Murphy v. Minnesota Department of Human Services

Background

Plaintiffs produced more than 10,600 pages of documents in June and August 2019, about a year after fact discovery closed. Plaintiffs’ counsel obtained releases from class members and then requested documents directly from third-party lead agencies. The activity began after dispositive motions had been heard and while those motions were under advisement. Defendant was not aware of this activity until the June 2019 production, and the court was not informed until Defendant filed its motion in September 2019.

The scheduling orders set deadlines for fact discovery and for serving third-party subpoenas. The court had denied Plaintiffs’ earlier request to extend the subpoena deadline for lack of good cause. Plaintiffs argued that their collection of documents was informal investigation rather than discovery governed by those deadlines. They also argued that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(e), which requires parties to correct or update incomplete disclosures in some circumstances, required the late production.

Court’s Analysis

The court held that the motion was a nondispositive discovery matter within the magistrate judge’s authority to decide. It concluded that the documents collected through client releases and direct requests to third parties were fact discovery and were subject to the scheduling orders’ deadlines. Allowing a party to secretly collect information from third parties after discovery closed would undermine the purpose of those deadlines.

The court rejected Plaintiffs’ Rule 26(e) argument. It explained that supplementation generally corrects inaccurate disclosures or fills gaps based on information that was unavailable when the original disclosure was made. Plaintiffs did not show that the documents were created after fact discovery closed, that they corrected earlier information, or that they could not have been collected earlier. The court therefore found that the production was not proper supplementation and was untimely even if it had qualified as supplementation.

Remedy and Disposition

Under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 16 and 37, the court determined that exclusion of the documents was an appropriate sanction for violating the scheduling deadlines and disclosure requirements. The late production was not substantially justified, and allowing Plaintiffs to use the documents without reopening discovery would prejudice Defendant. Plaintiffs preferred exclusion rather than reopening discovery, and the court adopted that approach.

Defendant’s request for relief was GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. The documents collected by Plaintiffs after the discovery cutoff were excluded, and neither party could use them at trial unless the District Judge permitted their use for impeachment. Plaintiffs also had to provide Defendant copies of the collected documents within 21 days, unless the materials were privileged or protected by the work-product doctrine; if protection was claimed, Plaintiffs had to provide a log within 21 days. The court required Plaintiffs to withdraw any pending third-party requests made through this process and stated that it would impose no additional sanctions.