Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_05-cv-01824/USCOURTS-cand-5_05-cv-01824-16/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Employment Discrimination

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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C-05-1824 DISCOVERY ORDER Page 1 of 10

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

GREGORY N. GRIMES, 

Plaintiff,

v.

UNITED PARCEL SERVICES, ET AL,

Defendants.

________________________________/

No. C 05-1824 CRB (JL)

ORDER GRANTING IN PART

PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO COMPEL

DISCOVERY (Docket #s 122, 123, 124,

125)

Introduction

The parties’ discovery dispute came on for hearing. Attorney for Plaintiff Greg

Grimes was Kathryn Burckett Dickson, DICKSON-ROSS. Attorney for Defendant United

Parcel Service (UPS) was Kerri N. Harper, PAUL HASTINGS.

Grimes agrees to respond to UPS’s First request for Admissions No. 1. 

Defendant produced a Privilege Log.

The Court considered the moving and opposing papers and the arguments of

counsel and hereby orders that Plaintiff’s motion to compel is granted, in part.

UPS shall respond to:

Plaintiff’s Second and Third Requests for Admissions 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 23, 29 and

31; Plaintiff’s Second Request for Production of Documents Nos. 116-118, 119, 122, 130,

131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140, 144, 147, 152, 153, 155, 156, 158, 160, 161, 162,

Case 5:05-cv-01824-RS Document 198 Filed 09/28/07 Page 1 of 10
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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C-05-1824 DISCOVERY ORDER Page 2 of 10

164, 165, 166, and 168-169. The time frame for the responses is up to December 2005 or

the dates in the Requests.

With respect to Plaintiff’s Third Request for Production of Documents Nos. 186,

192, and 193, the parties shall meet and confer. If obtaining these documents would

require separate review of individual personnel files, the motion to compel is denied,

otherwise it is granted. The other requests are granted: 173, 175, 177-180, 181, 182, 183,

184, 185 (for January 2002-December 2003),194, and 197. With respect to Plaintiff’s

Fourth Request for Production of Documents, Plaintiff’s motion to compel responses to 195

and 196 are denied. Plaintiff’s motion to compel responses to Nos. 179-180, 182, 189, and

199 is granted. Compliance with all terms of this order shall be due within five business

days of the e-filing of the order.

Meet and Confer

The parties have met and conferred, both in person and on the phone. They were

not able to file joint letter briefs, but instead filed separate letter briefs.

Discovery not in Dispute

Grimes seeks an order from the Court directing UPS to comply with its commitments

to produce a proper privilege log, and to complete its inquiries and produce responsive

documents in a timely fashion, preferably by September 24 (moot since the discovery

hearing was September 27). Grimes alleges undue delay especially since the trial date

approaches (October 29). 

UPS claims it produced a privilege log on September 12, the same day it e-filed its

letter briefs in response to Grimes’s letter briefs. At the hearing, Plaintiff’s counsel

confirmed that she had received Defendants’ privilege log.

Factual and Procedural Background

This is an individual and representative employment action brought by plaintiff

Gregory Grimes against his former employer United Parcel Service, Inc. (referred to in the

Complaint as “UPS” or “the company”) and two of its managers, Bill Klussman and Gary

Hollandsworth.

Case 5:05-cv-01824-RS Document 198 Filed 09/28/07 Page 2 of 10
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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C-05-1824 DISCOVERY ORDER Page 3 of 10

Plaintiff alleges that Defendants discriminated against Mr. Grimes, including

adversely altering the terms and conditions of his employment, creating a hostile work

environment, and ultimately terminating him, based upon his mental disability - severe

depression. Defendants failed to reasonably accommodate Mr. Grimes’s medical condition

and failed to engage in good faith in an interactive process to determine reasonable

accommodations. In so doing, Defendants violated the California Fair Employment and

Housing Act. Defendants also violated both federal and state constitutional, statutory, and

common-law privacy protections by failing to maintain Plaintiff’s medical records separately

from his personnel files, by providing Mr. Grimes’s medical records to unauthorized

persons, and by disseminating information among its employees about Mr. Grimes’s

medical condition, all without his consent. Finally, Mr. Grimes brought a representative

action alleging that UPS’s requirement that employees may return from medical leave only

if 100% healed, violates California’s anti-discrimination and unfair business practices law.

Grimes seeks compensatory and punitive damages, declaratory and injunctive relief,

and his attorneys’ fees and costs.

