Opinion
IP 00-1159-C T/G
July 30, 2001
ENTRY ON PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO COMPEL DISCOVERY
Though this Entry is a matter of public record and is being made available to the public on the court's web site, it is not intended for commercial publication either electronically or in paper form. The reason for this caveat is to avoid adding to the research burden faced by litigants and courts. Under the law of the case doctrine, the ruling or rulings in this Entry will govern the case presently before this court. See, e.g., Tr. of Pension, Welfare, Vacation Fringe Benefit Funds of IBEW Local 701 v. Pyramid Elec., 223 F.3d 459, 468 n. 4 (7th Cir. 2000); Avitia v. Metro. Club of Chicago, Inc., 49 F.3d 1219, 1227 (7th Cir. 1995). However, a district judge's decision has no precedential authority and, therefore, is not binding on other courts, on other judges in this district, or even on other cases before the same judge. See, e.g., Howard v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 160 F.3d 358, 359 (7th Cir. 1998) ("a district court's decision does not have precedential authority"); Malabarba v. Chicago Tribune Co., 149 F.3d 690, 697 (7th Cir. 1998) ("district court opinions are of little or no authoritative value"); United States v. Articles of Drug Consisting of 203 Paper Bags, 818 F.2d 569, 571 (7th Cir. 1987) ("A single district court decision . . . has little precedential effect. It is not binding on the circuit, or even on other district judges in the same district."). Consequently, though this Entry correctly disposes of the legal issues addressed, this court does not consider the discussion to be sufficiently novel or instructive to justify commercial publication of the Entry or the subsequent citation of it in other proceedings.
Pending before this court is Plaintiff's, Thomas Adams, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO"), 18 U.S.C. § 1961 et seq., Complaint against Defendant, Target. In his current motion, Plaintiff seeks an order from this court compelling Defendant to produce certain documents in discovery. Defendant opposes Plaintiff's discovery requests. For the following reasons, Plaintiff's motion to compel will be denied in part and granted in part.
Background
Plaintiff's two page, eleven paragraph RICO Complaint alleges that Defendant, in a letter mailed to Plaintiff, wrongly accused Plaintiff of taking possession of Defendant's property (stolen merchandise) without its consent. (See Compl. ¶¶ 3, 4, 7.) Plaintiff charges that this letter was a fraudulent attempt to obtain money from Plaintiff by requesting that Plaintiff pay Defendant $600.00 within thirty days of the service of such letter for violating Ohio law. (See id. ¶¶ 5, 8, Ex. 1.) Plaintiff alleges that Defendant's action amounts to a violation of RICO. (See id. ¶ 11.)
Plaintiff's Complaint also alleges a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. (See id. ¶ 9.) That claim, however, was dismissed with prejudice pursuant to the parties stipulation of partial dismissal.
Analysis
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b) describes the scope and limits of permissible discovery. That rule provides in part:
Parties may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the claim or defense of any party. . . . For good cause, the court may order discovery of any matter relevant to the subject matter involved in the action. Relevant information need not be admissible at trial if the discovery appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. All discovery is subject to the limitations imposed by Rule 26(b)(2)(i), (ii), and (iii).
FED. R. CIV. P. 26(b)(1). Rule 37(a) permits a party to request an order of the court compelling discovery. This court has broad discretion when deciding whether to compel discovery and may deny discovery to protect a party from oppression or undue burden. See Sattar v. Motorola, Inc., 138 F.3d 1164, 1171 (7th Cir. 1998) (recognizing that "district courts have broad discretion in matters related to discovery" (quotation omitted)); Gile v. United Airlines, Inc., 95 F.3d 492, 495-96 (7th Cir. 1996) ("The district court exercises significant discretion in ruling on a motion to compel."); FED. R. CIV. P. 26(b)(2)(iii) and (c). In making its ruling on a motion to compel, "a district court should independently determine the proper course of discovery based upon the arguments of the parties." Gile, 95 F.3d at 496 (citation omitted).
The current discovery dispute in this case concerns Plaintiff's Request for Production of Documents numbered 3, 4 and 12. Request number 3 seeks copies of all letters sent by Defendant that are similar in nature to the one sent to Plaintiff. Request number 4 seeks copies of all payments received by Defendant in response to such letters. Request number 12 seeks copies of all operation software utilized in generating the letter sent to Plaintiff. Defendant objects to Requests numbered 3 and 4 on the grounds that such Requests are over broad and unduly burdensome. In addition, Defendant objects to Request number 4 on the ground that the information sought is irrelevant. Defendant argues that because there are 978 Target stores nationwide in which various incidents may occur that trigger the mailing of such letters, the number of letters generated that Plaintiff seeks is in the tens of thousands. Moreover, Defendant asserts that whether payments were received in response to such letters, and the amount of such payments, has no bearing on Plaintiff's RICO claim and neither tends to prove nor disprove such claim. Defendant objects to Request number 12 on the ground that the information sought is privileged and confidential proprietary information.
In a supplemental response, Defendant asserts that it generates approximately 16,000 of these letters nationwide each year. Moreover, Defendant asserts that because it does not maintain hard copies of the letters, in order to produce the letters to Plaintiff, Defendant's employees would be forced to retrieve each letter from Defendant's computer system, increasing the time and labor required to meet Plaintiff's discovery demand.
