In the United States Court of Federal Claims

No. 14-251 C

(Filed December 21, 2015)

UNPUBLISHED

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

BISHOP HILL ENERGY LLC *

and INVENERGY WIND LLC, *

 *

Plaintiffs, * Motion to Compel; Information

 * Sought Is Both Irrelevant and

v. * Burdensome to Produce.

 *

THE UNITED STATES, *

 *

Defendant. *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

John C. Hayes, Jr., Washington, DC, for plaintiffs.

1

 Alycia A. Ziarno and

Brian P. Donnelly, Washington, DC, of counsel. 

Miranda Bureau, United States Department of Justice Tax Division, with

whom were Caroline D. Ciraolo, Acting Assistant Attorney General, David I.

Pincus, Chief, G. Robson Stewart, Assistant Chief, Blaine G. Saito, Trial Attorney,

Washington, DC, for defendant.

________________________

OPINION

________________________

1

/ At the time plaintiff’s motion to compel was filed, Invenergy Wind LLC had not been

added as a co-plaintiff. Thus, the court’s reference to a singular plaintiff in this opinion is to

Bishop Hill Energy LLC.
Bush, Senior Judge.

The court has before it plaintiff’s motion to compel responses to

interrogatories, filed September 30, 2015. Part of plaintiff’s motion was

withdrawn after the government amended certain interrogatory answers. Pl.’s

Reply at 1. The remaining portion of plaintiff’s motion is opposed by defendant. 

For the reasons stated below, plaintiff’s motion is denied.

The action that gave rise to this suit is the government’s determination that

plaintiff should receive less than it requested in a federal grant for having

developed a wind power facility. The complaint seeks $12,707,011 “in additional

payments under Section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment [Act of

2009], Pub. L. 111-5 (2009), as amended by § 707 of the Tax Relief,

Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, Pub. L.

111-312 (2010) (‘Section 1603’).” Def.’s Opp. at 2. It is undisputed that Section

1603 grants, pursuant to the statute, should vary in amount in order to account for

the cost basis of the particular wind power facility. Compl. ¶ 10. According to the

parties, at least one of the elements of the “claimed eligible” cost basis of

plaintiff’s facility is a “development fee” of $60,000,000 paid to the parent

corporation of plaintiff. Pl.’s Mot. at 1; Def.’s Opp. at 3.

The court notes at the outset that this is the second discovery dispute

brought to the court’s attention by the parties, and yet another motion regarding a

discovery dispute has recently been docketed in this case, a motion which also has

direct applicability to a companion case, California Ridge Wind Energy LLC v.

United States, No. 14-250C. Also pending before the court are fully-briefed

opposed motions to amend the discovery schedule in these companion cases. The

court strongly encourages the parties to work harder on achieving consensus or

compromise regarding discovery matters. These companion cases have already

consumed a disproportionate amount of judicial resources and the court must

allocate its resources among all of the cases on its docket going forward.

In any event, the court’s analysis in this opinion addresses three principal

disputes: (1) whether the government’s data concerning unrelated wind power

projects and their grant applications and payments are relevant to the dispute over

the amount of plaintiff’s grant in this case; (2) whether the type and amount of

information sought by means of plaintiff’s interrogatories is overly burdensome on

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the government; and, (3) whether the discovery requested of plaintiff (or related

entities) regarding companies affiliated with plaintiff, previously approved by the

court, is of the same nature as the discovery requested of the government that is

the subject of plaintiff’s motion to compel. The court’s discussion of this last

issue should help the parties to collaboratively resolve defendant’s motion filed on

November 25, 2015 in this case. The court begins with the issue of relevance.

I. Relevance

The tax provision underlying this suit requires a determination of the cost

basis of wind power facilities by the United States Department of the Treasury

(Treasury) before a grant can issue. Compl. ¶ 11. Logically, Treasury’s

determination of the cost basis of a particular wind power facility is a fact-specific

inquiry which depends, to a great degree, on the accounting data provided to

Treasury by the grant applicant. See id. ¶ 14 (noting that affiliated companies of

plaintiff submitted grant applications in which, “[i]n accordance with well

established tax principles, the full cost of development [for energy production

facilities] was claimed as the cost basis for each facility”). The court’s task in this

suit is similar; the court must determine whether plaintiff has met its burden to

show that its cost basis was greater than the cost basis determined by Treasury. 

