UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT                             
                    DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA                                


Deidre Sherell Jackson,            Case No. 20-cv-749 (KMM/TNL)          

          Plaintiff,                                                     

v.                                          ORDER                        

Minnesota Department of Human                                            
Services,                                                                

          Defendant.                                                     


Deidre Sherell Jackson, 1720 Woodland Lane, Maplewood, MN 55109 (pro se  
Plaintiff); and                                                          

Kathleen M. Ghreichi, Assistant Attorney General, Minnesota Attorney General’s 
Office, 445 Minnesota Street, Suite 1400, St. Paul, MN 55101 (for Defendant). 


                       I. INTRODUCTION                                   

    This matter comes before the Court on pro se Plaintiff Deidre Sherell Jackson’s 
“Motion to Compel,” ECF No. 94; “Proposed Motion to Compel,” ECF No. 98; and 
“Motion of Compiling with Complying Requests,” ECF No. 108.  The Court has taken 
these matters under advisement, on the papers, without a hearing.  See D. Minn. LR 7.1(b). 
                       II. BACKGROUND                                    
    By Second Amended Complaint, Plaintiff “claims that her employer, [Defendant] 
Minnesota Department of Human Services . . . , has discriminated against her based on her 
race and color, retaliated against her for complaining about discrimination, and violated 
her right to due process.”  Jackson v. Minn. Dep’t of Human Servs., No. 20-cv-749 
(ECT/TNL), 

, at *1 (D. Minn. Mar. 23, 2021).  The Second Amended 
Complaint was previously construed to contain “the following claims: (1) discrimination 

based on race in violation of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.; (2) discrimination based 
on color in violation of Title VII; (3) retaliation in violation of Title VII; and (4) violation 
of [Plaintiff’s] right to procedural due process.”  Id. at *3 (citations omitted).  Plaintiff’s 
Title VII claims for discrimination and retaliation “arising out of [a] February 2019 written 
reprimand” related to “unapproved use of a state cell phone” were previously dismissed 
with prejudice as untimely.  Id. at *5, 8.  Plaintiff’s Title VII claims for color discrimination 

(as  distinguished  from  racial  discrimination)  were  also  previously  dismissed  without 
prejudice for failure to exhaust administrative remedies and failure to state a claim.  Id. at 
*6-8.                                                                     
                    III. MOTION TO COMPEL1                               
    Plaintiff moves to compel responses to seven interrogatories and two document 

requests.  The Court has broad discretion in handling pretrial procedure and discovery.  
See, e.g., Hill v. Sw. Energy Co., 

 (8th Cir. 2017) (“A district court has 
very wide discretion in handling pretrial discovery . . . .” (quoting United States ex rel. 
Kraxberger v. Kansas City Power & Light Co., 

 (8th Cir. 2014)); 
Solutran, Inc. v. U.S. Bancorp, No. 13-cv-2637 (SRN/BRT), 

, at *2 (D. 



1 Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel and Proposed Motion to Compel are essentially duplicate filings.  Compare ECF No. 
94 with ECF No. 98.  The Court interprets Plaintiff’s Proposed Motion to Compel as an effort to comply with the 
Court’s directive that she file a proposed order in connection with her Motion to Compel as required under Local 
Rule 7.1(b)(1).  See ECF No. 95 at 2.  Given the nature of the filings, the Court will administratively terminate the 
Proposed Motion to Compel as it is not in fact a new motion but a proposed order in connection with the previously 
filed Motion to Compel.                                                   
Minn. Dec. 20, 2016) (“Further, magistrate judges ‘are afforded wide discretion in handling 
discovery matters and are free to use and control pretrial procedure in furtherance of the 

orderly administration of justice.’” (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Favors v. 
Hoover, No. 13-cv-428 (JRT/LIB), 

, at *3 n.3 (D. Minn. Dec. 12, 2013)). 
    In general, “[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding 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).  “Some threshold showing of relevance must be made[, however,] 
before parties are required to open wide the doors of discovery and to produce a variety of 

information which does not reasonably bear upon the issues in the case.”  Hofer v. Mack 
Trucks, Inc., 

 (8th Cir. 1992).  Further, “[t]he parties and the court have 
a collective responsibility to consider the proportionality of all discovery and consider it in 
resolving discovery disputes.”  Vallejo v. Amgen, Inc., 

