Salako v. Rushmore Loan Management Services LLC et al

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WO
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA
Chidinma Grace Salako,
Plaintiff,
v.
Rushmore Loan Management Services LLC,
et al.,
Defendants.
No. CV-25-01063-PHX-JJT
ORDER
Now pending before the Court is yet another slew of discovery-related disputes.
Those filings include pro se Plaintiff Chidinma Grace Salako’s four motions requesting,
inter alia, various protective orders (Docs. 138, 139, 143, 145), to which Defendants filed
a consolidated, omnibus response (Doc. 148), and Plaintiff replied (Doc. 150). The parties
also filed a Joint Discovery Dispute Statement No. 2 (Doc. 151) regarding other discovery
issues that Plaintiff supplemented with two “notices” (Docs. 155, 156), revealing that this
matter has, once more, digressed into morass.
I. CONFERRAL
First, the Court is aware the parties now disagree even about how they may conduct
meet-and-confers, which are required before filing notices of discovery disputes and
certain motions. The Court has not been encyclopedic in its listing of the fora or media that
may facilitate the meet-and confer. The purpose of the meet-and-confer is as follows: when
a party believes another party is proceeding in a way that is contrary to the applicable rules
or the law interpreting those rules, the meet-and-confer is required to give the objecting
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party the opportunity to raise with the other party that disagreement and for the other party,
upon hearing the concern, to in good faith evaluate the concern to determine whether it has
merit. If the other party agrees the first party’s concern has merit, the other party can correct
course or the parties can reach some compromised resolution short of involving the Court
and requiring it to devote its concededly scarce time refereeing another dispute whose
solution is evident in the rules. If the other party does not agree, then the motion or notice
is filed and the Court must engage. That is all. The meet-and-confer is not a forum for
arguing the merits of the case, nor is it the place to raise things that have happened in other
facets of the litigation. It is simply a way to isolate a perceived misstep in the pleadings or
the conduct of discovery and discuss that limited question—and nothing else—to
determine if the parties can resolve the limited issue by mutual assent without coming back
to the Court over and over.
Having observed the above first principle, the Court next observes there can be
multiple modes to effectively meet and confer. It expressly recognized in its prior
scheduling order the possibility of conducting the meet-and-confer face to face or by
telephone because those are the most obvious ways to conduct a contemporaneous
discussion that allows for real-time reaction and civil give-and-take among the parties. The
Court most favors telephonic meet-and-confers because they have the added advantage of
saving the parties time and money. But it does not impose or limit modes of conducting
the meet-and-confer to these two options. The Court understands that one party here would
prefer to confer via email. As long as that party—whichever one seeks to communicate via
email—does not delay the conferral process and, therefore, defeat its spirit by unreasonably
long delays in responding, email serves the purpose of the meet-and-confer as set forth
above. Now that the conferral requirement is clarified, the Court turns to the growing and
unresolved discovery disputes and Plaintiff’s various motions.
II. JOINT DISCOVERY DISPUTE
The parties have brought forth their second formal discovery dispute. This time,
Defendants allege that Plaintiff: (1) either fails to respond to discovery requests or did
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respond but rewrote the original request prior to providing her response; (2) refuses to
provide her availability for a deposition; (3) fails to produce documents she received from
third party subpoenas; and (4) refuses to cooperate in signing a protective order following
this Court’s standard form despite requesting that protection. (Doc. 151 at 2.) Plaintiff
denies that she rewrote Defendants’ discovery requests, claiming that she “responded in
good faith to each request as received, using the wording provided, and supplied narrative
responses describing events as they occurred.” (Id. at 3.) The record clearly demonstrates
the opposite. Plaintiff did rewrite several discovery requests. This she would have had to
do manually and with intention. While in some instances she merely summarized a request,
in others she altered a request so significantly that it no longer resembled the original
premise or purpose of Defendant’s request, to favor Plaintiff’s own position. For example,
Defendant Nationstar’s third request for admission asked Plaintiff to “[a]dmit the Note
requires monthly payments of principal and interest in the amount of $1,888.52.” (Doc.
151-2 at 18.) Plaintiff rewrote the statement to say, “[a]dmit that Nationstar did not send
you any bills or statements in June 2022,” which Plaintiff subsequently admitted. (Id. at
29.) Several such alterations are significant, intentional, self-serving, and resemble
anything but a “good faith” attempt to respond to Defendants’ discovery requests.