The parties agree that this is a de novo inquiry. Def.’s Opp. at 3 (citing W.E.

Partners II, LLC v. United States, 119 Fed. Cl. 684, 690 (2015), appeal docketed,

No. 15-5054 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 13, 2015)); Pl.’s Mot. at 7.

The parties strongly disagree, however, as to whether data collected by

Treasury regarding approximately 108 other wind power facilities are relevant to

the court’s inquiry in this suit. The data sought by plaintiff include project

information, such as the date of each wind facility’s Section 1603 application and

the energy output of that facility. Pl.’s Mot. App. at 29. Plaintiff is also interested

in learning the size of “development fees” that these other wind facility projects

have paid, and the extent to which such development fees were determined by

Treasury to be reasonable. Id. Before turning to the parties’ specific arguments

regarding the relevance of the information sought by plaintiff’s interrogatories, the

court reviews pertinent jurisprudence in tax suits which discusses the relevance, or

the lack of relevance, of prior determinations of Treasury as to the tax liabilities of

similarly situated taxpayers.

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A. De Novo Proceedings in Tax Cases

When this court adjudicates a tax dispute, past treatment of similarly

situated taxpayers by Treasury is not, as a general rule, relevant to the court’s

resolution of the tax dispute before it. W.E. Partners, 199 Fed. Cl. at 692 (citing

Vons Cos. v. United States, 51 Fed. Cl. 1, 10 & n.10 (2001), modified in part by

Vons Cos. v. United States, No. 00-234T, 2001 WL 1555306 (Fed. Cl. Nov. 30,

2001)). In the court’s view, award decisions by Treasury on Section 1603 grant

applications are analogous to private letter rulings issued by Treasury to a

particular taxpayer. The substance of such communications with an individual

taxpayer unrelated to the plaintiff has no relevance to a tax case before this court. 

See, e.g., Amergen Energy Co., LLC ex rel. Exelon Generation Co., LLC v. United

States, 94 Fed. Cl. 413, 423 (2010) (“None of these cases [cited by the plaintiff]

persuades the court that the [private letter rulings] in question have any relevance

to the issues to be decided in this [tax] case.”); Vons, 51 Fed. Cl. at 12 (holding

that private letter rulings issued to other taxpayers may not be relied upon for their

substance in a tax suit before this court); see also Hanover Bank v. Comm’r, 369

U.S. 672, 686 (1962) (noting that taxpayers “are not entitled to rely upon

unpublished private rulings which were not issued specifically to them”) (citations

omitted). Thus, to the extent that plaintiff’s interrogatories seek Treasury’s rulings

on the reasonableness of development fees paid to create other unrelated wind

power projects, such information is irrelevant to the court’s inquiry in this suit.

B. Plaintiff’s Relevance Arguments

Notwithstanding the weight of precedent discussed supra, plaintiff argues

that its interrogatories regarding other wind projects, other Section 1603

applications, and other development fees claimed by applicants and/or ruled upon

by Treasury are all relevant to this suit. The central thrust of plaintiff’s argument

is that Treasury possesses information relevant to the task of determining the “fair

market value” of development fees for wind power projects, and that this relevant

data must be provided to plaintiff. See Pl.’s Mot. at 9 (asserting that plaintiff’s

interrogatories “seek information that is directly relevant to the fair market

value of Plaintiff’s development fee, which the Government concedes is a material

fact in this case”). A second purpose of the interrogatories is to permit plaintiff to

impeach the government’s witnesses who might opine as to the “fair market value”

of wind power facility development fees in a manner inconsistent with prior

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Treasury rulings on other Section 1603 applications. Id. at 8; Pl.’s Reply at 7-9.

As for plaintiff’s relevance argument which asserts that Treasury data will

help establish the fair market value of development fees, plaintiff’s motion offers

only one case as authority for this proposition.2

 See Pl.’s Mot. at 9 (citing Vons,

51 Fed. Cl. at 4, 15). Plaintiff’s reliance on Vons in its opening brief is both

cursory and vague: “the Court [in Vons] conducted a point-by-point examination

of the plaintiff’s discovery requests and ordered the Government to respond to

many of them.” Id. No further reference to Vons is supplied in plaintiff’s reply

brief, nor is any additional authority cited for the proposition that Treasury rulings

in other tax matters may be used to establish the fair market value of development

fees, or, for that matter, for establishing the cost basis of a particular investment

property. 

