United States of America, ex rel. Intergra Med Analytics, LLC. v. Issac Laufer

Background

The court considered Defendant Tami Whitney’s objections to Magistrate Judge Judith C. McCarthy’s May 3, 2023 oral order denying Whitney’s motion to compel the Government to respond to interrogatories. A motion to compel asks the court to require another party to provide requested discovery.

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a), a district court may modify or set aside a magistrate judge’s order on a nondispositive matter only if the order is clearly erroneous or contrary to law. Discovery rulings, including rulings on motions to compel, are nondispositive. The district court gives such rulings substantial deference and overturns them only for an abuse of discretion.

Interrogatories 2–4, 6–7, and 9

These interrogatories essentially sought to require the Government to match specific allegations in the complaint with the witnesses and documents it planned to use to prove each allegation. The court held that this information was not ordinarily required and that, in this case, it would reveal attorney work product. The requested information would disclose the Government’s trial strategy and counsel’s assessment of which evidence supported particular allegations.

The court also viewed the requests as an indirect effort to obtain the contents of employee-witness interviews. Judge McCarthy had previously found those interviews protected by the work-product doctrine, and she had already ordered the Government to identify the employee witnesses mentioned in the complaint and other employee witnesses interviewed before the complaint was filed. The court concluded that Whitney had not shown that Judge McCarthy abused her discretion by finding the Government had provided enough detail and that additional information could be obtained through depositions.

The court considered cases requiring disclosure of confidential witnesses mentioned in complaints but explained that courts have reached different, fact-specific results. It distinguished those cases because the witnesses there had been highlighted more prominently, while statements from unspecified employees appeared in only five of the complaint’s 121 paragraphs. The court further noted that Whitney already had the names of the fifteen employee witnesses referenced in the complaint. The cited cases supported identifying those witnesses but did not require the Government to link their statements to particular allegations here.

Interrogatories 5 and 8

To the extent these interrogatories sought to determine whether a witness had said that Whitney overruled a particular patient discharge, they sought the contents of witness interviews. To the extent they sought the identities of patients whose discharges were overruled, the requests appeared premature because the Government would not have that information until expert reports were produced.

The court stated that whether the Government had evidence connecting Whitney to particular patient overstays could be addressed at summary judgment or trial. It did not decide that issue in this discovery ruling.

Disposition

Judge Seibel overruled Whitney’s objections and affirmed Magistrate Judge McCarthy’s May 3, 2023 decision on the motion to compel responses to interrogatories.