Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-1_10-cv-01773/USCOURTS-caed-1_10-cv-01773-28/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

ANDREW R. LOPEZ,

Plaintiff,

v.

MATHEW CATE, et al.,

Defendants.

No. 1:10-cv-01773-DAD-SKO (PC)

Order Denying Plaintiff’s Request for 

Reconsideration by the District Court of 

Magistrate Judge’s Ruling (Doc. No. 153)

Plaintiff is a state prisoner proceeding pro se and in forma pauperis in this civil rights 

action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiff seeks reconsideration, Doc. No. 153, of the 

magistrate judge’s order denying leave to conduct certain pre-evidentiary hearing discovery and 

ordering certain documents disclosed to plaintiff.

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(Doc. No. 152.) Specifically, plaintiff seeks: 

1) the issuance of a subpoena to the Office of the Inspector General for the State of California 

(OIG) concerning investigative materials that underlie a report promulgated by that office on 

problems with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) inmate 

appeal process; and 2) production by defendants of a more recent version of the prison’s 

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The same order denied plaintiff’s request for the appointment of counsel in connection with the 

evidentiary hearing. (Doc. No. 152.) Plaintiff does not seek reconsideration of that decision.

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Department Operations Manual (DOM),2 which he asserts will be relevant at an upcoming 

evidentiary hearing concerning whether he exhausted his claims prior to bringing suit as required. 

(See Doc. Nos. 146, 152, 153.)

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a) provides that non-dispositive pretrial matters may 

be decided by a magistrate judge, subject to reconsideration by the district judge. See also Local 

Rule 303(c). The assigned district judge shall, upon reconsideration, modify or set aside any part 

of the magistrate judge’s order which is “found to be clearly erroneous or contrary to law.” Local 

Rule 303(f); see also 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A). Discovery motions are non-dispositive pretrial 

motions within the scope of Rule 72(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A), and thus subject to the 

“clearly erroneous or contrary to law” standard of review. Rockwell Intern., Inc. v. Pos-ATraction Industries, Inc., 712 F.2d 1324, 1325 (9th Cir. 1983). “A finding is ‘clearly erroneous’

when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left 

with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” United States v. United 

States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395 (1948); Anti–Monopoly, Inc. v. General Mills Fun Group, 

Inc., 684 F.2d 1316, 1318 (9th Cir. 1982). 

The court has reviewed de novo the relevant documents in this case, and finds that the 

magistrate judge’s denial of plaintiff’s motion was not clearly erroneous or contrary to law. 

Therefore, the court will DENY plaintiff’s request for reconsideration for the reasons stated 

below.

A district court has “wide latitude in controlling discovery,” and decisions governing 

discovery are “highly fact-intensive.” In re Anonymous Online Speakers, 661 F.3d 1168, 1176 

(9th Cir. 2011) (quoting White v. City of San Diego, 605 F.2d 455, 461 (9th Cir. 1979)). The 

Ninth Circuit has noted that judges may conduct evidentiary hearings in order to determine 

whether a claim has been exhausted prior to bringing suit as required by the Prison Litigation 

Reform Act (PLRA), codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). Albino v. Baca, 747 F.3d 1162, 1170 (9th 

Cir. 2014). The Ninth Circuit has also recognized that in doing so, “[i]f discovery is appropriate, 

 

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Plaintiff maintains he has only had access to the 1995 DOM, but that defendant’s counsel 

disclosed a 2007 DOM supplement that will be presented to the court at the evidentiary hearing.

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the district court may in its discretion limit discovery to evidence concerning exhaustion, leaving 

until later — if it becomes necessary — discovery directed to the merits of the suit.” Id. For 

example, a court may limit discovery if it determines that “the discovery is: (1) unreasonably 

cumulative or duplicative; (2) obtainable from another source that is more convenient, less 

burdensome, or less expensive; or (3) the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs 

its likely benefit.” Mailhoit v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 285 F.R.D. 566, 571 (C.D. Cal. 2012) 

(quoting Favale v. Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, 235 F.R.D. 553, 558 (D. Conn.

2006)).

The factual investigative material which underlies the OIG report is, as stated by the 

assigned magistrate judge, tangential to the question of whether or not plaintiff’s claims were 

adequately exhausted. The report notes OIG staff reviewed laws, rules, policies, and procedures

concerning inmate appeals, conducted interviews with various employees and inmates, obtained 

and analyzed data concerning training programs and statistics related to inmate appeals, and 

reviewed public comments related to regulatory changes in the inmate appeal process. Calif. 

Office of Inspector General, CDCR’s Revised Inmate Appeal Process Leaves Key Problems 

Unaddressed, at 8 (2011), available at

http://www.oig.ca.gov/pages/reports/archive.php?sd=Reports. Almost none of this information 

would be potentially relevant to the narrow issues of fact to be decided at the evidentiary hearing, 

which relate only to whether inmate appeals purportedly filed by plaintiff on June 22, 2009, June 

24, 2009, and October 6, 2009 reflect sufficient exhaustion for purposes of the PLRA. (See Doc. 

No. 137, pp. 16–19.) The burden and expense of ordering this discovery sought by plaintiff 

outweighs any likely benefit, and the magistrate judge did not act contrary to law or in a clearly 

erroneous manner in declining to order it. 

Additionally, to the extent plaintiff seeks reconsideration of the magistrate judge’s denial 

of his request for pre-evidentiary hearing production of the 2007 DOM supplement, the court 

notes the magistrate judge actually ordered defendants to serve the 2007 DOM supplement on 

plaintiff within three business days of the date they meet and confer, which is well before the 

anticipated evidentiary hearing date. (See Doc. No. 152 at 5.) It is therefore unclear what, 

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exactly, plaintiff seeks to have the undersigned reconsider. It is possible plaintiff wishes to have 

these documents provided even earlier than the magistrate judge has ordered. However, the 

timeline set forth by the magistrate judge is not clearly erroneous or contrary to the law, and the 

undersigned therefore declines the request to reconsider this aspect of the ordered discovery.

Accordingly, for the reasons set forth above, plaintiff’s request for reconsideration of the 

magistrate judge’s discovery ruling (Doc. No. 153) is hereby DENIED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: January 12, 2016 

 DALE A. DROZD

 UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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