Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_04-cv-04906/USCOURTS-cand-5_04-cv-04906-8/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights Act

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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*E-FILED 10/16/07*

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

GIUSEPPE “NINO” CAMPANELLA, et al., 

Plaintiffs,

 v.

JEFFREY LONGORIA, et al.,

Defendants. /

NO. 04-04906 RS

Consolidated With Case No. 05-1945 RS

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND

DENYING IN PART MOTIONS TO

COMPEL

I. INTRODUCTION

Before the Court are four motions to compel brought by defendants herein. Plaintiffs filed a

single consolidated opposition brief to the motions, and defendants filed a consolidated reply. For

the reasons set forth below, the motions will be granted in part and denied in part.

II. BACKGROUND

Case 5:04-cv-04906-RS Document 120 Filed 10/16/07 Page 1 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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1

 As is common in matters involving more than one family member with the same surname,

the Court uses plaintiffs’ given names to avoid confusion.

2

This action arises from an incident in which the defendant deputy sheriffs allegedly entered

plaintiffs’ home and violated their civil rights in the course of responding to a 911 call for medical

assistance. The consolidated case involves a second incident, some months later, when deputies

entered the home to arrest plaintiff Giuseppe Campanella on domestic violence charges.

Plaintiffs Giuseppe and Lynette Campanella both allege the incidents caused severe emotional

distress requiring them to seek psychiatric treatment. They seek to recover the costs of that

treatment as part of their damages.

III. DISCUSSION

A. Number of non-expert depositions

The Court’s original scheduling order herein provided that each side could take up to 20 nonexpert depositions. When plaintiffs’ original counsel withdrew, that order was vacated. The Court’s

subsequent scheduling order limited each side to 10 depositions, the presumptive limit under the

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Defendants move to increase the permissible number of

depositions per side to 25, although defendants presently anticipate one less than that limit.

The record suggests that the original 20 deposition limit was imposed in recognition of the

nature of these consolidated cases and that the subsequent reduction to a 10 deposition limit was

inadvertent. Accordingly, each side shall be permitted up to 20 depositions. As discussed at the

hearing, if any party determines that it needs to exceed that number and the parties are unable to

reach an agreement, the parties may present the dispute by letter briefs and the Court will decide the

matter without further hearing. 

B. Lynette Campanella Privilege Issues

Defendants move to compel Lynette1: (1) to produce documents evidencing her marriage to

Giuseppe; (2) to answer any questions to which she was instructed not to respond based on the

Case 5:04-cv-04906-RS Document 120 Filed 10/16/07 Page 2 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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2

 Defendants request that the ruling on the latter two issues be extended to Giuseppe and his

deposition as well.

3

 At the hearing, plaintiffs’ counsel represented that the only additional document in

plaintiffs’ possession, custody, or control is a marriage certificate reflecting plaintiffs’ subsequent

marriage in Reno, Nevada. Counsel offered to produce that document and at the hearing was

ordered to do so within five days. 

4

 This is all the more so the case given that the parties are in agreement that the Campanellas

obtained a divorce decree in California in 2004. Absent a prior valid marriage, there would have

been no reason for such a judgment.

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marital privilege, and; (3) to produce documents related to her psychotherapy. 2

1. Proof of marriage

Lynette testified under oath that she and Giuseppe were married in Italy in 1999. Plaintiffs

have produced a document, written in Italian, that even to an native speaker of English with no

proficiency in that language appears to certify that the 1999 marriage took place. (The document is

entitled “Certificato Di Matrimonio”.) Defendants complain that this document is dated in 2007 and

therefore cannot be a “marriage certificate” of a marriage purportedly occurring some eight years

earlier.3

 Defendants have offered no evidence, however, calling into question the reliability of what

appears to be an official record under Italian law and procedure. The Court is not inclined to require

every person asserting the marital privilege to prove by a preponderance of the evidence, much less

to any higher standard, that he or she is legally married before the privilege can apply. Lynette has

made an adequate prima facia showing that she legally married Giuseppe in 1999, and defendants

have failed to rebut that showing.4

2. Time period of privilege

It is undisputed that Lynette and Giuseppe obtained a judgment of divorce in California on

September 29, 2004. In their opposition brief, plaintiffs suggest this was only a “paper” divorce,

undertaken for “tax purposes,” and that they have continued to cohabitate since that time without

any “irreconcilable differences” or legal separation. The Court need not reach the potentially

difficult question of whether the policies supporting the marital privilege should apply to parties who

apparently have chosen legally to avoid the tax consequences of a marriage. In meet and confer

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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 The Court notes that its standing order discourages as a general matter parties from

attaching copies of meet and confer correspondence to motion papers, and instead urges parties to

describe those efforts by declaration. That standing order, however, does not preclude the Court

from reviewing any such correspondence that may be filed, in its discretion.