 (8th Cir. 2018) 
(quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 26 advisory committee’s note to 2015 amendment); see also 

Miscellaneous Docket Matter No. 1 v. Miscellaneous Docket Matter No. 2, 

 (8th Cir. 1999) (“[E]ven if relevant, discovery is not permitted where no need is shown, 
or compliance would be unduly burdensome, or where harm to the person from whom 
discovery  is  sought  outweighs  the  need  of  the  person  seeking  discovery  of  the 
information.” (quotation omitted)).  “[A] court can—and must—limit proposed discovery 

that it determines is not proportional to the needs of the case.”  Vallejo, 

 
(quotation  omitted);  see  Fed.  R.  Civ.  P.  26(b)(2)(C)(iii).    Considerations  bearing  on 
proportionality include “the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in 
controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the 
importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of 
the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.”  Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1); see also 

Vallejo, 

-43.                                                 
    A. Interrogatories                                                   
    “An interrogatory may relate to any matter that may be inquired into under Rule 
26(b).”  Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(a)(2).  “Each interrogatory must, to the extent that it is not 
objected to, be answered separately and fully in writing under oath.”  Fed. R. Civ. P. 
33(b)(3).                                                                 

         1.  Interrogatory Nos. 2 and 5                                  
    Interrogatory Nos. 2 and 5 seek information regarding events that led to Plaintiff’s 
suspension in December 2019.  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 2-3, ECF No. 94.  Defendant 
objected to these interrogatories on the basis that “Plaintiff released all claims and disputes 
relating to her suspension in a fully executed Settlement and Release that went into effect 

October 21, 2020.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 2; see Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 3; see also Def.’s 
Mem. in Opp’n at 3, ECF No. 101.                                          
    Among the allegations in the Second Amended Complaint, Plaintiff describes a 
series of events stemming from a conversation she had with a subordinate employee around 
early September 2019, in which another employee voiced concern over the volume of 

Plaintiff’s voice.  See Second Am. Compl. at 10-11, 36-39, ECF No. 53.  Plaintiff received 
a one-day suspension in December 2019 as a result.  See Second Am. Compl. at 11, 40-41.  
Plaintiff alleges that she did not receive certain procedural protections and grieved her 
suspension.  See Second Am. Compl. at 11; see also Second Am. Compl. at 42-47; Ex. A 
at 1 to Decl. of Kathleen M. Ghreichi, ECF No. 103-1.                     
    In October 2020, Plaintiff entered into a Settlement and Release Agreement with 

Defendant related to the one-day suspension.  See generally Ex. A to Ghreichi Decl.  The 
Settlement and Release Agreement states, among other things, that “the parties desire to 
finally and forever resolve all grievances and disputes regarding this matter” and “[a]ll 
claims and/or disputes relating to the matters underlying this grievance are released upon 
execution of this Settlement and Release.”  Ex. A at 1 to Ghreichi Decl.  The Settlement 
and Release Agreement further stated that “[n]othing in this Settlement and Release shall 

preclude [Defendant] from properly responding to a lawful request made pursuant to the 
MN Data Practices Act.”  Ex. A at 1 to Ghreichi Decl.  The Settlement and Release 
Agreement  is  signed  by  Plaintiff,  signifying  that  she  “understand[s]  and  voluntarily 
agree[s] to and accept[s] the terms of this Settlement and Release Agreement.”  Ex. A at 2 
to Ghreichi Decl.                                                         

    Plaintiff does not dispute the existence of the Settlement and Release Agreement.  
Rather, she asserts that the Settlement and Release Agreement “did not excuse or release 
the Defendant from providing legal documents for this lawsuit,” referencing the clause 
concerning  the  Minnesota  Government  Data  Practices  Act  (“MGDPA”),  

 et seq.  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 3; see also Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 3-4.  See 

generally, e.g., 

, subd. 3 (request for access to data).  Plaintiff asserts 
that, because her “‘suspension’ was an event that happened, the Defendant is obligated to 
answer the question in detail” under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.  Pl.’s Mot. to 
Compel at 3; see also Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 3-4.                        
    Defendant maintains that the execution of the Settlement and Release Agreement 
means the events leading to Plaintiff’s suspension in December 2019 “are no longer 

relevant to the claims in this lawsuit.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 3.  Defendant additionally 
asserts that Interrogatory Nos. 2 and 5 are not equivalent to a request made under the 
MGDPA  and,  in  any  event,  Plaintiff  has  “equal  access”  to  the  information  because 
Defendant “has already produced to Plaintiff a copy of an independent investigative report 
documenting witness accounts of Plaintiff’s conduct that led to the suspension.”  Def.’s 
Mem. in Opp’n at 4.                                                       