Contrary to plaintiff’s view of Vons the court therein expressly criticized

any interpretation of governing caselaw which would support “pervasive

discovery and use of private letter rulings and other information in the IRS’s files

to demonstrate unequal treatment among taxpayers.” 51 Fed. Cl. at 10 n.10

(citation omitted). The Vons court went on to cite with approval a decision of the

United States Tax Court which held that “‘[i]t has long been the position of this

Court that our responsibility is to apply the law to the facts of the case before us

and determine the tax liability of the parties before us; how the Commissioner may

have treated other taxpayers has generally been considered irrelevant in making

that determination.’” Id. (quoting Davis v. Comm’r, 65 T.C. 1014, 1022, 1976 WL

3750 (1976)). The holding in Vons regarding private letter rulings (PLRs) of

Treasury has been summarized by this court in the following statement of the law:

“[T]he substance of the PLRs issued to [other taxpayers is] a use of PLRs not

condoned by Vons.” Amergen, 94 Fed. Cl. at 424. The court cannot therefore read

2

/ Plaintiff also cites to RCFC 26(b)(1) and to a case which notes that the scope of

discovery is broad enough to cover matters that could bear on an issue before the court. Pl.’s

Mot. at 8 (citing Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 351 (1978)). The court

acknowledges this general principle and applies it here. See Oppenheimer Fund, 437 U.S. at 351

(stating that relevant discovery “has been construed broadly to encompass any matter that bears

on, or that reasonably could lead to other matter that could bear on, any issue that is or may be in

the case” (citing Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 501 (1947))). The particular discovery

dispute before the court, however, implicates precedent which specifically addresses the

relevance of unrelated Treasury tax rulings to a particular tax case.

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Vons as supplying authority for the discovery that plaintiff seeks in its motion to

compel.

Returning to plaintiff’s proposition regarding “fair market value,” both

plaintiff and the government refer to the term “fair market value” when discussing

how Treasury arrived at its determination of the extent to which plaintiff’s

development fee was properly allowable. Plaintiff contends that “information

relating to development fees claimed by other wind projects was plainly relevant

to Plaintiff’s claim, both as substantive evidence of the fair-market value of

Plaintiff’s development fee and to impeach Treasury’s credibility in the event it

offers inconsistent evidence or testimony at trial.” Pl.’s Mot. at 4. Plaintiff goes

on to assert that Treasury has publicly acknowledged that it uses data from other

Section 1603 applicants in evaluating the fair market values of properties that are

the subject of Section 1603 applications. Pl.’s Reply at 4. Plaintiff then makes the

leap that “it is hard to think of any facts more relevant to the fair market value of

Plaintiff’s development fee than the development fees charged by similarly

situated players in the wind energy market.” Id. Plaintiff, however, compares

apples to oranges.

As reflected in the government document upon which plaintiff relies,

“Evaluating Cost Basis for Solar Photovoltaic Properties,” Pl.’s Mot. Ex. H, the

context in which “fair market value” is referenced relates to the agency’s

determination of an applicant’s claimed cost basis:

The review of applications for payment under the

Section 1603 program includes a determination as to

whether the applicant has properly represented and

calculated its cost basis. Each application is evaluated to

determine whether the cost basis includes only eligible

items and that it represents the applicant’s actual costs

or, in certain cases, fair market value for the eligible

property.

Pl.’s Mot. App. at 59. The document further provides:

As described in various Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

publications, basis is the amount of a business’

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investment in property for tax purposes. Basis is

generally the cost of the property and may also include

the capitalized portion of certain other costs related to

buying or producing the property (e.g. permitting,

engineering, and interest during construction). However,

as described in Bryant v. Commissioner of Internal

Revenue (790 F.2d 1463), “the courts have determined

that in certain circumstances, a taxpayer’s stated cost for

an asset does not reflect the true economic cost of that

asset to the taxpayer and will be ignored for purposes of

determining the basis of the asset.” For example, a

stated cost may be inconsistent with the eligible

property’s true basis “where a transaction is not

conducted at arm’s-length by two economically

self-interested parties or where a transaction is based

upon ‘peculiar circumstances’ which influence the

purchaser to agree to a price in excess of the property’s

fair market value.”

