories. This discovery order resolved ECF Nos. 87 and 88. It did not decide the underlying claims against the United States.