For Plaintiff’s portion of the joint discovery dispute, she advances that Defendants
sent her “an unsolicited ZIP folder” that contained malware or a virus. (Doc. 151 at 3.) She
cancelled access to the ZIP file and emailed Defendants’ counsel regarding the incident,
who promptly explained that the ZIP file was necessary because the documents Plaintiff
requested were too large to send as an email attachment, and the ZIP file would have merely
opened a separate folder to those documents.1 (Doc. 152-1 at 3.) Plaintiff also accuses
Defendants’ counsel of contributing to an “escalating and disorienting discovery
environment” and sending “multiple emails containing inconsistent accusations.” (Doc.
151 at 3.)
. . .
1 Based on this Court’s own experience with ZIP files, Defendants’ counsel’s explanation
to Plaintiff is accurate.
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The Court has reviewed all written communications submitted by the parties—once
again at great cost to it in terms of the scarce time it has had to dedicate to the task. There
was not a single circumstance where Defendants’ counsel was inconsistent or otherwise
improper. Counsel clearly set forth the deficiencies in Plaintiff’s discovery responses
multiple times, twice extended the deadline for Plaintiff’s responses without being asked,
and electronically sent the original discovery documents upon Plaintiff’s request in an
appropriate manner. When they were accused of sending malware—an accusation the
Court finds ungrounded in any evidence and not credible—Defendants’ counsel
proactively sent paper copies to Plaintiff, only to be rebuffed once more on the ground that
she has “diabetic retinopathy and [is] unable to read printed materials effectively. . .” (Doc.
151 at 3)—another assertion unsupported in the record. Even assuming that Plaintiff is
unable to read paper documents and Defendants knew this, Plaintiff effectively obstructed
any delivery method of the documents she requested and proposed no alternatives to
Defendants. The discovery phase of litigation is not a game, but the course of events the
Court recounts here creates the strong impression that Plaintiff is engaged in a game of
“gotcha,” especially where the Court has patiently explained the process to her at the Rule
16 conference and in resolving the last formal discovery dispute in this matter. It is unclear
whether the parties have successfully transmitted the requested documents to date.2 What
is clear, though, is that Plaintiff makes no attempt to present workable solutions or snubs
any explanation or attempt by Defendants’ counsel to mitigate the problems that arise.
This theme is also evident in Defendants’ attempt to resolve Plaintiff’s desire for a
protective order, which they drafted as a nearly exact replica of the Court’s standard form
and promptly presented to her. (Doc. 151-3 at 3.) Rather than joining Defendants’ proposed
protective order, which would have provided a degree of the protection she now seeks, she
filed multiple motions for various protective orders. Plaintiff has since characterized her
correspondence with opposing counsel and her numerous filings as her attempt to “resolve
discovery issues cooperatively” and “request[] Court guidance when confusion and mental
2 Regardless, Plaintiff now has access to Defendants’ original discovery requests which are
attached to the Joint Discovery Dispute Statement as Exhibit A (see Doc. 151-1).
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torture suddenly arose upon her.” (Doc. 151 at 3.) There is nothing cooperative about
Plaintiff’s conduct and she seeks far more than mere “guidance” from the Court.
After the parties filed their Joint Discovery Dispute, Plaintiff filed two “notices.” In
the first, she notifies the Court of an additional discovery dispute that arose after the filing
of the Joint Discovery Dispute but that is not properly before the Court pursuant to its prior
Order. (Doc. 155; see Doc. 57 (order).) In both notices, Plaintiff merely supplements her
portion of Joint Discovery Dispute. Having already had an opportunity to be heard as to
the discovery dispute, the Court strikes Plaintiff’s recent notices as improper and frivolous.
After reviewing the discovery requests and responses, interparty communications,
and the parties’ joint statement, the Court finds that Plaintiff has acted unreasonably to
obstruct Defendants’ discovery efforts. Despite its conclusions, the Court will not reach
for the most extreme remedy of sanctions at this point. Rather, as further detailed in Section
VI, infra, it will require Plaintiff to comply without fail with her discovery obligations
under the rules as well as this Order, in which the Court has been and will be painstakingly
explicit about its requirements.