In order to ensure that a Section 1603 applicant’s

claimed cost basis reflects the eligible property’s fair

market value, basis is more closely scrutinized in cases

involving related parties, related transactions, or other

unusual circumstances.

Id. (footnotes omitted).

As stated in the quoted passage above, where a section 1603 payment

application involves related party considerations (as in the instant case), the

agency’s review of the applicant’s claimed cost basis may include an assessment

of the fair market value of the eligible property. Additionally, the document goes

on to state:

Common examples of related party or other unusual

circumstances include:

1. Owner/applicant is related to the

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developer, installer, or supplier (collectively

referred to as the “developer”). The

developer may be a separate,

legally-organized business, but there is

common ownership/control.

2. Owner/applicant is a party to one or

more related transactions with the developer

such that economic interests in the specific

transaction determining basis may not be

adverse. For example, the owner/applicant

purchased the energy property from the

developer and leased the property back to

the developer.

Where such circumstances are present, the review team

evaluates whether the claimed basis is consistent with

the property’s fair market value. As one aspect of this

evaluation, where related transactions or other unusual

circumstances are present, the review team will consider

the applicant’s allocation of the cost to the eligible

property, relative to other ineligible assets, rights, or

contracts that may have been explicitly or implicitly

conveyed in the transaction(s). In this context, the

owner/applicant may be asked to submit a more detailed

cost breakdown. Specifically, original manufacturer’s

invoices/costs to the developer should be provided for

major equipment, subsequent markups by the developer

should be enumerated, and any markups by the owner

identified. The owner may also submit a detailed and

credible third-party appraisal . . . demonstrating that the

claimed basis is consistent with a market transaction

between unrelated parties with adverse economic

interests.

Id. at 61 (footnote omitted).

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It is clear that any analysis of “fair market value” in the context of

determining whether plaintiff’s Section 1603 payment application was properly

granted revolves around the issue of whether in examining the cost basis of an

applicant’s property there were any related party or arms-length transaction

concerns. It is also clear that any fair market value analyses performed in relation

thereto would entail an examination of the fair market value of the property

concerned. There is no indication that Treasury would attempt a meta-analysis of

other Section 1603 applicants’ development fee request information in order to

determine the fair market value of a particular energy property.

The court notes, too, that the mass of data regarding development fees

which Treasury has accepted as proper for use in establishing cost basis is

irrelevant to the court’s analysis here. This is a de novo proceeding – the

rationality of Treasury’s ruling on plaintiff’s Section 1603 application, as well as

the rationality of its rulings on other unrelated Section 1603 applications, are

beyond the scope of plaintiff’s burden of proof or the government’s obligations as

defendant in this suit. Plaintiff, for example, cannot rely on these rulings as a

measure of its proper cost basis. See, e.g., Fla. Power & Light Co. v. United

States, 56 Fed. Cl. 328, 334 (2003) (stating that a tax “plaintiff cannot claim

entitlement to a particular tax treatment on the basis of a ruling issued to another

taxpayer” (citing Hanover Bank, 369 U.S. at 686)), aff’d, 375 F.3d 1119 (Fed. Cir.

2004). Nor can the government claim that Treasury’s practice of accepting a

certain level of development fees as reasonable should guide the court’s

interpretation of the statute in this case. The parties’ arguments on cost basis must

rely on facts relevant to plaintiff’s Section 1603 application to be persuasive. 

Plaintiff has failed to show how Treasury’s files regarding other Section 1603

applications are relevant or even potentially relevant to this inquiry.

3

Turning now to the question of impeachment, plaintiff has not cited any

authority for the proposition that prior Treasury rulings are discoverable for the

3

/ Plaintiff’s complaint underscores the irrelevance of Treasury rulings on prior Section

1603 applications. Companies affiliated with plaintiff are alleged to have received five Section

1603 grants in proportion to the cost bases claimed in the grant applications. Compl. ¶¶ 14-15. 

Plaintiff’s grant, however, was reduced when its claimed cost basis was not allowed. Id.

¶¶ 19-21. Treasury’s rulings on the five previous applications mentioned in the complaint have

no relevance to plaintiff’s claim here. Similarly, Treasury’s rulings in the 108 Section 1603

applications targeted by plaintiff’s motion to compel have no relevance to this suit.

