Williams v. NYC Board of Elections

Background

Carman Williams, who is proceeding without a lawyer, sued the New York City Board of Elections, Hemalee Patel, Donna Ellaby, Carol Winer, and Reshma Patel. Williams alleges that the defendants retaliated against her after she complained that Ellaby had treated her in a racist manner. Her claims arise under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. She also alleges that Hemalee Patel committed libel by making statements about her in a response to Williams’s complaint filed with the New York State Division of Human Rights.

The Board of Elections defendants had moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim, and Reshma Patel had separately moved to dismiss. Those motions were pending before another judge and were not decided in this discovery order.

Deposition and Privilege Log

The court ordered Williams to appear for a seven-hour deposition on May 22, 2024, at the federal courthouse. The court found that she had willfully refused to schedule the deposition and warned that failing to appear could result in sanctions.

The Board of Elections defendants had provided a categorical privilege log identifying emails concerning Williams’s threats of litigation, but the court found the log deficient. By the close of discovery, the defendants had to provide an updated log identifying the relevant date ranges, authors, recipients, and whether those people were attorneys. Nonprivileged portions had to be produced in redacted form when they could be separated from privileged material. The defendants also had to confirm that they were withholding no other documents based on privilege. The court explained that emails Williams sent to the Board of Elections were not privileged, although later communications forwarding those emails in connection with requests for legal advice could be protected by attorney-client privilege.

Document Requests

The court held that the Board of Elections defendants had already produced, or understood to have produced, documents responsive to several requests, including Williams’s personnel and performance materials, certain polling-site journals, dates Williams worked, poll-worker records, an organizational chart, and coordinator materials. It found many of Williams’s other requests overbroad, irrelevant, unduly burdensome, or not proportional to the needs of the case.

The court required limited additional discovery, to the extent the information had not already been produced. The defendants had to:

- Produce the 2022 employee handbook applicable to Board of Elections employees. - Produce documents sufficient to describe the criteria for hiring poll workers in 2022. - Produce 2022 coordinator job descriptions and any 2022 coordinator training materials, or state in a letter if no such training materials exist. - Produce written complaints from voters against Williams made before June 2022, or state if none exist. - Produce any performance-improvement plans given to Williams, or state if none exist. - Produce the names of coordinators who worked at polling sites where Williams worked in 2022, during the dates she worked there. - Produce written complaints of race discrimination or retaliation filed against Donna Ellaby between 2020 and 2022, or state if none exist other than Williams’s complaint. - Produce 2022 emails to or from Cynthia Doty that name, discuss, or refer to Williams or her poll-worker identification number. - Identify the custodians whose electronically stored information was searched, search those custodians’ information using Williams’s correct poll-worker number, 221539, and produce any responsive documents not already produced. - Search Cynthia Doty’s 2022 electronically stored information and produce any responsive documents not already produced. - Produce information about poll workers discharged or not hired for disciplinary reasons during 2020 through 2022 when those decisions were made by people who supervised Williams in 2022 or by Ellaby. The poll workers’ names could be redacted.

The court struck or otherwise required no further response to numerous other requests, including requests for broad records concerning other employees, disciplinary actions, discrimination complaints, performance materials, internal communications, and records extending well beyond the events at issue. It also ruled that documents requested in discovery but not produced could not be used in a summary-judgment motion or at trial.

Discovery Management and Disposition

The court rejected Williams’s contention that the parties did not need to meet and confer because of hostility. It found defense counsel’s communications professional and required Williams to comply with the meet-and-confer requirements. It also stated that blocking defense counsel’s emails impeded discovery.

The court denied the Board of Elections defendants’ motion to stay discovery because the remaining ordered production could be completed by the May 31, 2024 discovery deadline. It denied Williams’s request to extend the discovery deadlines. It also prohibited Williams from serving additional document requests or interrogatories without showing good cause and obtaining permission from the court.

The court’s conclusion stated that Williams’s motion to compel was granted in part and denied in part, the defendants’ motion to stay discovery was denied, and Williams’s motion to extend the discovery deadlines was denied. The order addressed discovery only; it did not decide the pending motions to dismiss or the merits of Williams’s claims.