No later than five days of the date of this Order, Defendants shall file a Notice of
Discovery Deficiencies with the Court identifying with precision each discovery request
that was not answered or was altered by Plaintiff to date, or for which production of
documents (if requested) has not been completed. No later than ten days after Defendants
file the Notice, Plaintiff shall respond to each discovery request identified in Defendants’
notice without altering the requests and produce all requested material. Plaintiff shall
provide those responses and documents directly to Defendants. No later than three days
after providing her responses and documents to Defendants, Plaintiff shall file a Notice of
Compliance with the Court without any attachments. No later than seven days after
Defendants receive the responses, they shall file a notice of certification of Plaintiff’s
compliance listing all requests they deem Plaintiff to have complied with and, if necessary,
a motion for sanctions identifying any requests Plaintiff has not complied with, along with
Defendants’ basis for so concluding.
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The remaining discovery disputes raised by the parties permeate Plaintiff’s various
motions, so the Court will now address those disputes and motions concurrently.
III. PLAINTIFF’S MOTIONS FOR PROTECTIVE ORDER
Pretrial discovery is broad by design and entitles a party to “any nonprivileged
matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the
case.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). “The Rules do not differentiate between information that
is private or intimate and that to which no privacy interests attach. Under the Rules, the
only express limitations are that the information sought is not privileged, and is relevant to
the subject matter of the pending action. Thus, the Rules often allow extensive intrusion
into the affairs of both litigants and third parties.” Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, 467 U.S.
20, 30 (1984). Despite the liberality of pretrial discovery, courts have the authority to issue
protective orders for good cause shown “to protect a party or person from annoyance,
embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c)(1); see also
Seattle Times Co., 467 U.S. at 34–35.
The party seeking a protective order bears the burden of showing good cause.
Phillips v. GMC, 307 F.3d 1206, 1210–11 (9th Cir. 2002). Good cause exists where
“specific prejudice or harm will result if no protective order is granted.” Id. at 1211 (citation
modified); see also San Jose Mercury News, Inc. v. United States Dist. Court - N. Dist.,
187 F.3d 1096, 1103 (9th Cir. 1999). “Broad allegations of harm, unsubstantiated by
specific examples or articulated reasoning, do not satisfy the Rule 26(c) test.” Beckman
Indus. v. Int’l Ins. Co., 966 F.2d 470, 476 (9th Cir. 1992). “The court considers all factors
to determine whether the totality of the circumstances justifies the entry of a protective
order.” Doe v. Horne, 737 F. Supp. 3d 758, 767–68 (D. Ariz. 2024) (citation omitted).
But even when a party satisfies its burden to show harm or prejudice, the protective
remedy is not automatically—as Plaintiff seems to assume—to preclude the seeking party
from getting the information it requests. Indeed, as is evident in the Court’s “go-by”
protective order, such orders often provide the movant “protection” by controlling and
limiting what the seeking party may do with the information once obtained, while still
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allowing the party to make appropriate use of the evidence. The limitations often take the
form of prohibiting the seeking party from showing the protected information to anyone
other than the trial team; from discussing, copying or transmitting the information to
anyone else; and requiring its destruction or return upon completion of the matter. In other
words, the protective order may still compel the deposition to proceed, or the
interrogatories to be answered, or the business records to be produced, but will tightly
control what may thereafter happen with the results. It is in that light that the Court turns
to analyzing the protective order requests here contested.
First, Plaintiff seeks an order forbidding Defendants’ selected method of in-person
deposition and prescribing the written deposition method set forth in Rule 31. (Doc. 138 at
3; Doc. 145 at 3.) Plaintiff asserts a protective order is necessary because “discovery
disputes remain unresolved,” “Court-ordered discovery is still pending,” and an in-person
deposition would cause Plaintiff “undue mental and emotional harm.” (Doc. 138 at 3.)
First, the fact that discovery is ongoing—even if ordered by the Court—and that discovery
disputes are now pending does not absolve Plaintiff from complying with her own
discovery obligations. Among those obligations would include appearing for a deposition
in-person should a party request it. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(a)(1). Second, generalized
assertion of “undue mental and emotional harm” from participating in an in-person
deposition is neither particularized nor articulated such that good cause exists under Rule
26(c). Lastly, Plaintiff broadly asserts that an in-person deposition is not “proportional.”
