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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT 

COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT

OF TEXAS FORT WORTH DIVISION

EUGENIO VARGAS, 

Plaintiff/Counterclaim

Defendant,

v.

ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL 

FLIGHT ATTENDANTS, et al., 

Defendants/Counterclaim

Plaintiff.

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Civil Action No. 4:22-cv-430-Y 

Judge Terry R. Means

PLAINTIFF’S REPLY TO DEFENDANTS’ RESPONSE TO MOTION TO EXTEND 

DEADLINES FOR DISCOVERY 

TO THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE:

COMES NOW, Plaintiff, EUGENIO VARGAS (hereinafter sometimes either 

"Vargas" or "Plaintiff'), files this his Reply to Defendants’ Response to Plaintiff’s 

Motion to ask the Court to extend time for the discovery period and dispositive 

motions so that the parties can seek discovery and schedule depositions. 

Introduction

1. The Plaintiff is the former National Treasurer of the Association of 

Professional Flight Attendants and a member in good standing

from 2016 – 2018. Robert “Bob” Ross is the former National 

President of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants 

while Vargas served as National Treasurer. The Defendants are the 

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Association of Professional Flight Attendants ("APFA" or “the 

union”), Julie Hedrick ("Hedrick"), and Erik Harris (hereinafter all 

defendants collectively referred to as "Defendants").

2. Plaintiff filed his Original Complaint against Defendants on May 17, 

2022. [Doc. 1]. Defendants filed an Answer and Original 

Counterclaim against Plaintiff on July 1, 2022. [Doc. 11].

3. Plaintiff sought leave of Court to file his First Amended Complaint on 

November 9, 2022. [Doc. 55].

4. Defendants were granted leave to file an Answer and Counterclaim 

in response to Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint on or about 

February 22, 2023. [Doc. 72).

5. On September 1, 2023, Defendants served very limited responsive 

documents to Plaintiff’s First Requests for Production served on Defendants 

on August 14, 2023. 

6. On September 5, 2023, Plaintiff filed its Motion to Compel Discovery. 

[Doc. 110].

7. The Court entered an order to meet and confer between the Parties relating 

to Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel on September 8, 2023. This order requires 

Plaintiff to file an Amended Motion to Compel on October 20, 2023 and 

Defendants to file a Response to Plaintiff’s Amended Motion to Compel on 

8. The deadline to conclude discovery is October 31, 2023. [Doc. 11].

9. The deadline for all parties to file dispositive motions is December 15,

2023. [Doc. 11].

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Arguments

10. Plaintiff produced all documents in Plaintiff’s Counsel’s possession to 

date, has supplemented, and continues to supplement with additional 

documents in accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. 

Defendants’ Counsel failed to adequately produce documents 

responsive to Plaintiff’s first set of discovery request, nor Plaintiff’s 

second set of discovery requests. Consequently, Plaintiff’s honest 

attempts to comply with the discovery process has prepared Defendant 

for trial—and left Plaintiff dealing with Defendants stall tactics. This 

is the reason Plaintiff did not learn of the evidence until recently. 

Defendants refused to comply with any discovery procedures—and 

continue to do so to date. Mr. Vargas learned of the discussion between 

his representative, Ms. Morgan, and Erik Harris, only on April 7 of 

2023, as of the filing date, several months after the conversation. This 

is because Ms. Morgan had not reached out to Mr. Vargas as she feared 

retaliation for any additional support from the Ross Administration. 

Many within the union feel intimidated and threatened by the union 

should they show support for the Ross Administration. Ms. Morgan 

has been targeted for her support of the Ross Administration and her 

representation of Mr. Vargas and Ms. Martin. Ms. Morgan has most 

recently been threatened for her testimony in matters involving the case 

before this court. Members of the opposing political faction—those 

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that support a merger between the Association of Flight Attendants 

(“AFA”) and APFA, filed a request with the union to pass a resolution 

targeted to prevent Ms. Morgan from submitting any other 

documentation or testimony before this court evidencing the abuse and 

harassment that many members of the union have undergone. In 

particular, Ms. Debra Volpe—an American Airlines Flight Attendant 

with strong ties to AFA—most recently threatened to bring Article VII 

charges against Ms. Morgan for evidence and testimony she provided 

before this Court while acting in compliance with a subpoena request. 

These threats and intimidation are not an isolated event for this union, 

unfortunately. The undersigned counsel has been contacted by multiple 

witnesses that fear coming forward to testify before this court for the 

same reason—retaliation by the union, not by individual members, but 

their union. (See Vargas Doc. 53-2 PAGEID 2919-2920, Aff. Of 

Ladonna Casey; See also Doc. 119 PAGEID 3892-3893; 3897 Phillips 

Aff; PAGEID 3898-3917 Morgan Aff; PAGEID 3918-3920 Martin 

Aff.). 

