Mejia v. The Tree Center LLC

Background

Plaintiff Richard Mejia's counsel asked the court for a pre-motion conference concerning a possible motion to compel discovery from The Tree Center, LLC. Counsel stated that The Tree Center had not responded to Mejia's requests for production and interrogatories, which were served on December 12, 2022. Counsel also challenged the sufficiency of The Tree Center's objections and responses to several requests for admission.

Mejia requested an order requiring The Tree Center to produce documents and answer interrogatories. He also requested an order stating that objections to the interrogatories and document requests were waived because responses were late. Regarding the requests for admission, Mejia challenged objections concerning whether the requests were compound, whether terms such as “equally accessible” and “corporate policy” were sufficiently defined, and whether other requests were vague or otherwise improper. The letter stated that the discovery disputes arose in an Americans with Disabilities Act website-accessibility case.

Court’s action

The court found that no pre-motion conference was necessary. It directed the parties to meet and confer by telephone or in person by February 3, 2023, to attempt to narrow or resolve the discovery disputes. If the disputes continued, the court directed Defendants to file, by February 6, a letter of no more than four pages, excluding exhibits, stating the position on the disputes as narrowed through that process. The court stated that it would set a briefing schedule for a motion to compel if needed.

The court also reminded the parties that the discovery deadline was February 28, 2023, and scheduled a case-management conference for February 22, 2023. The order did not decide the merits of the underlying website-accessibility claims or determine whether any requested discovery had to be produced.