    Events related to Plaintiff’s suspension in December 2019 form a significant portion 
of the factual allegations underlying Plaintiff’s remaining claims for discrimination and 
retaliation.  Interrogatory Nos. 2 and 5 therefore seek relevant information within the scope 
of Rule 26(b)(1).  See Sherman v. Sheffield Fin., LLC, 

, 252 (D. Minn. 2021) 
(“[T]he scope of discovery is intended to focus on the actual claims or defenses that are at 

issue  in  the  litigation.”).    Defendant’s  contention  that  the  Settlement  and  Release 
Agreement bars Plaintiff’s discrimination and retaliation claims based on her December 
2019 suspension goes not to the relevancy of the information sought, but to the merits of 
the  claims  themselves.    Accepting  Defendant’s  argument  that  the  existence  of  the 
Settlement and Release Agreement precludes any and all discovery regarding Plaintiff’s 

suspension in December 2019 would essentially amount to rendering a dispositive ruling 
on those claims.                                                          
    Therefore, the Court will grant Plaintiff’s motion with respect to Interrogatory Nos. 
2 and 5.                                                                  
         2.  Interrogatory No. 6                                         
    Interrogatory No. 6 seeks information regarding any complaints made regarding 

“Plaintiff’s ability to do the work assigned,” including the race and ethnicity of the 
complainant, and “a list of the overall rating of each of  . . . Plaintiff’s annual performance 
reviews.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 4.                                     
    Among other objections, Defendant objected to providing the race and ethnicity of 
each complainant on grounds that such information is private personnel data and, in any 
event, is not maintained in connection with the identity of a complainant.  Pl.’s Mot. to 

Compel at 4.  Subject to its objections, Defendant responded:             
         Generally, Defendant has received complaints about Plaintiff    
         in her employment with Defendant.  These complaints include     
         but  are  not  limited  to:  communications  issues  noted  in  
         Plaintiff’s 2018 performance review; Plaintiff’s February 2019  
         written reprimand based on data plan overages associated with   
         her state cell phone; and issues in 2019 regarding Defendant’s  
         Respectful Workplace policy.  Plaintiff’s annual performance    
         reviews include her overall rating and speak for themselves.    

Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 4.                                                
    Plaintiff asserts that Defendant “did not cite a specific complaint regarding [her] 
ability to do the work assigned for any time period (either duration of the employment, or 
timeframe  of  this  case)”;  “did  not  cite  any  individuals  who  made  or  initiated  any 
complaints”;  and  did  not  provide  “race  identification”  information  despite  such 
information being provided elsewhere in other interrogatory responses.  Pl.’s Mot. to 
Compel  at  4-5.    Defendant  responds  that  while  Plaintiff  “does  not  appear  to  view 
documentation of [her] communication issues as relevant to her ‘ability to do the work,’” 
communication skills are “clearly part of Plaintiff’s work” alongside “technical skills and 
specialized knowledge concerning the provision of adult mental health services.”  Def.’s  

Mem. in Opp’n at 5.  Defendant additionally responds that, in response to another discovery 
request seeking investigative reports and findings of which Plaintiff was the subject, it “has 
already  produced  an  independent  investigative  report  documenting  witness  accounts 
concerning Plaintiff’s Respectful Workplace policy issue in 2019 as well as an Internal 
Investigative Report documenting Plaintiff’s communication issues in 2018.”  Def.’s Mem. 
in Opp’n at 5 (citations omitted).  Defendant has also “produced Plaintiff’s performance 

reviews  from  2014  to  [the]  present,  a  number  of  which  document  communication 
concerns.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 5.                                    
    Plaintiff’s motion will be granted in part with respect to Interrogatory No. 6.   
Defendant shall supplement its answer to Interrogatory No. 6 to identify those individuals 
who made complaints in connection with issues in 2019 regarding Defendant’s Respectful 