The purpose of discovery is to sharpen the issues in a case for trial, not to gather information to support a complaint. See Fred A. Smith Lumber Co. v. Edidin, 845 F.2d 750, 754 (7th Cir. 1988) (holding that plaintiff acted in bad faith by filing a complaint alleging RICO and securities laws violations "in the hope that future discovery might uncover the allegations of wrongdoing" (citation omitted)); Beck v. Cantor, Fitzgerald Co., 621 F. Supp. 1547, 1552-53 (N.D.Ill. 1985) (refusing to allow plaintiff use of expensive and various discovery tools to satisfy the pleading requirements of his RICO claim). The information that has been submitted to the court in this case raises strong suspicions in the court's mind that Plaintiff is seeking this discovery as a sort of fishing expedition "to put meat on the [very] bare bones of his fraud claim." Id. at 1553. Critical to the court's deduction in this regard is Plaintiff's statement in his deposition that he has no personal knowledge of anyone receiving a letter similar to the one he received. By such response, it is clear to the court that Plaintiff has no information that a single person received a letter similar to the one received by Plaintiff. Also, the court cannot help but raise its eyebrows at Plaintiff's "bare bones" RICO Complaint. This court is mindful of the fact that it can be difficult, if not near impossible, to plead fraud with the required particularity when essential information necessary to plead that charge is in the sole hands of the defendant. However, on the other hand, the court is also very aware that a RICO complaint alleging fraud is a very serious charge, and is not to be dealt with lightly.
In his deposition, Plaintiff gave this response to the following question:
Q: Do you have any personal knowledge of any persons receiving letters similar to the Dear Thomas Adams letter you received that was dated May 20th, 1999, demanding payment to Target and their civil demand and restitution department?
A: No, sir, just my attorney.
(Adams Dep. at 40:9-14.)
Therefore, the court is required to find some balance between allowing pretrial discovery that could possibly enable a plaintiff to satisfy his pleading burden, and protecting a defendant from expensive and time consuming discovery that is nothing more that an unfounded fishing expedition. Here, Plaintiff's RICO Complaint, and his arguments supporting his motion to compel, are extremely thin. Moreover, Plaintiff has made no effort to convey to this court the basis for its suspicion that the discovery it seeks will lead to the discovery of another victim of the alleged fraud.
Defendant has good reason for objecting to Plaintiff's Requests numbered 3 and 4. Defendant has convinced the court that complying with Plaintiff's document requests would be extremely burdensome. As mentioned above, the number of letters Plaintiff requests is in the ten of thousands and procuring such letters would be a very expensive and time consuming task for Defendant to undertake. Furthermore, Plaintiff's requests appear to be extremely over broad. Defendant maintains that Plaintiff, while claiming that he did not shoplift and was never in receipt of stolen merchandise from a Target store, seeks letters Defendant sent to shoplifters or others involved in criminal acts at a Target store. Defendant, in its Answer to the Complaint, however, admits that the letter sent to Plaintiff was sent in error. Therefore, Plaintiff is not similarly situated to others who have received a similar letter from Defendant, and his requests for such information as it is drafted is over broad. What did he intend to do — contact all of the tens of thousands of recipients of the letters to inquire whether Target defrauded them by the letters? Such a process would be fantastically time consuming and Plaintiff does not even hint that it is likely to be productive.
For all of these reasons, the court will deny Plaintiff's motion to compel with respect to both Requests numbered 3 and 4. Of course, the court's ruling today does not preclude Plaintiff from seeking discoverable information on this topic from Defendant. However, Plaintiff's subsequent document requests should be sufficiently tailored such that the requests are not so overwhelmingly broad and burdensome to Defendant. For example, if Plaintiff could identify the other persons who he believes were defrauded by such letters, or even one such person, he would travel a long way toward making a reasonable discovery request. Perhaps he could focus his request by limiting it to a certain Target store or a finite period of time. The court can imagine many ways Plaintiff could demonstrate that he is not just fishing in seeking documents. In its supplemental response, Defendant indicated a willingness to work with Plaintiff to find some middle ground in an effort to resolve this discovery dispute. Plaintiff and Defendant are encouraged to continue to work together to seek an amicable resolution on all issues of discovery in this case.
As to the discovery sought in Request number 12, Defendant objects on the ground that such information is proprietary and is thus confidential and privileged. Defendant, however, has made absolutely no effort to convince the court that such information is in fact confidential and privileged, and for that reason, undiscoverable. Proprietary information is not per se undiscoverable, but rather such information can be protected from improper disclosure by an appropriate protective order. Defendant, of course, by objecting to Plaintiff's discovery request has the burden of showing why this information sought is not discoverable. In its response to the motion to compel, Defendant's only comment on Request number 12 is the following: "With respect to Request Number 12, Defendant respectfully maintains its previous objection that Target's operation software is proprietary information and protected from disclosure." (Def.'s Resp. at 4.) In its supplemental response, Defendant makes no mention of Request number 12. Additionally, Defendant makes no request for a protective order in regards to the information sought by Plaintiff in this document request. Defendant has failed to convince the court that this information is not subject to discovery on the grounds Defendant states. Therefore, Plaintiff's motion to compel the discovery sought in Request number 12 will be granted.
The court assumes that before turning this information over to Plaintiff, Defendant will seek an appropriate protective order. Plaintiff and Defendant are strongly encouraged to agree on the terms of such an order prior to seeking the intervention of the court.
For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff's motion to compel discovery is DENIED in part and GRANTED in part.