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
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She provides no reasoning, case law3 or authority4 to support this assertion. The Court will
deny Plaintiff’s requests for a protective order forbidding Defendants’ in-person deposition
of Plaintiff. No later than three days from the date of this Order, Defendants shall provide
Plaintiff, by email, three dates from which Plaintiff may choose to submit to an in-person
deposition. Plaintiff shall notify Defendants of her choice no later than seven days from
the date of this Order.
Next, Plaintiff seeks a protective order shielding her medical and behavioral health
records from discovery. (Doc. 139 at 1–3.) But Plaintiff has placed this information at issue
by claiming that Defendants’ conduct caused her emotional and physical damages,
including specific psychiatric ailments like depression. (See, e.g., Doc. 1-1 ¶ 72.) She has
also issued a third-party subpoena to her primary health provider for her own medical
3 Plaintiff cites Haviland v. Catholic Health Initiatives-Iowa, Corporation, 692 F. Supp.
2d 1264 (S.D. Iowa 2010) for her proposition that “[c]ourts may regulate deposition
manner where health and proportionality concerns exist.” (Doc. 145 at 3.) That citation
returns a completely different case that has nothing to do with depositions. After a more
in-depth search, the Court located the case name referenced by Plaintiff, but under the
citation of 692 F. Supp. 2d 1040. This case also had nothing to do with depositions or
proportionality. See id. (affirming a magistrate judge’s denial of a motion to compel and
quash subpoenas for procedural defects). Plaintiff cites Hallett v. Morgan, 296 F.3d 732
(9th Cir. 2002) for a similar proposition (Doc. 138-1 at 2), but this case reviews prisoner
conditions and depositions were never discussed. Plaintiff cites Hyde & Drath v. Baker, 24
F.3d 1162 (9th Cir. 1994) to support her argument that “[c]ourts routinely permit written
depositions where oral examination would impose undue burden or risk harm.” (Doc. 138-
1 at 2.) But this case affirmed a dismissal sanction issued against a party that failed to
appear for multiple in-person depositions. There was no written deposition at issue. Finally,
Plaintiff cites Seattle Times Company, 467 U.S. at 34–36, for the premise that “[d]iscovery
must be proportional and sequenced to avoid oppression, particularly where a party
proceeds pro se.” (Doc. 138-1 at 3.) While it is true that discovery must be proportional, it
need not be sequenced even if a litigant is pro se, and Seattle Times Company does not
support what Plaintiff purports it does.
4 Plaintiff cites to Local Rule 26.1(f) (Doc. 138-1 at 3). No such rule exists in this District.
This and the previous footnote illustrate the point the Court has repeatedly made in the
instant Order and in its previous discovery dispute resolution order (Doc. 132). The Court
devotes the time necessary to thoroughly evaluate the assertions each party makes to
correctly decide each phase of the nearly 500 matters it is managing at this point. That
includes taking the time to verify the factual claims a party makes and the citation of legal
authority a party says supports those claims. When a party refers the Court to rules that
don’t exist or causes it to hunt for cases that are mis-cited, or to read a case that doesn’t
stand for the legal proposition the party said it does, there is damage and there is cost. The
Court’s scarce time has been diverted to non-productive effort that has not advanced the
instant case or any of the scores of other cases awaiting a decision in that moment, and the
litigant who has so diverted the Court has suffered a loss to their credibility the next time
they assert that a fact is so, or that a case stands for a certain proposition, or what a certain
party did or did not do in discovery.
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records (Doc. 90-2), but has not yet produced those records to Defendants despite their
discovery request for the same. (See Doc. 148 at 4–5; Doc. 148-1 at 43.) Plaintiff argues
that her alleged damages “do not constitute a blanket waiver of medical privacy or justify
wholesale discovery of medical records.” (Doc. 139 at 1–2.) But Defendants are entitled to
seek discovery of the damages she claims. Defendants’ discovery into her medical records
held by the doctor and hospital she identified as having discoverable information and whom
she subpoenaed herself is neither irrelevant nor unproportional. Plaintiff also sets forth no
injury resulting from this discovery aside from causing general “undue burden and harm”
(Id. at 3). This is the kind of unspecified injury that fails to establish good cause in the
Ninth Circuit. See Beckman Indus., 966 F.2d at 476. The Court will deny her request for a
protective order prohibiting discovery of her medical and behavioral health records.
