Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_22-cv-01053/USCOURTS-caed-2_22-cv-01053-10/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

JARVON D. GREEN,

Plaintiff,

v.

R. KERSH, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 2:22-cv-01053-TLN-JDP (PC)

ORDER

GRANTING IN PART PLAINTIFF’S 

MOTION TO COMPEL

ECF No. 52

Plaintiff, a prisoner proceeding pro se, brought this action alleging that defendant Kersh 

violated his Eighth Amendment rights by using excessive force against him, and that defendant 

Alkire violated his due process rights. ECF No. 12. Now pending is plaintiff’s motion to 

compel, ECF No. 52, to which defendants have filed an opposition, ECF No. 55. For the reasons 

stated below, plaintiff’s motion to compel is granted in part. 

I. Legal Standard

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34 “[t]he party to whom [a request for production]

is directed must respond in writing within 30 days after being served.” Fed. R. Civ. P.

34(b)(2)(A). The responding party may state an objection to any request, but must offer a 

specific rationale for doing so. In responding to a request to produce documents, the responding 

party must affirmatively state whether any responsive materials are being withheld on the basis of 

the proffered objection. Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(C). 

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Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37, “a party seeking discovery may move for an 

order compelling an answer, designation, production, or inspection.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(3)(B).

The party seeking to compel discovery has the initial burden of establishing that its requests are 

relevant, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), but “[t]he party who resists discovery has the burden to 

show that discovery should not be allowed, and has the burden of clarifying, explaining, and 

supporting its objections.” See Blemaster v. Sabo, No. 2:16-CV-04557 JWS, 2017 U.S. Dist. 

LEXIS 178498, 2017 WL 4843241, at *1 (D. Ariz. Oct. 25, 2017) (quoting DIRECTV, Inc. v. 

Trone, 209 F.R.D. 455, 458 (C.D. Cal. 2002)).

Analysis

There are four requests for production at issue. I will address them separately, in the order 

presented by plaintiff. 

A. Request for Production Number Seven

This request for production seeks: “The complete personnel file of all Defendant Officers

R. Kersh and R. Alkire including but not limited to, all documentation and records of 

psychological evaluation, commendations, promotions, disciplinary reports, reports of 

misconduct, investigations and dispositions of all citizens complaints and internal disciplining 

investigations.” ECF No. 52 at 3-4. 

Defendants objected to the request as: (1) vague and ambiguous as to the terms ‘complete 

personnel file,’ ‘all documentation and records’ and ‘investigations and dispositions of all citizens 

complaints’ causing Defendants to speculate as to the intended meaning; (2) the request is 

compound as it seeks both Defendant’s personnel files; (3) it seeks documents that are protected 

by the official information privilege, the deliberative process privilege, California Penal Code 

sections 832.7 and 832.8, California Evidence Code sections 1040, 1041, and 1043, California 

Code of Regulations, Title 15, section 3486.3 (Staff Misconduct Determination Notification), 

Defendants’ common law right to privacy, and which may be protected by the California Code of 

Regulations, Title 15, § 3321 (Confidential Material), the disclosure of which would create a 

hazard to the safety and security of the institution, prison officials, and inmates, and violate 

privacy rights afforded to prison officials and inmates; (4) it may seek documents that are not in 

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Defendants’ custody and control; (5) the demand is not limited as to time or as to the matters that 

are relevant to any claim or defense in this action, so is unduly burdensome and not proportional 

to the needs of the case; and (6) propensity evidence is generally not admissible in civil rights 

cases, so Plaintiff’s request for documents unrelated to Defendants’ specific interactions with 

Plaintiff is not within the scope of discovery since it is not relevant to his claims. ECF No. 55 at 

3-4. 

I find defendants’ objections unpersuasive. The terms “complete personnel file,” “all 

documentation and records,” and “investigations and dispositions of all citizen complaints,” are 

not so vague or ambiguous as to require defendants or their counsel to guess as to what relevant 

documents are sought. The request is compound, but given plaintiff’s pro se status, that is not 

sufficient reason to refuse production. Defendants’ assertions of numerous privileges are 

inadequately supported. They make no attempt to link parts of the requested documents to the 

privileges asserted, and broad, boilerplate assertions are insufficient to sustain their objections. 

See Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Ry. v. United States Dist. Court, 408 F.3d 1142, 1147 (9th 

Cir. 2005) (“Rule 26 clarifies that a proper assertion of privilege must be more specific than a 

generalized, boiler-plate objection.”). Further, there does not appear to be a proper privilege log 

associated with the objections to request for production number seven. Defendants’ assertion that 

the request seeks items that “may” not be in their custody or control is insufficient; if all or part of 

a responsive document is not in their control, they must specify as much. It is true that the 

request is not limited in scope to the time relevant to the claims at bar, but that is not an adequate 

basis on which to refuse production entirely. Instead, defendants were obligated to articulate why 

documents outside of that scope lack relevance, and to produce responsive documents falling 

within the time period. See Blankenship v. Hearst Corp., 519 F.2d 418, 429 (9th Cir. 1975) (the 

party opposing discovery bears the heavy burden of demonstrating that the discovery should not 

be permitted). Finally, defendants are correct that propensity evidence is not admissible in 

section 1983 cases for the purpose of proving a person’s character in order to show that they acted 

in accordance with that character on a particular occasion. Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1). However, the 

rules recognize that the evidence may be admissible (and, thus, necessarily discoverable) for other 

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purposes, such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, or lack of accident. Fed. R. Evid. 