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correspondence, plaintiffs’ counsel conceded that the Campanellas may not claim the privilege for

communications occurring after September 29, 2004. See Bernstein Declaration, Exh. 1.5

Accordingly, the motion is granted to the extent that they refused to answer questions based on the

marital privilege as to communications between 1999 and September 29, 2004, but the motion is

otherwise denied.

3. Psychotherapy records

At the hearing, plaintiffs counsel represented that he had obtained copies of records that

previously had not been in plaintiffs’ personal possession. Because Lynette has waived any privacy

rights she might otherwise have had in those records by putting the matter at issue, plaintiffs shall

produce them within five days of the date of this order, if they have not already done so.

C. Social Security Records

Defendants subpoenaed records from the Social Security Administration (“SSA”) regarding

the disability benefits Giuseppe apparently received for a condition known as “Reflex Sympathetic

Dystrophy” (“RSD”) between the 1990s and sometime after the incidents giving rise to these

actions. The SSA has refused to produce such records without Giuseppe’s consent. 

As an initial matter, it is not clear that this motion was served on the SSA, the party whose

compliance with the subpoena is sought. The SSA is not a party to this action that would

automatically receive notice of filings through the ECF system, and no separate proof of service

appears to have been filed.

Even assuming the SSA was given proper notice of this motion, however, it still will be

denied. Defendants suggest that the records they seek are relevant for two reasons: (1) Giuseppe

contends his RSD symptoms were aggravated by the events giving rise to these actions, and (2)

sometime after those events, transpired, Giuseppe’s disability benefits were discontinued “for

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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 At the hearing, plaintiffs disavowed any intent to attempt to prove at trial that defendants

had anything to do with the termination of Giuseppe’s social security benefits or to seek damages

based thereon.

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART MOTION TO COMPEL 

04-04906 RS 

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reasons that are not entirely clear.” Defendants suggest that if they communicated any information

to the SSA that affected the decision to terminate Giuseppe’s benefits, that would “theoretically

support Campanella’s conspiracy theory.”6

As to the first point, whatever information may or may not exist in SSA records regarding

Giuseppe’s medical condition, it is less probative than his primary medical records, which

defendants have been free to discover. Given that the SSA records potentially implicate other

information in which Giuseppe has a privacy interest, their disclosure is not warranted. The second

ground of claimed relevance is simply too thin a reed upon which to require production of the

documents. Accordingly, this motion is denied.

D. Independent Medical Exams

At the hearing, the parties were directed to engage in further meet and confer efforts to

determine what limitations would be appropriate on the independent medical exams. The parties

thereafter reported that they had reached agreement on all matters related to those exams.

IV CONCLUSION

The motions to compel are granted, to the extent set forth above, and are otherwise denied.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: October 16, 2007 

RICHARD SEEBORG

United States Magistrate Judge

Case 5:04-cv-04906-RS Document 120 Filed 10/16/07 Page 5 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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04-04906 RS 

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THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT NOTICE OF THIS ORDER HAS BEEN GIVEN TO:

Mina Almassi mina@maslawinc.com

Adam Richard Bernstein bernsteinlaw@earthlink.net, jagarini@earthlink.net

Aryn Paige Harris aryn_harris@cco.co.scl.ca.us

Stephen H. Schmid stephen.schmid@cco.co.santa-clara.ca.us

Counsel are responsible for distributing copies of this document to co-counsel who have not

registered for e-filing under the Court's CM/ECF program. 

Dated: 10/16/07 Chambers of Judge Richard Seeborg

By: /s/ BAK 

Case 5:04-cv-04906-RS Document 120 Filed 10/16/07 Page 6 of 6