UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA VERONICA RAYNOR, Individually and as : the Personal Representative of the : Estate of Reuel Griffin , : : Plaintiff, : Civil Action No.: 14-0750 (RC) : v. : Re Document No.: 84 : DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al. , : : Defendants. :
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
D ENYING P LAINTIFF ’ S M OTION TO C OMPEL P RODUCTION OF D OCUMENTS P RIOR TO 2010 On March 31, 2017, Plaintiff filed amotion to compel the Distr ict of Columbia (the “District”) to, among other thi ngs, produce emails for thirteen custodians for the years 2009 and
2010. See Pl.’s Mot. Compel Discovery, E CF No. 84. Prior to Plaintiff’s motion, Defendants had produced documents for those custodians from 2011 to January 2012. The additional documents that Plaintiff seeks are relevant, Plaintiff argues, because part of her theory in this case is that the District’s po licy, custom, or practices concer ning payment for healthcare services to certain persons in the District’s custody caused the deceden t to suffer injuries resulting from the denial or delay of necessary m edical treatment or testing. Plaintiff believes that these denials and delays arose as a result of t he District’s alleged improper reliance on Medicaid coverage despite a statute excluding Medic aid coverage f or individuals w ho are inmates in public institutions or patients in an i nstitution for men tal diseases. And while the decedent’s break in Medicaid coverage did not appe ar to occur until late-2010, Plai ntiff argues that she “should have the full extent of the city’s pr actice []—even if it didn’t aff ect [the decedent], if it affected other2 patients at St. Elizabeths” because she needs to know the “peri od of time that the District had in place or had a practice of not having funding in place to pay f or medical care.” Status Conference Tr. at 11:8–14, ECF No. 113. On July 14, 2017, the Court held a sta tus conference at which t he parties addressed Plaintiff’s motion. See Status Conference Tr., ECF no. 115. A t that hearing, the Distr ict represented to the Court that Plaintiff’s own expert had opined that “the issue regarding Medicaid and payment for outside services did not come to becom e an issue until sometime in 2010. So there is no mention of 2009.” Status Conference Tr. at 4:24–5:2, ECF No. 115. Plaintiff on the other hand ar gued that the expert “did not say that there was no evidence before 2010.” Status Conference Tr. at 8:1–2, ECF No. 115. Based on the parties representations and the record concerning the 2010 issu e, the Court was satisfied t hat the Distri ct should produce emails going back to 2010 and thus o rdered it to produce them. Status Conference Tr. at 8:22– 23, ECF No. 115. However, given the apparent dispute about the expert’s testimony on the 2009 issue, but without briefing on it, the Court took the 2009 issu e under advisement and gave Plaintiff and the District perm ission to supplement their brief s. 1 Status Conference Tr., at 8:23– 9:1, 28:8–11, ECF No. 115; see also Min. Order, Jul. 14, 2017 (gr anting in part and denying in part Plaintiff’s Motion t o Compel Discovery). Thereafter, the District file d a supplemental brief identifyin g the relevant portions of Plaintiff’s expert’s testimony. T he District emphasized that t he Plaintiff’s expert testified that “until somewhere around 2010 [] pa tients from St. Elizabeths th at were referred out to outside hospitals, facilities, were re imbursed by Medicaid” and that th ere were no issues with respect to

1 The Court also held a sta tus conference on August 16, 2017 an d heard from the parties on the 2009 issue, but again took the issue under advisement. See Status Conference Tr., at 11:21– 22, ECF No. 113.3 payments. Defs.’ Suppl. Fili ng at 1–2, ECF No. 110. Plaintiff responded to this filing, but did not supply any evidence to suggest t hat the Medicaid payment is sue had ever arisen prior to
2010. Upon consideration of all the brie fing, the partie s representat ions, and the entire record in this case, the Court is persuad ed that, under Rule 26(b)(2)(C)( iii) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the burden of the Pla intiff’s proposed discovery out weighs any likely benefit. Plaintiff has not shown that requ iring the District to search f or documents for all custodians before 2010 is likely to result i n discovery of useful informat ion. All of the evidence presented to the Court suggests that the de cedent’s Medicaid issues did n ot arise until at least 2010 and Plaintiff has given this Court no reason to suspect that the is sues might have arisen any earlier. Nor has the Plaintiff given the Court any reason to suspect tha t any Medicaid payment issues for any patient ever arose before 2010. 2 On the other hand, the burden of requiring the District to search for, review, and produce ayear’s worth of emails for ap proximately a dozen custodians appears significant. 3 Accordingly, the Court finds tha t Plaintiff’s requested disco very is not “proportional to the needs of t he case” and thus the Court will not require the D istrict to produce documents prior to 2010. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). 4

2 In support of her motion for the 2009 documents, Plaintiff re lies on a single entry in the decedent’s medical chart. That entry states: “Referred to Orth opic surgery for evaluation. Waiting for medical insurance.” Pl.’s Mot., Ex. 1 at 5, ECF No . 84-2. This entry, however, is simply too vague and inconclu sive to carry the day.

3 For example, when the Court ordered the production of the 201 0 emails, the District represented that it would have to review and produce approximat ely 5,000 unique emails, which would take approximately 2 months. See Status Conference Tr. a t 3:23–4:13, ECF No. 113. The Court has no reason to suspect t hat the production volume for 2 009 emails would be lower in any significant respect than the production volume for 2010.

4 Previously, this Court ordere d that the District review and produce responsive emails from 2009 through 2012 for a custodian t hat all parties agreed was central to the medical4 For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff’s motion to compel discove ry of emails prior to 2010 (ECF No. 84) is hereby DENIED

. SO ORDERED

. Dated: November 3, 2017 RUDOLPH CONTRERAS United States District Judge

coverage issue—Ms. Claudia Schlosberg. See Status Conference Tr. a t 26:10–27:18, ECF No. 115. If, upon reviewing those documents from 2009, Plaintiff i dentifies evidence indicating that the Medicaid coverage issue mani fested itself before 2010, the Court would be willing to revisit this issue.