Workplace policy.2  In addition, to the extent it has not done so already, Defendant shall 
supplement  its  response  to  Interrogatory  No.  6  to  specify  the  Bates  numbers  of  the 
produced annual performance reviews for Plaintiff from which a list of her overall ratings 
can be derived.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(d)(1) (permitting party to answer interrogatory by 
“specifying  the  records  that  must  be  reviewed,  in  sufficient  detail  to  enable  the 

interrogating party to locate and identify them as readily as the responding party could” 


2 The Court notes that Defendant has not expressed any concern regarding Plaintiff having access to the names of 
any complaining individuals and, as stated above, “has already produced an independent investigative report 
documenting witness accounts concerning Plaintiff’s Respectful Workplace policy issue in 2019.”  Def.’s Mem. in 
Opp’n at 5.                                                               
when “the answer to [the] interrogatory may be determined by examining, auditing, 
compiling, abstracting, or summarizing a party’s business records . . . and . . . burden of 

deriving or ascertaining the answer will be substantially the same for either party”). 
    Plaintiff’s motion is otherwise denied with respect to Interrogatory No. 6.  Plaintiff’s 
motion is denied to the extent she characterizes Defendant’s response as being non-
responsive  to  her  inquiry  concerning  work-related  complaints.    Plaintiff’s  motion  is 
likewise  denied  as  to  the  race  and  ethnicity  of  the  complainants.    Plaintiff  has  not 
sufficiently articulated the relevance of the information to her claims.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 

26(b)(1),  (2)(C)(iii).    Plaintiff’s  motion  is  further  denied  as  to  the  identity  of  any 
complainants concerning communications issues noted in Plaintiff’s 2018 performance 
review and Plaintiff’s February 2019 written reprimand based on data plan overages 
associated with her state cell phone.  As best as this Court is able to tell, the claims in the 
Second Amended Complaint do not involve any 2018 “communications issues” and her 

retaliation claims arising out of the February 2019 written reprimand were previously 
dismissed by the district court with prejudice.  Accordingly, it is not apparent to this Court 
what relevance the identities of those complainants have to the issues remaining in this 
litigation.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), (2)(C)(iii).                   
         3.  Interrogatory No. 8                                         

    Interrogatory No. 8 asks Defendant to “[s]tate whether there are any publications[, 
including newspapers, employee complaints or other documents,] that describe a hostile 
work environment in the DHS Behavioral Health Division.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 5.  
Among other objections, Defendant objected to Interrogatory No. 8 on grounds that it was 
overly broad (“the Behavioral Health Division has multiple managers, supervisor, and lead 
employee positions, some of which are wholly unrelated to Plaintiff’s employment”) and 

“to  the  extent  that  it  seeks  information  relating  to  third-party  publications,  such  as 
newspapers, not generated by Defendant or in Defendant’s possession or control.”  Pl.’s 
Mot. to Compel at 5.  Subject to its objections, Defendant stated it was “unaware of any 
such publications regarding employees within Plaintiff’s management and supervisory 
chain.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 5.                                       
    Plaintiff asserts that Interrogatory No. 8 “is narrowly tailored to the Behavioral 

Health Division” and “materially relates to the case given this case relates to discrimination 
and retaliation.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 5-6.  Plaintiff additionally asserts that “Defendant 
has a Communications Department who collects news articles, through newspapers and 
local news, from across the state of Minnesota on a daily basis and distributes these news 
clips through an email to executive leadership and division level leadership.”  Pl.’s Mot. to 

Compel at 5; see also Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 6 (“During this same timeframe there were 
articles published that included individuals who were suspended and/or left the Department 
due  to  discriminatory  and  retaliatory  experiences.”).  Lastly,  Plaintiff  asserts  that 
“Defendant did not state whether there were any complaints related to a hostile work 
environment that were initiated by Behavioral Health Division employees.”  Pl.’s Mot. to 