Grimes filed this lawsuit originally pro se against United Parcel Service (“UPS”), his

former employer, and two individual managers, in Contra Costa County Superior Court for

disability discrimination under California Fair Employment and Housing Act. In May 2005

UPS removed the case to this court. Grimes amended his complaint, UPS moved to strike

the amended complaint and the case went through Early Neutral Evaluation, terminating

without a settlement in April 2006. Judge Breyer had denied the motion to strike in January

2006. Present counsel Kathryn Burckett Dickson appeared in August 2006. 

Grimes filed a Second Amended Complaint. This alleged claims for Disability

discrimination, hostile environment, failure to reasonably accommodate and to engage in

interactive process; retaliation; failure to prevent discrimination (Cal. Fair Employment and

Housing Act, Gov’t Code §§ 12940 et seq); Violation of privacy (Cal. Const. Art. I, Sec. 1;

Cal. Civ. Code §§ 56.10, 56.20, Cal. common law); Unfair business practices, Cal. Bus. &

Case 5:05-cv-01824-RS Document 198 Filed 09/28/07 Page 3 of 10
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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C-05-1824 DISCOVERY ORDER Page 4 of 10

Prof. Code §17200, et seq.; Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress (Cal. common law),

and demanded a jury trial.

In June Judge Breyer scheduled the trial for October 29 and Grimes associated in

additional counsel, Claudia Center.

In August 2007 the parties stipulated to dismissal of the Fifth and Twelfth claims for

relief. (Hostile Work Environment based on Disability Discrimination, Gov’t Code § 12940(j)

and Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress - California common law.

Grimes moved for partial summary judgment, to be heard October 5, 2007.

Defendant filed its motion for summary judgment for hearing on the same day.

Discovery Dispute

UPS’s First Request for Admissions No. 1 - UPS asks Grimes to admit the

genuineness of a document, a “Pre-Complaint Questionnaire” that Grimes filled out and

provided to the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (“DFEH”).

At the hearing, Grimes’s counsel stated her non-opposition to this request.

Plaintiff’s Second and Third Requests for Admissions Nos. 14, 15, 18, 19, 20,

23, 29, and 31.

Request Nos. 14, 15, 19 and 20 are similar, and ask that UPS admit that various

other entities, including Kemper and CIGNA, were its agents, authorized to communicate

with Grimes and any health care providers who treated or examined him. UPS objects that

the requests are compound and conjunctive, vague and ambiguous. It answered to the

extent it could and denied the rest.

Grimes contends he is entitled to a clear and straightforward admission or denial of

the “agency” issues raised in the requests for admissions. Grimes asks UPS to respond

with respect to health care professionals who examined Grimes, not only those who treated

him. Also, UPS refers to “timely” requests, without explaining or defining.

Requests 18, 20, 29 and 31 ask UPS to admit that CIGNA, for example, “had a duty

to inform UPS of any suggestion or request for accommodation, made by Mr. Grimes of

health care providers who treated or examined Mr. Grimes.” UPS objects that this request

Case 5:05-cv-01824-RS Document 198 Filed 09/28/07 Page 4 of 10
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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C-05-1824 DISCOVERY ORDER Page 5 of 10

calls for a purely legal conclusion as to the legal duty of a non-party to this case. UPS

admitted that it authorized and expected CIGNA to inform UPS of any timely suggestions or

requests for accommodation made by Grimes or his treating health care providers. UPS

otherwise denies this request.”

Grimes asked UPS to admit CIGNA and Kemper’s duty to inform UPS of any

suggestion or request for accommodation, by any health care providers who reviewed

Grimes’s mental health records, including those who reviewed for the purpose of

administering disability benefits. Grimes asks for an order that UPS respond, since the

admission relates to concepts of legal duty as applied to the facts in the case. This is

completely proper. See FRCP 36(a), Schwarzer, Tashima and Wagstaffe, CAL. PRACTICE

GUIDE: FED. CIV. PROC. BEFORE TRIAL (the Rutter Group 2007) at ¶11:2006-11:2209,

at p. 11-243. 

Plaintiff’s Second Request for Production of Documents Nos.116-118, 119,

122, 130, 131, 132, 133, 144, 147, 155, 161, 169 - UPS objects that these are extremely

private.