Plaintiff seeks a third protective order shielding her Wells Fargo financial records
from discovery. (Doc. 139 at 1.) Plaintiff has placed her financial records in dispute by
alleging, inter alia, that she made timely mortgage payments (Doc. 1-1 ¶ 11(f)–(j)), which
Defendants deny (Doc. 46 ¶ 11(f)–(j)). Curiously, this Court already granted Plaintiff leave
to serve her own subpoena on Wells Fargo. (Doc. 90-1.) Therein, she demanded production
of “mortgage payment records,” “transactional records,” “correspondence . . . between
Wells Fargo and Plaintiff,” and “account records” regarding payments made upon the loans
at issue. (Id. at 5–6.) Plaintiff clearly believed that her own financial records were relevant
and proportional to this litigation. Plaintiff offers no particularized or articulated harm
except that discovery “would be intrusive,” which is directly contradicted by her own
subpoena of those records. The Court will deny Plaintiff’s request for a protective order
regarding her Wells Fargo financial records.
Next, Plaintiff seeks a protective order shielding her father’s medical records from
discovery. (Doc. 139 at 1, 3.) Based on the correspondence both parties attached to their
respective filings, it appears that Plaintiff has characterized her own damages as those
including the purported harm experienced by her father in relation to the alleged events
underlying this lawsuit. No matter how the topic of Plaintiff’s father’s health arose, her
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father is not a named party to this action and, as far as the Court is aware, Plaintiff is not
her father’s representative seeking to litigate his rights. His medical records are irrelevant
to the claims and defenses of the parties. The Court need not enter a protective order to this
effect, because such discovery exceeds the bounds of Rule 26(b)(1) and shall not take place.
Likewise, Plaintiff should not and cannot claim her father’s harm as her own damages as
he is not a proper party to this action.
Lastly, Defendants request the Court enter Defendants’ protective order draft—
modeled after the court standard form—that provides the parties an established mechanism
for avoiding the public filing and dissemination of confidential documents discovered or
disclosed in this matter. (Doc. 151 at 2; Doc. 151-6.) Plaintiff has, in her own way,
requested the same kind of protection. (Doc. 139-1 at 4.) Upon reviewing Defendants’
proposed protective order and good cause appearing, the Court will grant Defendants’
request. No later than five days from the date of this Order, Defendants will file a Notice
of Filing with the Court and lodge a cleaned-up copy of their protective order draft for
entry.
IV. PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO QUASH SUBPOENAS
Under Rule 45(d)(3)(A), a court must quash or modify a subpoena that “(iii) requires
disclosure of privileged or other protected matter, if no exception or waiver applies; or (iv)
subjects a person to undue burden.” The general rule in the Ninth Circuit is that “a party
has no standing to seek to quash a subpoena issued to someone who is not a party to the
action, unless the objecting party claims some personal right or privilege with regard to the
documents sought.” Davenport v. SP Jedi, Inc., No. CV-18-02580-PHX-SMM, 2019 U.S.
Dist. LEXIS 229314, *3 (D. Ariz. Apr. 19, 2019). Alternatively, “[s]ome courts have
entertained a party’s challenges to non-party subpoenas based on relevance or
proportionality in the context of a motion for a protective order under Rule 26.” M.S. v.
Angus, No. 2:23-cv-09957-MWF-MAR, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53252, at *9 (C.D. Cal.
Feb. 11, 2025) (collecting cases).
. . .
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Plaintiff urges the Court to quash fifteen subpoenas issued by Defendants to third
parties or, alternatively, to issue a protective order “barring further improper subpoena
practice” because the subpoenas “exceed Rule 26’s relevance and proportionality limits”
and seek duplicative material already produced by Plaintiff. (Doc. 143 at 1, 3.) Plaintiff
claims—and Defendants do not dispute—that Defendants seek Plaintiff’s employment,
financial, tax, medical, and police records dating back to 2015 despite the alleged events
underlying this litigation beginning some time in 2022. (Id. at 1–2.) Defendants respond
that their subpoenas—which have not yet been issued—will be addressed to the same third
parties that Plaintiff subpoenaed herself or who Plaintiff identified as having discoverable
information in her initial disclosure statement. (See Doc. 148 at 4–5; Doc. 148-2 at 2–10.)
According to Defendants, Plaintiff has not provided them copies of her subpoenaed
material despite Defendants’ discovery request for the same. (See Doc. 148 at 4–5; Doc.