404(b)(2). 

In light of the foregoing, plaintiff’s motion to compel is granted with respect to this 

request for production, and defendants must produce the responsive documents in their 

possession.1 I am not ignorant of the security risks of providing officers’ personal information to 

an inmate, however, and within twenty-one days of this order’s entry the parties shall submit a 

proposed stipulated protective order to which disclosure shall be subject. I will review that 

protective order, and discovery shall be due within thirty days of my approval of that order.

B. Request for Production Number Eight

This request for production seeks: “All documents with your possession custody, or 

control relating to defendant officers who have been terminated, suspended, removed, laid off, 

removed, laid off, reduced in ranks, reprimanded, disciplined, criminally prosecuted, or warned 

concerning any activities whatsoever within their capacity as correctional officers.” ECF No. 52 

at 2. 

Defendants provide substantively the same objections to this request as its predecessor. 

They argue that it is compound, vague and ambiguous, overbroad and unduly burdensome, 

privileged, seeking documents not within the custody and control of defendants, and seeking 

propensity evidence that would not be admissible in this case. ECF No. 55 at 5-6. 

These objections are deficient for the same reasons articulated above. These documents, 

to the extent defendants possess any, should also be disclosed under a protection order.

C. Request for Production Number Ten

This request for production seeks “The complete file regarding each and every citizen 

complaint, disciplinary action, internal investigations and any other claims of misconduct against 

Defendant officers whether initiated externally or through the filing of a citizen complaint or civil 

lawsuit, or internally as the result of disciplining or code of conduct violations, including but not 

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In their opposition, defendants appear to suggest that no documents responsive to this 

request are in their possession. ECF No. 55 at 5. If that is the case, they must state as much 

explicitly and provide a signature under oath attesting to that fact. 

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limited to, incident reports, witness statements, citizen complaint forms, investigation records, 

depositions and discipline, anything in your possession, custody or control pertaining to any 

claims against defendant officers.” ECF No. 52 at 4-5. 

Defendants raise the same objections as they did with respect to the prior two requests but 

do submit a privilege log and attendant declaration indicating that responsive documents are

being withheld because they could compromise institutional security by revealing techniques used 

to investigate inmate complaints and reveal the names of inmate informants. ECF No. 55-1 at 43. 

The declaration also indicates that some of the documents contain investigations conducted 

pursuant to the Prison Rape Elimination Act (“PREA”), and their disclosure would violate 

confidentiality requirements under that act. Id. at 44-45. Finally, defendants cite several state 

law privileges that they contend also militate in favor of withholding these documents. Id. at 46-

47. There appear to be three documents in the privilege log that are responsive to this request for 

production. In light of the rationales articulated and the proper privilege log, I will uphold the 

privilege objection with respect to these documents. Defendants appear to state that, after a 

search, no other non-privileged documents were uncovered. ECF No. 55 at 9. Thus, no further 

response to this request will be compelled. 

D. Request for Production Number Eleven

The last request for production seeks “a copy of all defendants’ prison work history 

background, any staff misconduct complaints filed against them for excessive and/or unnecessary 

force, threats, false reports, and retaliation 5 years before 5/6/22—current.” ECF No. 52 at 6-7. 

Defendants raised \the same objections as above, save for the objections that the request

might seek documents not within their custody or control. ECF No. 55 at 10. In the same 

privilege log produced in conjunction with request for production number ten, there is a single 

responsive document attached to this request. ECF No. 55-1 at 53. Defendants contend that this 

document also implicates the PREA and that its production would compromise officers’ ability to 

investigate inmates and protect their confidential sources. Id. at 43-48. Just as I upheld the 

privilege objections with respect to the previous request for production, I will uphold these as 

well. If any responsive documents are in defendants’ custody that are not privileged, however, 

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they must produce them to plaintiff insofar as the other objections they have raised are 

inadequate. 

Accordingly, it is ORDERED that:

1. Plaintiff’s motion to compel, ECF No. 52, is GRANTED in part. 

2. Within twenty-one days of this order’s entry, defendants shall submit a proposed 

protective order under which they shall produce the documents sought in requests for production 

seven and eight. 

3. Within thirty days of the court’s entry of a protective order, defendants shall produce 

documents responsive to plaintiff’s Request for Production Numbers 7, 8, and 11, as set forth 

above. 

4. Plaintiff’s motion to compel is denied in all other respects.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: August 17, 2024 

JEREMY D. PETERSON

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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