Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_06-cv-05281/USCOURTS-cand-4_06-cv-05281-11/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights (Employment Discrimination)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

FANG-YUH HSIEH,

Plaintiff(s),

v.

R. JAMES NICHOLSON,

Defendant(s).

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No. C06-5281 PJH (BZ)

ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S

MOTION TO COMPEL PRODUCTION

OF DOCUMENTS

Before the Court is plaintiff’s motion to compel

production of documents pursuant to the Fifth Discovery Order

in this matter. Having reviewed the papers submitted by both

sides, I find no need for argument on this motion and vacate 

the hearing. I find that the defendant has made an adequate

showing that after reasonable search and inquiry, he is unable

to locate the additional documents sought by the plaintiff. 

Plaintiff has submitted no evidence to the contrary; nor has

he pointed to flaws in the defendant’s search methods. For

these reasons, IT IS ORDERED that plaintiff’s motion is

DENIED. 

Although there is no express motion for sanctions on the

grounds of spoliation, to the extent that the plaintiff

requests sanctions they are DENIED. An adverse inference

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arises when evidence has been destroyed and 1) the party in

control of the evidence had an obligation to preserve it 2)

the records were destroyed with a culpable state of mind and

3) the reasonable trier of fact would have found the evidence

relevant to the party's claim or defense. Jandreau v.

Nicholson, 2007 WL 1892301 at *2 (Fed. Cir.). If the

destruction was routine with no fraudulent intent, the

evidence is not presumed to have been favorable to the

discovering party. Marjorie Shields, Annotation, Electronic

Spoliation of Evidence, 3 A.L.R. 6th 13 (2005). 

Plaintiff first seeks one or more emails that he claims

were sent in 2000, which defendant cannot locate. Plaintiff

produced no evidence to suggest that defendant had an

obligation to preserve e-mail from 2000. Defendant has

introduced evidence that he searched the mail server at Palo

Alto CSPCC for emails sent between 1999 and mid-2001, and all

relevant e-mails were sent to Dr. Hseih. Doherty Decl. ¶¶ 3,

4. Defendant also introduced evidence of its document

retention practices which show that starting in mid-2001,

back-up tapes for Palo Alto CSPCC’s most frequently used email systems were routinely overwritten approximately every

60-90 days. Raffin Decl. ¶¶ 3, 5. The VA’s information

systems do not backup personal computers, so if users delete

text from documents while they are on their personal

computers, the previous text cannot be retrieved. Rhodes

Decl. ¶ 5. Moreover, network backup tapes do not go as far

back as 2002 or earlier. Id. I therefore find that plaintiff

has failed to establish that in 2000 or 2001, defendant had

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any obligation to preserve the 2000 e-mails or that the emails were culpably destroyed. 

Plaintiff also alleges that defendant should not have

destroyed the survey responses. However, Dr. Hsieh’s initial

complaint of employment discrimination dated February 2, 2002

makes no allegations that his survey response directly or

indirectly related to his termination. See Konno Decl. ¶, Ex.

A. Moreover, the survey was anonymous, and the original

survey responses were destroyed in December 2002 to preserve

the anonymity of the survey respondents. Churby Decl. ¶ 4. I

therefore find that the plaintiff has failed to establish that

the defendant had any obligation to preserve the survey

responses or that he destroyed them culpably. 

For these reasons, sanctions for spoliation are DENIED. 

Dated: August 23, 2007

 Bernard Zimmerman 

 United States Magistrate Judge

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