Alaska Employment Law

U. S. District Judge Timothy Burgess has sanctioned a plaintiff employment lawyer for failing to provide true, explicit, complete, and candid answers to an employer’s discovery requests.  The standards to which Burgess held plaintiff’s counsel obviously apply to any responding counsel.

In his Order, Burgess summarized the responding party’s duties as follows:

A party may not interpret a discovery request in “an artificially restrictive or hypertechnical manner to avoid disclosure of information fairly covered by the discovery request.”  Recipients of discovery requests must exercise common sense and accord reasonable definitions
to terms and phrases used in interrogatories, requests for production, and requests for admissions.  Parties are required to provide “full and efficient discovery, not evasion and word  play.”  

Similarly, in responding to a request for admission, a party may not wholly deny a statement on the grounds that it is premised on a false assumption or is partially inaccurate.  A
party’s “nitpicking of the question … certainly doesn’t justify a flat denial.”  Rather, “when good faith requires that a party qualify an answer or deny only a part of the matter, the answer must specify the part admitted and qualify or deny the rest.”  Therefore, if any part of the request for admission is true, the party to whom it is directed must admit that portion and qualify or deny the remaining facts.

Additionally, a party may not respond to a request for production or an interrogatory by providing vague references to documents. Rather, a party must “adequately and precisely specif[y]… the actual documents where information will be found… vague references to documents do not suffice.” The party must describe the document “in sufficient detail to permit the interrogating party to locate and identify … the records from which the answer may be
obtained.”

If a party lacks the documentation necessary to respond to a request for production or an interrogatory, that party must state that it “cannot furnish the information and details [and] se[t] forth the efforts made to obtain the information.”  The party cannot refuse to respond to a
discovery request on the ground that the requested information is in the possession of the requesting party or that more information will be available after further discovery.  The party is required to state under oath that it possesses or does not possess the requested documentation
based on the party’s present knowledge, information or belief and may supplement its answers if relevant information is obtained at a later date.

Lastly, responses to interrogatories, requests for admissions, and requests for production are insufficient “if they fail to supply facts which were omitted from the complaint, and if they neither clarify nor narrow the broad issues posed by the complaint.”  Answers that are “general
and conclusory” or which “merely restat[e] the allegations of the complaint” are not candid.  They are evasive.

(Cit. omitted) 

Burgess held that plaintiff’s counsel failed to adhere to these standards in multiple ways, and awarded costs and fees to the employer (yet to be calculated).  He limited briefing on the fees to three pages per party.

Becker v. Kikiktagruk Inupiat Corp., 3:09-cv-00015-TMB (D.Alaska Order of Oct. 20, 2009)

Moshe and Isaac Zorea represent the plaintiff.  Ted Wellman and Michael Broadwell of Davis Wright represent the employer defendant.  All counsel practice in Anchorage.