148-1 at 43.) The Court notes that the bulk of Plaintiff’s subpoenas were issued on
October 23, 2025 (Doc. 90), and two more were issued on December 10, 2025 (Doc. 134.)
Each subpoena demanded production of documents within fifteen days of service. While
Plaintiff argues that the subpoenaed materials are forthcoming, she provides no proof that
the subpoenaed third parties have delayed production of documents that have already come
due. Defendants, therefore, intend to subpoena that material themselves.
Because Defendants have not issued their subpoenas, there is nothing for the Court
to quash. Even if there was, Plaintiff lacks standing to quash Defendants’ subpoenas
because she identifies no privilege5 or personal right6 to the information that she has placed
squarely at issue in her Amended Complaint or subpoenaed for her own purposes.
5 Plaintiff cites Fitzgerald v. Cassil, 216 F.R.D. 632 (N.D. Cal. 2003) to argue that
Defendants are not entitled to “wholesale disclosure of psychiatric files.” (Doc. 150 at 4.)
The court in Fitzgerald applied a “narrow” approach to waiver of the federal
psychotherapist-patient privilege. 216 F.R.D. at 636. First, the Court is not persuaded that
federal common law of privilege applies because Plaintiff brings only state law claims. Id.
at 635. Second, Plaintiff does not assert that her medical records are protected by this
privilege, let alone meet her burden of demonstrating that she did not waive that privilege
by claiming emotional distress damages. Id. at 636.
6 Plaintiff discusses at great length that Defendants’ subpoenas will harm her adult veteran
children, but none of Defendants’ proposed subpoenas are directed toward her adult
children (see Doc. 150-8). Even if they were, Plaintiff’s adult children are not parties to
this action, so Plaintiff’s attempt to quash subpoenas on their behalf contravenes the
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Nonetheless, Plaintiff demonstrates good cause in limiting discovery to the relevant
timeframe of the alleged events underlying this matter. Defendants do not address
Plaintiff’s concerns about—or provide justification for—the temporal overbreadth of
discovery dating back to 2015. Accordingly, the Court will enter a protective order limiting
discovery. Neither party identified a specific date range for the Court’s consideration, so
the Court will establish the temporal waypoints of discovery as follows: (1) information
related to Plaintiff’s financial records, tax records, and employment records is discoverable
beginning the start of the calendar year in which Plaintiff entered the mortgage at issue; (2)
information related to Plaintiff’s medical records is discoverable beginning six months
prior to the start of the calendar year in which Plaintiff entered the mortgage at issue; and
(3) information related to Plaintiff’s police records is discoverable as originally
contemplated without further limitation. Should a category of information arise that is
different from the ones listed above, the Court encourages the parties to use these standards
as a reference for determining the relevant timeframe on their own without court
intervention.
V. MOTION FOR STAY
Finally, Plaintiff requests the Court to stay discovery until it resolves her motions
(Doc. 145).7 Those motions are resolved, so the Court will deny Plaintiff’s request as moot.
VI. COURT EXPECTATIONS
As a final matter, the Court addresses the growing degree of indifference Plaintiff
has displayed towards the Court’s rules, orders and expectations. In previous chapters,
Plaintiff has misstated and defied the Court’s orders (Doc. 61 at 3; Doc. 129 at 2), raised
unfounded allegations of misconduct against opposing counsel (Doc. 132 at 3) and
purpose and procedures of Rule 45.
7 Plaintiff argues that “[i]rreparable harm may result from premature disclosure of medical
or financial records, particularly of non-parties” and cites Seattle Times Co., 467 U.S. at
35, for support. (Doc. 145 at 3.) But nowhere does the Supreme Court discuss, or even
reference, the harm of premature disclosure. She also cites Gray v. First Winthrop Corp.,
133 F.R.D. 39, 40 (N.D. Cal. 1990) for the proposition that “[p]ending motions justify a
pause to avoid inconsistent rulings and wasted effort.” (Doc. 145 at 3.) Gray holds just the
opposite. 133 F.R.D. at 40 (denying a stay while motions to dismiss remained pending).
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inundated this Court with frivolous filings (see Doc. 132 (discussing satellite filings)). In
attributing Plaintiff’s conduct to her pro se status, Court provided Plaintiff “one more
limited opportunity to conform to the Court’s stated expectations of following the rules and
the Court’s orders while maintaining civility and professionalism.” (Id. at 3.)
