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Amend the Pretrial Scheduling Order, and Motion for Discovery Sanctions (Doc.
No. 212), to the extent that the motion requests sanctions for Defendants’ alleged
abuses of the discovery process and to the extent that certain requests were not
ruled on at the August 13, 2009 hearing on Plaintiffs’ motion. 1 Based on further
review of the record, the Court denies Plaintiffs’ request for sanctions because
At the August 13, 2009 hearing, the Court commented on several peculiar
aspects of the parties’ submissions, some of which were of Plaintiffs’ doing. For
instance, Plaintiffs failed to comply with District of Minnesota Local Rule 37.2,
1
At the August 13, 2009 hearing on Plaintiffs’ motion, the Court denied
Plaintiffs’ request for sanctions to the extent that it related to Interrogatories 12
and 14 of Plaintiffs’ Third Set of Interrogatories and various requests in Plaintiffs’
First Request for Production of Documents. (Doc. Nos. 238 and 239, Buetow v.
A.L.S. Enterprises, Inc., et al., Civ. No. 07-3970 (RHK/JJK).) The Court took the
matter of sanctions not ruled on at the hearing under advisement. (Id.)
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supporting memorandum. The parties should be aware that the Court requires
strict adherence to Local Rule 37.2 not out of a sense of rigid formalism, but as a
the Court has included a reference to Local Rule 37.2 in the Practice Pointers
and Preferences for Magistrate Judge Jeffrey J. Keyes, which are available on
the website for the Minnesota Chapter of the Federal Bar Association,
this case (and indeed in any of the other matters pending before the Court in the
multidistrict litigation of which this case is a part) must adhere to Local Rule 37.2
so that the Court has a clear picture of the specific discovery in dispute, the
precise response or objection made, and the basis for considering the response
or objection improper. The parties should also be aware that our local rules
appropriate means needed to protect the parties and the interests of justice.”
asserted at the August 13, 2009 hearing that Plaintiffs have not specifically
requested sanctions for any discovery dispute other than the request for
sanctions that the Court denied at the hearing. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
37(a)(5) does not explicitly require a party to request sanctions for each
2
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a successful motion to compel, but Plaintiffs’ failure in this regard, at the very
least, takes the sting out of their outrage about Defendants’ conduct.
Although the Court has decided not to award any expenses or discovery
credible justification for their refusal to provide Plaintiffs with the insurance
13, 2009 hearing, Defendants asserted that because the claims they submitted to
memorandum was anything but clear with respect to whether claims had been
submitted at all, had been submitted and denied, or whether Plaintiffs were
adequately informed that this was the basis for Defendants’ refusal to disclose
their purview insurance agreements under which a claim was initially denied. As
3
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Plaintiffs’ motion. Unless the reference to these irrelevant matters was intended
to distract the Court from the discovery dispute at issue, the strategy behind the
should limit their memoranda and argument to the matters before the Court.
the discovery process, and to the extent such requests were not ruled on at the
August 13, 2009 hearing, Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel, Motion to Amend the
Pretrial Scheduling Order, and Motion for Discovery Sanctions (Doc. No. 212), is
DENIED.
s/ Jeffrey J. Keyes
JEFFREY J. KEYES
United States Magistrate Judge