Jannetta v. Minnesota Dept. of Human Services

Background

The plaintiffs sued the Minnesota Department of Human Services and several employees of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP). After earlier rulings, the case was limited to claims seeking prospective injunctive relief against individual defendants in their official capacities. The surviving claims allege that MSOP Policy 420-5230, concerning clients’ possession of media, violates the First and Fourth Amendments. The policy largely restricts videos that are unrated or not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America.

The order notes that David Jannetta died on January 1, 2021. Steven Hogy, Merlin Adolphson, and Kenneth Daywitt told the court that they would continue the lawsuit. The opinion identifies those three plaintiffs as representing themselves without lawyers.

Motion to Compel

The plaintiffs argued that eight of fifteen interrogatory responses were incomplete, evasive, or based on improper objections. They sought additional answers and $300 in costs for each plaintiff. The court applied the discovery rules, which allow requests for nonprivileged information relevant and proportional to the needs of the case. The court emphasized that discovery must be limited when it is irrelevant, unduly burdensome, or disproportionate.

The court denied relief concerning interrogatory 2 because the request for every member of the Media Review Committee since 2007 was disproportionate and the remaining claims challenged the policy, not the qualifications of particular committee members. The defendants had provided information about people who developed the policy and earlier versions of it.

The court also concluded that interrogatory 6, concerning the Kruger settlement, sought irrelevant information. The plaintiffs were not parties to that settlement, and the court determined that the settlement did not govern the current policy. The court declined to compel additional answers to interrogatories 7 and 8 because the plaintiffs did not show that the defendants’ responses were inadequate, and the defendants stated that no specific media-review training documents existed other than the policy itself.

The court granted the motion in part as to interrogatories 9 and 10. Those interrogatories sought information about the evidence supporting different treatment of unrated and not-rated videos compared with videos that could be reviewed, such as R-rated videos. The court found that the defendants’ reasons for treating the videos differently were important to evaluating the surviving claims. It ordered the defendants to answer those interrogatories and list any existing official records, written statements, policies, or documents from the previous five years addressing why unrated and not-rated videos were difficult to review and why the policy justified treating them differently.

The court denied further relief concerning interrogatory 11 because requiring thirteen years of data would be overly broad and unduly burdensome. The defendants had already provided seven years of media-review records. The court also declined to compel the production sought by interrogatory 12 because reviewing every relevant notice and redacting other MSOP clients’ personal information would be unduly burdensome.

The order therefore states that the motion to compel was GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. The defendants were required to answer interrogatories 9 and 10 within fourteen days of the order, and the motion was denied in all other respects.

Motion for Appointment of Counsel

The plaintiffs moved for appointment of counsel after the court had previously denied a request for referral to a federal bar association project. Judge Eric C. Tostrud had denied the plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration of that earlier ruling. The court explained that civil litigants generally have no constitutional or statutory right to appointed counsel. Because there had been no significant change in circumstances, the court denied the motion for appointment of counsel without prejudice. It stated that the plaintiffs could renew the request if the case proceeded to trial.

Motion to Preserve Evidence

The plaintiffs asked the court to require preservation of all emails and instant messages received by Dr. Nicole Elsen during a video deposition on October 13, 2020. They believed she had been coached because she sometimes took several minutes to answer, looked at her computer screen, and appeared to receive instant messages.

The defendants said they had searched the communications and found nothing relevant to disclose. The court found the plaintiffs’ evidence of coaching speculative and concluded that they had not made the required threshold showing that the communications were discoverable and relevant to the case. The court therefore denied the motion to preserve evidence.

Order

The court denied the motion for appointment of counsel and denied the motion to preserve evidence. It ordered each party to bear its own costs and attorney fees. The court also stated that prior consistent orders remained in effect and that noncompliance could lead to appropriate remedies or sanctions.