Fielding v. Allina Health System

Background

Desmond Fielding asserted state and federal discrimination claims against Allina Health System based on race, color, and national origin. During discovery, he initially requested information about all employees at Allina. Allina objected that the requests were too broad, irrelevant, burdensome, and disproportionate to the needs of the case.

At the hearing on Fielding’s motion to compel, he focused on statistical information about race-discrimination complaints at Abbott Northwestern Hospital from 2015 through 2020, along with claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Minnesota Human Rights Commission, and the Minnesota Commission on Civil Rights during that period. Allina had already provided information about discrimination claims in the hospital’s Telemetry Unit, where Fielding worked. Fielding then sought information about discrimination claims in all units at the hospital.

The magistrate judge ordered Allina to provide more information about the burden of collecting the requested data. Allina reported that it would need to search and review claims against the health system to identify claims connected to the hospital, including claims with general work-location descriptions and claims involving employees who worked at more than one operating unit. Allina also reported that it would need to gather and review physical and electronic complaint files from all supervisors and human-resources generalists at the hospital.

The opinion states that Abbott employed 10,041 employees and 501 supervisors between 2015 and 2016, while Allina Health System had nearly 29,000 employees. The employee-complaint database was site-specific rather than centralized.

Standard of review

The district court reviewed the magistrate judge’s discovery order under the standard in 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A), Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a), and the local rules. The court could modify or set aside the order if it was clearly erroneous or contrary to law. The court described this as an extremely deferential standard. A finding is clearly erroneous when, despite supporting evidence, the reviewing court is left with a firm conviction that a mistake was made. An order is contrary to law when it fails to apply or misapplies a relevant statute, case, or procedural rule.

Court’s analysis

Fielding argued that the magistrate judge had not sufficiently explained the decision. The district court rejected that argument, explaining that the failure to expressly address every argument did not show that the magistrate judge had failed to consider them.

Fielding also argued that the magistrate judge had not properly applied Rule 26(b)(1), which governs the scope of discovery. The district court found that the requested information concerned complaints involving different supervisors in different hospital units and that collecting it would require substantial work across a large organization. The court disagreed with Fielding’s position that the number of employees and supervisors was irrelevant. Based on the information about the burden of collecting the data, the court concluded that the magistrate judge’s finding that the request was disproportionate to the needs of the case was neither clearly erroneous nor contrary to law.

The court also declined to consider deposition testimony Fielding offered on appeal because the testimony was not part of the record when he filed his motion to compel and there was no evidence that he had presented it to the magistrate judge. The court stated that considering the testimony would not have changed its decision.

Disposition

The court denied Plaintiff’s appeal of Magistrate Judge David T. Schultz’s June 1, 2023 order and affirmed that order. The opinion concerns the discovery dispute and does not decide the underlying discrimination claims.