Wills v. City of Monterey

Background

Cynthia S Wills, representing herself, asserted that the City of Monterey violated her rights under the Eighth Amendment by effectively criminalizing involuntary homelessness. Her complaint described alleged threats of citations for illegal camping, threats to arrest her and impound her dog when she stayed at an art gallery with the manager’s permission, and an allegedly inadequate response to her complaints about stalking and harassment.

The City filed a discovery letter asking the court to require Wills to provide further answers to interrogatories, requests for admission, and requests for production of documents. Judge Edward Chen referred discovery issues to Magistrate Judge Merry J. Cisneros. After a March 12, 2024 hearing, Judge Cisneros ordered Wills to provide supplemental responses and documents by March 26, 2024.

Service and meet-and-confer requirements

Wills complained that City counsel had not followed Judge Chen’s earlier direction concerning communication by regular mail. The court declined to resolve her complaint because she did not identify the packages at issue or connect them to the discovery requests addressed in this order. The court reminded the defendants to comply with Judge Chen’s order going forward, but stated that the order did not prohibit large envelopes and that it was unclear whether tracked ground delivery violated the mail-service requirement.

The court held that Wills was required to meet and confer by telephone with counsel chosen by the City before bringing future discovery disputes to the court. The court found that joint discovery letters were not feasible and instead allowed the parties to submit separate letters of no more than three pages each. The City must file its letter by the next business day after meeting and conferring; Wills must file or mail hers by the same deadline. The court reserved the right to decide a dispute based only on the City’s letter if Wills’s letter was not received within four business days after she received the City’s letter.

Discovery cutoff and interrogatories

The court proceeded on the assumption that the March 28, 2024 fact-discovery deadline remained in effect because Judge Chen had not yet ruled on the City’s request to pause the case. The court denied Wills’s request, made at the hearing, to postpone the discovery issues until after that ruling.

The court overruled Wills’s objections and ordered her to answer or supplement the following interrogatories, generally to the extent of her personal knowledge: Interrogatory No. 1, concerning witnesses supporting her constitutional-rights claim; Nos. 3 through 5, concerning documents supporting her contentions about City ordinances, employees, and policies or practices; Nos. 6 through 8, concerning City-owned locations where she stayed overnight and City employees who contacted her; Nos. 10 and 11, concerning facts supporting alleged threats of arrest or citation; Nos. 12 and 13, concerning alleged harassment and an alleged unwritten policy to drive homeless people out of the City; and Nos. 14 and 15, concerning shelters, residences, and other places where she stayed. For stays outside Monterey, she could provide date ranges rather than specific locations.

The court ordered complete answers to Interrogatories Nos. 17 through 19 concerning employers, earnings, insurance, and benefits since January 2019, because the court found Wills’s financial means relevant to her claim. It also ordered her to identify medical or mental-health providers under Interrogatory No. 20 if she claimed physical or emotional injury. The court explained that federal law does not recognize a general physician-patient privilege, although it does recognize a psychotherapist privilege, and noted that this interrogatory sought provider identities rather than communications.

The court denied the City’s request to compel a response to Interrogatory No. 2 because the City had not provided the definition of “incident” needed to assess the request, making it vague and overly broad. The court denied the City’s request regarding Interrogatory No. 9 because the City had not specifically addressed that interrogatory. It also denied the request concerning Interrogatory No. 16 because Wills had already identified the gallery manager and the City had not specifically addressed the interrogatory.

Requests for admission

The court denied the City’s request for a further response to Request for Admission No. 1. Wills had responded to the request that she admit she was never arrested by stating, “ADMISSION. I WAS REPEATEDLY THREATENED WITH ARREST.” The court found that response was plainly an admission. The court also denied the City’s request for further responses to Requests for Admission Nos. 2 through 6, which concerned citations, fines, and other people allegedly arrested, cited, or fined. Wills had responded, “DENY. NOT FACTUAL,” and the court found that the record did not show the City had requested a factual basis for those denials.

Requests for production of documents

The court ordered Wills to produce non-privileged responsive documents in her possession for many requests. These included documents supporting her Eighth Amendment claim; documents identified in her initial disclosures; documents identified in her interrogatory responses; documents concerning alleged constitutional violations by City ordinances or employees; communications to the City about alleged rights violations; government claims; alleged City policies or practices concerning homeless people; the adequacy of shelter; arrests or citations threatened or issued by Monterey police employees; an alleged unwritten policy to harass homeless individuals; earnings and income; insurance and benefits; claimed physical or emotional injuries and damages; medical or mental-health treatment; and communications with other people or entities concerning her claims.

For the request concerning documents about travel to or from Monterey, the court overruled Wills’s objections in part and ordered her to produce non-privileged documents in her possession reflecting travel to or from the City for a period involving at least one overnight stay. The court denied the request for all documents relating to every location where Wills had resided or camped because it was overbroad and disproportionate. It also denied the request for documents relating to job descriptions, finding that the burden was not justified even though Wills’s income was relevant. The court ordered documents sufficient to show her earnings and income, rather than all documents reflecting income, and ordered documents sufficient to show insurance or other benefits.

The court stated that Wills did not have to produce documents outside her possession. If the City believed that a narrowly tailored set of documents held by third parties was critical, the parties had to meet and confer and submit new letter briefs. For documents withheld under a claimed privilege, Wills had to identify the documents as required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Deposition and disposition

The court ordered Wills’s deposition to proceed by videoconference on March 28, 2024, at 9:00 a.m., unless the parties agreed to another date, a party obtained a different court order, or the court stayed discovery. Wills was to appear alone in a room at an office provided by the defendants. The defendants had to provide notice of the location and inform Wills by telephone by March 21, 2024, and the location had to be within ten miles of Monterey unless the parties agreed otherwise.

In conclusion, the court ordered Wills to serve supplemental responses to Interrogatory Nos. 1, 3–8, 10–15, and 17–20 and produce documents responsive to Requests for Production Nos. 1–9, 11–14, and 16–21 by March 26, 2024. It ordered the parties to proceed with the deposition on March 28, 2024 unless the date changed. The court admonished Wills and all parties to cooperate in discovery and warned that similar conduct in the future could result in sanctions.