Compel at 6.                                                              
    Defendant responds that Interrogatory No. 8 “seeks news articles from an unlimited 
timeframe”; “it does not generate, maintain, or control news articles”; and “Plaintiff has 
equal access to any articles and news reports that have been published and may search them 
for herself.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 5-6 (emphasis omitted).  Defendant further responds 
that it “is unable to provide articles describing ‘the hostile work environment,’ because 

there is not a hostile work environment in the Behavioral Health Division.”  Def.’s Mem. 
in Opp’n at 6.                                                            
    At the same time, Defendant acknowledges that its “Communications Department 
does circulate emails with hyperlinks to articles relating to [the Department of Human 
Services].”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 6.  Defendant states that, while it “does not have a 
searchable archived database of those emails or of the linked news articles,” it “does have 

Word documents containing links and a short summary of articles circulated internally 
from 2018 to the present.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 6.  Defendant “has run searches of the 
summaries in the Word documents to identify any articles from 2018 to the present 
involving the Behavioral Health Division and a ‘hostile’ or ‘toxic’ work environment” and 
supplemented its production to include the five news articles that resulted from its search.   

Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 6.                                                
    As for any complaints of a hostile work environment by Behavioral Health Division 
employees, Defendant states it would be disproportionate to the needs of this case to 
determine whether any such complaints exist.  Because its internal software does not have 
the capacity to sort by complaints of a hostile work environment, Defendant would first 

need  to  separate  out  the  complaints  of  individuals  in  the  Community  Supports 
Administration, wherein the Behavioral Health Division is located.  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n 
at 8; see Decl. of Zecharias Hailu ¶¶ 3-5, 7 ECF No. 106.  Next, Defendant “would . . . 
need to review the individual complaint forms (kept in paper files) or consult a long series 
of organizational charts to determine which of the complainants worked in the Behavioral 
Health Division at the time of the complaint.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 8; see Hailu Decl. 

¶ 7.  Defendant “would then have to review each individual complaint form in that subset 
to determine whether it alleges a hostile work environment.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 8; 
see Hailu Decl. ¶ 7.  Defendant estimates that it would take between 80 and 160 hours to 
complete such a review.  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 8; see Hailu Decl. ¶ 7.  Defendant has 
supported this estimate with the declaration of its Equal Opportunity & Access Division 
director.  See generally Hailu Decl.                                      

     First, it is not apparent to this Court that Plaintiff is bringing a hostile-work-
environment claim.  See Jackson, 

, at *3 n.6 (“[I]t is unclear whether 
Jackson also intended to raise a Title VII hostile-work-environment claim.”); see also Joint 
Rule 26(f) Report at 2-3 (Plaintiff describing case as “being discriminated and retaliated 
against” in statement of the case); cf. Anderson v. Durham D & M, L.L.C., 

 (8th Cir. 2010) (“To sustain a claim for hostile work environment, a plaintiff must 
show that (1) he or she is a member of a protected class; (2) he or she is subjected to 
unwelcome race-based harassment; (3) the harassment was because of membership in the 
protected class; and (4) the harassment affected a term, condition, or privilege of his or her 
employment.  The workplace must be permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, 

and insult that is sufficiently severe and pervasive.” (quotation omitted)). 
    As best as this Court is able to tell, Plaintiff has brought claims for discrimination 
and retaliation based on a series of “discrete acts” rather than a claim “based on the 
cumulative effect of individual acts.”  Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 

 (2002); see also 

; Wallace v. Interbake Foods, LLC, 

 (D. S.D. 2013).  “In granting the deference owed to pro se parties, [the court 

may not] assume the role of advocate for the pro se litigant.”  Machen v. Iverson, No. 11-
cv-1557 (DWF/JSM), 

, at *15 (D. Minn. Jan. 23, 2012) (quotation 
omitted), report and recommendation adopted, 

 (D. Minn. Feb. 21, 2012); 
see Bracken v. Dormire, 

 (8th Cir. 2001) (Arnold, J., dissenting) (“Of 
course, a pro se pleading is not a magic hat out of which a court may pull any claim it 
thinks should have been advanced.”).                                      