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purpose of impeaching future testimony from Treasury employees or experts

regarding the cost basis of an investment property. Instead, plaintiff relies on two

cases for the general proposition that “prior inconsistent statements” may be used

to impeach the credibility of a witness. See Pl.’s Mot. at 8 (citing United States v.

Hale, 422 U.S. 171, 176 (1975) and Grand Acadian, Inc. v. United States, 101

Fed. Cl. 398, 405 n.10 (2011)); Pl.’s Reply at 7 (same). Neither of these cases

addresses the type of discovery dispute presented by plaintiff. Hale examined

whether a criminal suspect’s testimony could be impeached by evidence of his

silence during a police interrogation. The Grand Acadian footnote cited by

plaintiff discusses the general rule that prior inconsistent statements may be

admissible at trial for the purposes of impeachment of a witness, but this footnote

does not address the relevance of prior Treasury rulings in a tax case – for

impeachment or for any other purpose.

Moreover, this court’s examination of impeachment evidence has shown

that the “prior inconsistent statements” impeachment tool does not apply when the

author of the prior inconsistent statements is not the same as the testifying witness. 

See Fisher v. United States, 78 Fed. Cl. 710, 712 (2007) (“The evidentiary rules do

not allow for impeachment of an expert witness by statements made by someone

else that are contained in a report.”) (citation omitted). Plaintiff has not

established that statements regarding prior development fee allowances by

Treasury would have been made by any witness that might be called in this suit. 

The court therefore sees no logical connection between Treasury’s prior findings

regarding 108 Section 1603 applications and the impeachment of government

witnesses in this case.

Both of plaintiff’s arguments regarding the relevance or even the potential

relevance of the information sought in its interrogatories fail. The parties must

necessarily focus on the specific facts of this case rather than on any alleged

patterns in the disposition by Treasury of 108 Section 1603 grant applications. 

Because the information sought in plaintiff’s interrogatories is not relevant,

defendant need not provide any more specific responses to plaintiff’s

interrogatories than those already provided.

II. Unduly Burdensome Discovery

The government opposes plaintiff’s motion on another ground – that full

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responses to plaintiff’s interrogatories would be unduly burdensome on Treasury. 

Plaintiff argues that relevance and burden must be weighed against each other:

“[T]he Court must consider not simply whether the requests are burdensome, but

whether ‘the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely

benefit, considering the needs of the case, the amount in controversy, the parties’

resources, the importance of the issues at stake in the action, and the importance of

the discovery in resolving the issues.’” Pl.’s Mot. at 11 (quoting RCFC

26(b)(2)(C)). When a court has determined that the requested discovery is not

relevant, however, discovery in the form of mere speculative inquiries may and

should be denied by the court. Micro Motion, Inc. v. Kane Steel Co., 894 F.2d

1318, 1326-28 (Fed. Cir. 1990). Because the discovery sought by plaintiff is

irrelevant, the burdensome nature of the discovery requested necessarily

outweighs any other factors in the analysis.

Even if some of the information requested in plaintiff’s interrogatories

could be considered to be of tangential relevance to the cost basis issue in this suit,

defendant has submitted an affidavit as to the onerous burden it would place on

the government to mine 108 Section 1603 applications for the data requested by

plaintiff. See Def.’s Opp. Ex. C. According to this affidavit, it would be

extremely difficult to extract information regarding claimed and allowed

development fees from these 108 Section 1603 applications. Id. Ex. C ¶¶ 4-5. 

Also, according to this affidavit, Treasury would be unable to report this

information in a way which would be of any value to either plaintiff or the court,

due to the amount of variability in the data included in the Section 1603

applications for the various wind power facilities. Id. Ex. C. ¶¶ 6-9. Plaintiff

responds that certain categories of information in the applications are easier to

compile than others, and that the variations in accounting categories among the

wind power facility applications should not absolve the government from

responding to plaintiff’s interrogatories. Pl.’s Reply at 3-7. Having considered

both parties’ arguments as to the burden imposed by plaintiff’s interrogatories, the

court concludes that the burden on the government significantly outweighs the

potential utility of that information in developing any relevant or potentially

relevant arguments that might be presented in this case.

