Opinion ID: 3049370
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: District Court’s Status Conference

Text: On August 27, 2009, the district court conducted a telephonic status conference with counsel for the parties. The main issues in the conference related 4 Speaker’s Amended Complaint acknowledges that the CDC was not the only health institution in Atlanta involved in his case. His Amended Complaint indicates other Atlanta entities were involved in his diagnosis and testing, including the Fulton County Health Department Tuberculosis Program, the Georgia Public Health Laboratory, and the Georgia Department of Health and Wellness. 10 to what losses are recoverable under the Privacy Act and what discovery could be sought. The CDC’s counsel invoked the precedents of Bell Atlantic Corporation v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S. Ct. 1955 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. __, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009), as a rationale to deny Speaker’s Rule 56(f) discovery request. The CDC contended that Speaker had not properly alleged the statutory elements of a Privacy Act violation, nor had he identified the nature of the wrongful disclosure. The district court inquired why the CDC filed a motion for summary judgment when it was alleging pleading inadequacies.5 After lengthy exchanges with counsel for both parties, the district court denied Speaker’s request for discovery at this juncture and temporarily stayed the case.6 The court, however, allowed Speaker the option of filing an Amended 5 The district court stated: If you had filed a motion to dismiss under Rule 12, I would have looked at the pleadings to determine whether or not they were sufficient under Twombly to move forward under a plausibility argument. But you have opened this can of worms, not me. .... . . . [B]y your filing it and filing all these attachments, you have opened up the record. 6 The district court denied discovery, stating: I am always extremely reluctant where there is a pending motion for summary judgment with a request and information submitted to me to go beyond the pleadings to not allow some discovery on fundamental issues. I just have to go and look at the pleadings to see what fundamental issue there might be. But the CDC has taken this litigation approach, it complicates it in my mind as far as whether I can stick to the pleadings . . . . So I am going to go back and revisit this. And until I do, the case will stand instanter and we won’t have any discovery until I allow it. 11 Complaint to add factual specificity necessary to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion under the pleading standards set forth in Twombly and Iqbal.