Jackson v. Minnesota Department of Human Services

Background

Deidre Sherell Jackson represented herself in an employment case against the Minnesota Department of Human Services. The court previously described her remaining claims as race discrimination, retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and denial of procedural due process. Earlier, some claims had been dismissed, including certain claims related to a February 2019 written reprimand and color-discrimination claims.

Jackson filed a motion to compel answers to seven interrogatories and responses to two document requests. The Department argued that some requests were irrelevant, overly broad, burdensome, disproportionate to the needs of the case, or sought information it did not possess. Jackson also filed a proposed motion to compel and a motion titled “Motion of Compiling with Complying Requests,” accompanied by nearly 500 pages of documents.

Discovery Rulings

The court granted Jackson’s motion with respect to Interrogatory Nos. 2 and 5. Those requests concerned events leading to Jackson’s December 2019 suspension. The court held that the information was relevant to her remaining discrimination and retaliation claims. It declined to treat the Department’s reliance on a settlement and release agreement as a basis to end discovery on those claims, explaining that doing so would effectively decide the claims themselves.

The court granted Jackson’s motion in part and denied it in part as to Interrogatory No. 6. The Department was ordered to identify individuals who made complaints connected to 2019 issues involving its Respectful Workplace policy. It also had to identify the Bates numbers for Jackson’s produced annual performance reviews, if it had not already done so, so that Jackson could determine her overall ratings. The court otherwise denied the request, including requests for complainants’ race and ethnicity and identities connected to 2018 communication issues and the February 2019 reprimand.

The court granted Jackson’s motion in part as to Interrogatory No. 8. The Department had to identify five articles it had found through a search for materials concerning the Behavioral Health Division and a “hostile” or “toxic” work environment. The court otherwise denied the motion because it was not clear that Jackson had asserted a legally recognized hostile-work-environment claim, and searching employee complaints would be disproportionate to the needs of the case.

The court denied the motion as to Interrogatory No. 10. That request sought information about discrimination complaints, charges, lawsuits, settlements, or intentions to sue involving any Department supervisor. The court found the request too broad and insufficiently connected to Jackson’s claims, which concerned alleged racial discrimination in the Behavioral Health Division and did not justify discovery about the Department’s entire supervisory pool.

As to Interrogatory No. 12, the court denied the motion in part to the extent Jackson sought interview-panel scores for the person selected for the Moving Home Minnesota position because the Department said it did not have those scores. The court granted the motion in part to the extent the Department had not responded to Interrogatory No. 18 and had not supplemented its response to Interrogatory No. 13 with responsive leave information.

The court denied the motion as to Interrogatory No. 13, which sought hiring demographics for positions in the Behavioral Health Division. It found that the requested information had, at most, marginal relevance and that the burden of compiling it was disproportionate to its likely benefit.

The court denied the motion as to Document Request No. 5 because the Department stated that it did not maintain the requested records concerning the race of suspended employees. A party cannot be compelled to produce documents it does not have.

The court granted the motion in part as to Document Request No. 6. The Department had to identify the five articles resulting from its search concerning a “hostile” or “toxic” work environment in the Behavioral Health Division. The court otherwise denied the motion.

Other Motions and Order

The court interpreted Jackson’s proposed motion to compel as a proposed order connected to her original motion, not as a new motion, and administratively terminated it. The court denied Jackson’s “Motion of Compiling with Complying Requests” without prejudice because it did not identify the type of disclosure the documents were intended to provide or the relief Jackson wanted from the court. The court stated that this ruling did not address the documents’ substance or whether Jackson had satisfied her disclosure obligations.

The Department was ordered to supplement its discovery responses within 14 days of the order. Each party was made responsible for its own costs and attorney fees. The order was signed by Tony N. Leung, United States Magistrate Judge.