Plaintiff also raises the issue of its own limited resources to compile “fair

market value” data concerning development fees, as compared to the

government’s stockpile of accumulated data from Section 1603 applications. See

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Pl.’s Mot. at 11 (“To allow the Government to have possession and use of

[information which concerns the fair market value of plaintiff’s development fee]

while prohibiting the Plaintiff from doing the same would be fundamentally unfair

and violate the letter and spirit of RCFC 26.”); Pl.’s Reply at 3 (“Even after

needlessly expending resources investigating hundreds of public sources,

therefore, Plaintiff still would not have access to the same information that is

readily available to Defendant.”). Although it is certainly true that the government

possesses 108 confidential Section 1603 applications and plaintiff is not in that

same position, the noted “imbalance” in access to data is, in this court’s view, a

red herring.

4

 The cost basis of plaintiff’s wind power facility will be established

by the evidence presented by the parties which relates specifically to plaintiff’s

facility.

5

 To the extent that “fair market value” of development fees evidence may

be presented by either party in expert opinion, this court’s discovery rules ensure

fairness in access to data underlying expert testimony. E.g., Banks v. United

States, 75 Fed. Cl. 294, 298-99 (2007); see RCFC 26(a)(2). For all of these

reasons, the court finds that the burden on the government is too great to require

more expansive responses to plaintiff’s interrogatories. 

III. Dissimilar Fact Discovery Regarding Plaintiff’s Affiliated Companies

The last point to be addressed is plaintiff’s contention that it would be

“egregious” for defendant to be permitted extensive discovery regarding the

affiliated companies of plaintiff and their wind power projects, if plaintiff is not

permitted to extract similarly expansive data from Treasury’s Section 1603

applications. Pl.’s Mot. at 7 n.2; see Pl.’s Reply at 6 (“Defendant also has insisted

on . . . expansive third-party discovery from Plaintiff’s parents and affiliates

4

/ The government argues that plaintiff and its affiliated companies possess substantial

amounts of information regarding development fees and investments in wind power facilities. 

Def.’s Opp. at 6.

5

/ Plaintiff suggests that because the government allegedly relied upon data from other

Section 1603 grant applications in order to determine the cost basis of plaintiff’s wind power

facility, that data is relevant to the issues in this suit. Pl.’s Mot. at 10; Pl.’s Reply at 4 & n.2. 

The court, however, does not review the government’s administrative consideration of plaintiff’s

Section 1603 grant application in this de novo proceeding. The court’s inquiry, instead, focuses

on the evidence of the cost basis of plaintiff’s wind power facility. As previously stated, the

analytical framework utilized by Treasury in determining plaintiff’s Section 1603 grant is not a

relevant factor for determining the proper cost basis of plaintiff’s wind power facility. 

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regarding dozens of other wind energy properties with little if any relevance to this

case.”). The comparison of these discovery efforts is inapposite. 

One of the issues presented in this case revolves around the development

fee paid by a subsidiary to a parent corporation that is involved in a great number

of wind power projects. The amount of the fee and the financial investments in

plaintiff’s wind power project have a direct connection to the financial

relationships among the affiliated companies. The relevance of these particular

wind power projects and the financial relationships among those related business

entities is clear.

Plaintiff, on the other hand, asks Treasury to analyze complex financial

investments of companies wholly unrelated to plaintiff in order to establish some

type of benchmark for the fair market value of development fees in the wind

power industry. Not only is the requested analysis burdensome and unlikely to

provide meaningful results, the data retrieved would not assist the court in its task

of determining the cost basis of this particular wind power facility. The court’s

focus in this suit is not on all wind power facilities – it is on plaintiff’s wind power

facility.

It is neither imbalanced nor improper for the court to permit relevant

discovery and to restrain irrelevant discovery. Furthermore, although plaintiff

may indeed have more voluminous corporate and accounting records to produce

than the documents which the government must produce, the discovery permitted

defendant has not been shown to be disproportionate to the complexity of the

financial relationships at issue in this cost basis dispute. The court must reject

plaintiff’s contention that the parties have not been permitted equivalent access to

relevant or potentially relevant discovery. 

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, it is hereby ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion to

Compel Responses to Interrogatories, filed September 30, 2015, is DENIED.

/s/Lynn J. Bush 

LYNN J. BUSH

Senior Judge

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