11. Defendants’ Counsel argues that he has not suffered from his own 

withholding of documents, and Defendants are ready for trial. This 

stands to reason. The union is the custodian of record for all documents. 

Members are not allowed to take records from the APFA archives, nor 

are members allowed to make copies of documentation or duplicate it 

in any way from the union’s original records. So technically the only 

way to obtain records is to schedule an appointment for in-scope 

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inspection of the documents. This is a particularly convenient policy 

when the Union gets sued, as APFA is the only party allowed to 

maintain records. So clearly the prejudice that Plaintiff suffers based 

on the imbalance of access to document production would prepare 

Defendant for trial, but not Plaintiff. Particularly difficult is that 

Plaintiff made a good faith effort to comply with discovery efforts and 

turned over all documents in Plaintiff’s Counsel’s possession to date. 

12. Defendants also argue that they are not concealing evidence whatsoever 

because they answered 92 Requests for Admissions, 30 Requests for 

Production, 60 Interrogatories, and produced over 5000 documents—

and admit that they continue to supplement their discovery. However, 

Plaintiff received answers that contained mostly objections, and 

produced documents that contained little to no communications, were 

heavily redacted, or were documents Plaintiff’s Counsel already 

produced to Defendants. However, the fact that Defendants’ Counsel 

recognizes and admits that Defendants they continue to seek documents 

and supplement discovery is a reason enough to extend the discovery 

deadline and substantiates the fact that neither Plaintiff nor Defendants 

are ready for trial. 

13. Further, almost no email communications were produced from the four 

National Officers to Plaintiff. Most importantly, Defendants’ Counsel 

continues to maintain that he does not and will not respond to Plaintiff’s 

first Request for Production on the Eugenio Vargas Case: 

“All documents, including but not limited to policy documents, 

insurance contracts, addendums, exclusions, conditions, and 

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declarations pages that afford liability insurance to either 

APFA, or any one of the current or former officers, board 

members, or any authorized agents, or employees acting on 

behalf of APFA for purposes of protection in compliance with 

Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act 502(a).”

Defendants’ Counsel refuses to supplement the answer and refuses to 

produce the insurance documents in compliance with this Request for 

Production. Defendants cannot attest to their own cooperation with 

discovery if Defendants fail to turn over insurance documents. The 

discovery period cannot end until the insurance issue has been resolved 

on this case. There are pending breach of fiduciary duty claims against 

officers on both sides, all of whom were required to maintain insurance, 

yet the union refuses to turn over insurance documents pertaining to 

officer’s wrongdoing as of the date of this pleading. The lack of 

document production, including the insurance documents, is a threshold 

issue that must be resolved prior to the close of the discovery period. 

Conclusion

14. Based on the above, Plaintiff seeks leave for this Court to extend 

the deadlines for the discovery period and dispositive motions, so 

that the parties have adequate time to conduct discovery and 

depositions, and so that depositions can be scheduled so as not 

interfere with the union’s election process. 

Prayer

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WHEREFORE, for these reasons, Plaintiff, Robert “Bob” Ross respectfully 

asks the Court to enter an order granting an extension of the discovery period, and the 

dispositive motions period, and sustaining Plaintiff’s objection to Defendants notice 

of deposition and forsuch other and further relief, at law or in equity, to which Plaintiff, 

Robert “Bob” Ross, may show itself to be justly entitled.

 Respectfully submitted,

 

 

By: /s/ Kerri Phillips s 

Kerri Phillips, Esq.

Texas Bar No. 24065906

Phone: (972) 327-5800 

Email: kerri@kdphillipslaw.com

KD PHILLIPS LAW FIRM, PLLC

6010 West Spring Creek Parkway

Plano, Texas 75024

Fax: (940) 400-0089 

For Service of Filings: 

notice@kdphillipslaw.com

 

ATTORNEY FOR PLAINTIFF

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I certify that on this 23cd day of October 2023, a true and correct copy of the foregoing 

document was served on the below listed counsel of record for Defendants by a means permitted 

by Rule 5(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“F.R.C.P.”).

By: /s/ Kerri Phillips s 

Kerri Phillips, Esq.

Jeffrey Bartos

Guerrieri, Bartos, & Roma, P.C. 

1900 M Street, NW, Suite 700

Washington, DC 20036

Tel: (202) 624-7400; Fax: (202) 624-7420 

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Email: jbartos@geclaw.com

Charlette Matts

In-House Counsel for APFA

1004 West Euless Blvd

Euless, TX 76040

Tel: (682) 301-8454 

Cmatts@apfa.org

James Sanford

4803 Gaston Avenue

Dallas, TX 75249-1020 

Tel: (214) 800-5111; Fax: (214) 838-

0001 

Email jim@gillespiesanford.com

Email: joe@gillespiesanford.com

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