Grimes contends that UPS agreed to produce the following documents, but just

restricted the time frame or is lagging in production and should be ordered to produce them

by September 24 (kind of moot since the hearing is September 27) - Grimes claims these

documents are relevant to whether there were jobs available at UPS that he could have

been placed in when he returned from disability leave or that he could have been “hired”

into after he was terminated. (Nos. 119, 130, 131, 133, 135, 144, 147)

Grimes contends that some requests are relevant to his claims of discrimination,

failure to accommodate, failure to engage in good faith in the “interactive process” and

failure to take all steps necessary to prevent discrimination and to punitive damages (Nos.

122, 133, 135, 140, 166)

Grimes claims that some requests are relevant to his claims regarding

management’s deception that Grimes had been listed as eligible for “re-hire” when he had,

in fact, been listed as “no re-hire” - also relevant to punitive damages (No. 164)

Case 5:05-cv-01824-RS Document 198 Filed 09/28/07 Page 5 of 10
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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C-05-1824 DISCOVERY ORDER Page 6 of 10

116-118 and 122 - UPS agreed to provide documents up through 2002; there is a

dispute as to documents after that date.

132, 134, 136, 139, 140 - UPS will produce documents from February 2001 -

February 2002; there is a dispute as to the remaining period.

144 - UPS will produce documents for 2002-2003; there is a dispute as to the more

recent documents.

152, 153, 155 - UPS will produce documents through 2003.

156, 158 - Grimes provided examples at UPS’s request.

160, 161, 162, 165, and 168-169. 

Nos. 134, 139, 152, 153, 162, 168 - UPS says it already agreed to produce

responsive documents.

No. 136 - UPS agreed to produce responsive documents through February 7, 2003.

No. 158 - UPS contends this request is vague because “UPS districts” do not have

“career development plans.” Districts have goals and people have career development

plans. UPS contends that career development plans of other employees are irrelevant and

private.

No. 160 - UPS objects to producing employee expense reports of other managers

from December 2000-January 2001 on the basis that they are irrelevant and burdensome

since they were created so long ago.

No. 140 and 144 - UPS objects to producing post-2002 disability training and

policies when Grimes was administratively terminated on February 5, 2002.

No. 165 - UPS objects that “termination forms” of all managers in two Regions from

2000 to the present is not relevant because it is “not limited to persons involuntarily

separated by decisionmakers involved in Grimes’ separation, or persons similarly situated

to Grimes. Even if this request were as narrowly tailored as Request No. 164, to which UPS

does not object, UPS “would have to search individual personnel files long since put to

storage or destroyed” to find termination-related documents.

Case 5:05-cv-01824-RS Document 198 Filed 09/28/07 Page 6 of 10
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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C-05-1824 DISCOVERY ORDER Page 7 of 10

No. 166 - UPS also objects to producing documents related to any consent decree it

may have entered into with a public or private entity in a disability discrimination case.

Plaintiff’s Third Request for Production of Documents

Request No. 177 - information regarding the transfer of UPS managers and

supervisors in the areas Grimes was qualified in, to UPS subsidiaries.

Request No. 178 - documents regarding the retirement dates and ages for industrial

engineering managers like Grimes in a relevant region.

Request No. 179, 180 and 182 - statistics regarding internal versus external hiring

for positions for which Grimes was qualified, as well as headcount statistics for those

positions.

Request No. 186 - information on the number of managers who did not receive their

full stock award. Grimes believes his stock award was cut in half in violation of company

policy and disability discrimination law.

Request Nos. 192-193 - information on disability and other leaves (exceeding one

month) taken by other managers in the UPS region in which Grimes worked. Grimes

contends that UPS must have some way of retrieving this information electronically and

notes a “recent well-publicized class certification order involving UPS and disability

discrimination.”

Request No. 194 - limited to documents which show any instance in which a UPS

manager in the relevant regions was labeled “no re-hire” on the termination paperwork, but

who was thereafter re-hired by UPS. UPS has claimed that the “no re-hire” designation is

meaningless and that managers can be re-hired despite that designation. Grimes will

accept coded or redacted documents.

Request Nos. 177, 179, 180, and 182 - UPS objects to producing documents related

to open positions (1) at UPS subsidiaries, or (2) in places other than Washington, because

Grimes never applied for a job outside of Washington and confirmed in numerous

documents and in sworn testimony that he intended never top leave Washington. Nor did

Grimes ever apply for job outside Washington. Consequently, UPS did not look for

positions for him outside of the regional offices in San Ramon, California, or the district

Case 5:05-cv-01824-RS Document 198 Filed 09/28/07 Page 7 of 10
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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C-05-1824 DISCOVERY ORDER Page 8 of 10

offices in Washington. UPS contends that Grimes has no right to discover internal job

postings and placements in other locations throughout the United States in locations to

which he did not apply and UPS did not consider for him.

