Opinion ID: 1199950
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appointment of a Master as a Discovery Sanction

Text: The factors we have just set forth are remedial and managerial in nature: Their goals are to assist parties having difficulty resolving discovery conflicts absent court intervention and to ensure a prompt resolution of a complicated or contentious discovery process by using masters to ease the burden on trial judges with hectic daily court schedules. Although courts may reasonably take into account parties' contentiousness when deciding to appoint a discovery master, the purpose for such an appointment should not be punitive. We agree with the Peters that the use of masters as a sanctioning tool potentially runs afoul of the procedural requirements of Civil Rule 37. Civil Rule 37(g) allows courts to impose sanctions only after certain requirements are met: Failure to Cooperate in Discovery or to Participate in the Framing of a Discovery Plan. If a party or a party's attorney engages in unreasonable, groundless, abusive, or obstructionist conduct during the course of discovery ... the court may, after opportunity for hearing, require such party or attorney to pay to any other party the reasonable expenses, including attorney's fees, caused by the conduct. (Emphasis added.) Similarly, a court may not force a losing party to pay for fees and costs with respect to a Rule 37(a) motion to compel unless the prevailing party has first made a good faith effort to obtain compliance without court action. [33] When a court appoints a master as a means of deterring future unreasonable discovery requests, it imposes a sanction while circumventing the requirements of Rule 37. The Peters argue that any appointment of a discovery master is a back-door sanction without the attendant safeguards of Civil Rule 37, because parties are forced to pay the master's fees even for losing a reasonable, good-faith dispute. But unless the purpose of the master's appointment is punitive, payment of master's fees is no different than any other cost of litigation thrust upon parties. [34] Such inevitable costs generally implicate due process concerns only when they affect a litigant's meaningful access to justice. Progressive contends that appointment of a master does not work as a sanction at all because both parties are subject to paying a master's fees if they lose a dispute. Progressive also notes that one could make a similar argument against forcing parties to pay fees upon losing a good-faith motion to compel. But paying fees upon losing a single motion to compel is qualitatively different from paying a master to oversee the rest of the discovery process. Whereas the former is subject to Civil Rule 37 requirements and serves to compensate the other party for costs incurred, the latter has no proportionality requirement or procedural safeguard attached. And although Progressive's argument may be persuasive in the abstract, in a case like this, in which one party has substantially more financial resources than another, appointment of a master could disproportionately burden the party being sanctioned. Some courts appear cautiously willing to use the discovery master as a sanctioning tool in certain circumstances. One federal court required an attorney, in response to his Rambo Litigation technique during a deposition, to pay for a new deposition as well as for a discovery master to supervise the deposition. [35] One commentator has suggested, albeit in a tongue-in-cheek article, that discovery masters should be used more often as a threat to quell discovery abuse. [36] Even so, given the language and spirit of Civil Rule 37, we agree with those courts that have discouraged the use of masters as a discovery sanction. [37]