Even against this backdrop, Plaintiff now obstructs Defendants’ ability to depose
her and discover relevant information central to her allegations, falsely denies that she
deliberately altered Defendants’ discovery requests, seeks court intervention for matters
that Defendants were actively attempting to resolve with her, and misrepresents authorities
and case law in seeking that intervention (see footnotes 3–5, 7 supra). Much of the relief
Plaintiff requests arose from her own actions, such as characterizing her damages to include
her father’s medical harm, refusing to disclose subpoenaed information despite
Defendants’ discovery request for the same, and rebuffing Defendants’ attempts to jointly
move the Court to enter a protective order. Plaintiff’s conduct no longer borders
unreasonableness forgivable by her pro se status. Her conduct has devolved into
gamesmanship unbecoming of the explicit expectations set by the Court.
Plaintiff hereby exhausts her one last opportunity to conform to the Court’s
expectations, rules, and orders. Should she violate any court order or rule, continue to
inundate the Court with frivolous filings, misrepresent law or authority in her briefing, or
obstruct the discovery process further, the Court will order Plaintiff to show cause why the
Court should not issue monetary sanctions, evidentiary sanctions, or both against her.
While Defendants demonstrated consistent attempts to cooperate with Plaintiff and
address her many concerns, they have not remained completely above the fray. As Plaintiff
relates and Defendants do not contest, Defendants have proposed the issuance of subpoenas
for information well outside relevant temporal parameters. Defendants did not attempt to
defend their expansive timeframe, and this Court found it necessary to curtail that
discovery. The Court denies Defendants’ current request for fees, costs and sanctions (Doc.
148 at 6–7).
. . .
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IT IS ORDERED denying Plaintiff’s Motion for Protective Order Regarding
Defendants’ Request for Oral Deposition Pursuant to FRCP 26(C), 30(D)(3), LRCiv
26.1(F), Plaintiff’s Motion for Protective Order Regarding Medical Records and Financial
Records, and Plaintiff’s Emergency Motion for Protective Order and to Temporarily Stay
Discovery and Deposition Pending Court Resolution (Docs. 138, 139, 145).
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED granting in part and denying in part Plaintiff’s
Emergency Motion to Quash Defendants’ Improper Third-Party Subpoenas and For
Protective Order (Doc. 143). Discovery of information shall be limited to the following
timeframes: (1) information related to Plaintiff’s financial records, tax records, and
employment records is discoverable beginning the start of the calendar year in which
Plaintiff entered the mortgage at issue; (2) information related to Plaintiff’s medical records
is discoverable beginning six months prior to the start of the calendar year in which Plaintiff
entered the mortgage at issue; and (3) information related to Plaintiff’s police records is
discoverable as originally contemplated without further limitation.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED striking Plaintiff’s Notice Regarding Discovery
Compliance, Defective Subsequent Requests, and Preservation of Record and Notice of
Abusive and Improper Service of Purported Discovery Responses and Continuing
Litigation Abuse (Docs. 155, 156).
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, no later than five days from the date of this
Order, Defendants shall file a Notice of Discovery Deficiencies with the Court identifying
with precision each discovery request that was not answered or was altered by Plaintiff to
date, or for which production of documents (if requested) has not been completed. No later
than ten days of the notice, Plaintiff shall respond to each discovery request identified in
Defendants’ notice without altering the requests and produce the requested material.
Plaintiff shall provide those responses and documents directly to Defendants. No later than
three days of providing her responses and documents to Defendants, Plaintiff shall file a
Notice of Compliance with the Court without any attachments. No later than seven days
after Defendants receive the responses, they shall file a notice of certification of Plaintiff’s
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compliance listing all requests they deem Plaintiff to have complied with and, if necessary,
a motion for sanctions identifying any requests Plaintiff has not complied with, along with
Defendants’ basis for so concluding.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, no later than three days from the date of this
Order, Defendants shall provide Plaintiff, by email, three dates from which Plaintiff may
choose to submit to an in-person deposition. Plaintiff shall notify Defendants of her choice
no later than seven days from the date of this Order.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, no later than five days from the date of this
Order, Defendants will file a Notice of Filing with the Court and lodge a cleaned-up copy
of their protective order draft for entry.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED denying Defendants’ request for attorney’s fees and
costs, and for sanctions.
Dated this 6th day of January, 2026.
Honorable John J. Tuchi
United States District Judge
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