Request No. 178 - UPS objects to producing birth dates, ages at retirement, hire

dates, retirement dates, and reasons former employees provided for retirement, on the

basis that this is highly confidential, personal information for which UPS employees have

rights of privacy. Someone’s retiring from a position would not necessarily mean that

position was available to Grimes.

Request No. 186 - UPS objects that this is an impermissible interrogatory disguised

as a document request. UPS does not maintain any documents that identify the number of

managers who did not receive stock awards, expressed in percentages or otherwise.

Request No. 192 and 193 - UPS would have to search through individual personnel

files of all management employees in two region - hundreds of individuals and then

manually redact all personal information - unduly burdensome.

Request No. No. 194 - UPS objects to the breadth of this request, and contends any

response would not be relevant to Grimes.

Plaintiff’s Fourth Request for Production of Documents

UPS has agreed to produce documents in response to Request Nos. 197, 198, 201,

202, and 203.

The disputed categories include Request Nos. 179-180, 182, 189, 195-196, and

199.

Request No. 179 seeks a training document entitled: “Injured Employees: Focus on

Abilities, Health and Safety and the ADA.” Grimes contends this document may contain

admissions that would be relevant to his claims of disability discrimination, reasonable

accommodation, the interactive process and UPS’s possible history of discrimination.

Request No. 180 seeks disability discrimination training material. Request No. 189 seeks

training received by UPS managers involved with Grimes’s leaves and termination.

UPS objects that these training materials were not in effect at the time UPS

administratively terminated Grimes.

Case 5:05-cv-01824-RS Document 198 Filed 09/28/07 Page 8 of 10
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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C-05-1824 DISCOVERY ORDER Page 9 of 10

Grimes responds that he worked for UPS starting in 1986, so information going back

to at least 1995 is relevant and information between 2002 and the present is relevant to the

question of whether UPS has taken all reasonable steps to prevent discrimination, as

required by FEHA. UPS asserts the affirmative defense that it has done so.

Request Nos. 195 and 196 seek information on housing allowance and relocation

expenses for managers in Grimes’s regional office. Grimes observes that in its motion for

summary judgment, UPS made assertions regarding the housing allowance and relocation

expenses, making this inquiry relevant. UPS denies that other managers’ housing

allowances or relocation expenses are relevant to Grimes’s claim of discrimination.

Request Nos. 182 and 199 - See, respectively, speeches by date and presenter, by

UPS’s CEO and other executives referring or relating to UPS’s need for industrial

engineers, such as Grimes. This is relevant to Grimes’s claims of discrimination, including

his attempts to be re-employed by UPS and could impeach statements to Grimes by UPS’s

human resources manager that there were no jobs for him at UPS; and Industrial

Engineering Department staffing requirements. These would be relevant to Grimes’s re-hire

claim and the credibility of statements to Grimes that there were no positions suitable for

him at UPS.

UPS objects to producing general speeches or information related to locations other

than Washington or San Ramon.

Conclusion and Order

Plaintiff’s motion to compel is granted, in part.

UPS shall respond to:

Plaintiff’s Second and Third Requests for Admissions 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 23, 29 and

31; Plaintiff’s Second Request for Production of Documents Nos. 116-118, 119, 122, 130,

131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140, 144, 147, 152, 153, 155, 156, 158, 160, 161, 162,

164, 165, 166, and 168-169. The time frame for the responses is up to December 2005 or

the dates in the Requests.

With respect to Plaintiff’s Third Request for Production of Documents Nos. 186,

192, and 193, the parties shall meet and confer. If obtaining these documents would

Case 5:05-cv-01824-RS Document 198 Filed 09/28/07 Page 9 of 10
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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C-05-1824 DISCOVERY ORDER Page 10 of 10

require separate review of individual personnel files, the motion to compel is denied,

otherwise it is granted. The other requests are granted: 173, 175, 177-180, 181, 182, 183,

184, 185 (for January 2002-December 2003),194, and 197. With respect to Plaintiff’s

Fourth Request for Production of Documents, Plaintiff’s motion to compel responses to 195

and 196 are denied. Plaintiff’s motion to compel responses to Nos. 179-180, 182, 189, and

199 is granted. Compliance with this order shall be due within five business days after it is

e-filed.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: September 28, 2007

__________________________________

JAMES LARSON

 Chief Magistrate Judge

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