    While the Court can certainly understand describing a work environment in which 
acts of discriminatory and retaliatory conduct have allegedly occurred as hostile in the 
colloquial sense, claims of discrimination and retaliation are not equivalent to hostile-
work-environment claims in the legal sense, making the relevance of the information 
sought in Interrogatory No. 8 highly questionable to the issues of whether Plaintiff herself 

experienced discrimination and retaliation.  Given this questionable relevance and the 
burden of obtaining the requested complaints, the Court concludes that the employee-
hostile-work-environment complaints sought by Plaintiff are disproportionate to the needs 
of this case.                                                             
    The Court will, however, grant Plaintiff’s motion in part and Defendant shall, to the 

extent it has not done so already, supplement its response to Interrogatory No. 8 to identify 
the five articles produced as a result of its search for news articles in its possession, custody, 
and control relating to the Behavioral Health Division and a “hostile” or “toxic” work 
environment.                                                              
    Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff’s motion is otherwise denied with respect to 
Interrogatory No. 8.                                                      

         4.  Interrogatory No. 10                                        
    Interrogatory  No.  10  seeks  information  regarding  “any  charge,  lawsuit, 
substantiated complaints, settlements or intent to sue has been filed against the Defendant 
by any Supervisor or Human Services Supervisor for race or any other discrimination from 
January 2017 to [the] present.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 6.  Defendant objected to 
Interrogatory No. 10 “as overly broad and not proportional to the needs of the case.”  Pl.’s 

Mot. to Compel at 6.  Among other things, Defendant stated that the “[Department of 
Human Services] is a large agency,” with “multiple . . . divisions in which Plaintiff has 
never worked and which are wholly unrelated to Plaintiff’s employment.”  Pl.’s Mot. 
Compel at 6.  Defendant also stated the Behavioral Health Division, where Plaintiff is 
employed, “did not exist in 2017 or part of 2018” and this division itself “has multiple 

managers, supervisor, and lead employee positions, some of which are wholly unrelated to 
Plaintiff’s employment.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 6.  Subject to these and other objections, 
Defendant identified one individual in the “Community Supports Administration managers 
or supervisors within Plaintiff’s management and supervisory chain from January 2017 to 
the present.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 6-7.                               

    Plaintiff  asserts  that  Defendant  has  “self-defined  [its]  response  based  on  the 
Plaintiff[’]s supervisor chain[,] which is exceedingly narrow.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 8.  
Plaintiff reiterates that she seeks information “relate[d] to the entire Minnesota Department 
of Human Services supervisory pool to establish the fact patten of discrimination and 
retaliation of people of color in supervisory roles.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 7. 
    Defendant responds that Plaintiff “appears to be fishing for evidence about other 

supervisors’ allegations of discrimination in an attempt to show that [its] explanations for 
the  alleged  adverse  employment  actions  against  her  are  mere  pretext  for  intentional 
discrimination/retaliation.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 10-11.  According to Defendant, 
“other supervisors throughout [the Department of Human Services] who report to different 
supervisors  than  Plaintiff  (and  may  never  interact  in  any  way  with  Plaintiff  or  her 
supervisors)  are  not  similarly-situated”  to  Plaintiff.    Def.’s  Mem.  in  Opp’n  at  11.  

Defendant also responds that “it would be unduly burdensome and disproportionate to the 
needs of this case” to respond to the interrogatory as written.  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 11.  
Defendant states that it would take “staff anywhere between 40 and 80 . . . hours[] just to 
determine a list of complainants” because its system cannot be searched for complaints by 
supervisors.  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 12.  Rather, staff “would need to review the entire 

list of complaints in [the system], and compare the complainant name and date of the 
complaint to organizational charts to determine if, at the time the complaint was filed, the 
complainant was a supervisor.”  Hailu Decl. ¶ 9.  Similarly, Defendant “does not have a 
database of charges, lawsuits, settlements, and intents to sue.  The only available method 
. . . to determine whether a [Department of Human Services] supervisor has brought a 

discrimination charge, lawsuit, entered a settlement, or submitted an intent to sue would be 
to have the name of that supervisor to learn if any complaints have been made” and then 
“review the paper file of each complaint to see whether any of those items are documented 
in the paper file.”  Hailu Decl. ¶ 10.                                    
    The Court concludes that Interrogatory No. 10, which seeks any and all complaints 
of discrimination not just those related to racial discrimination and not just those of 

individuals who are similarly situated to Plaintiff runs counter to Rule 26(b)(1)’s core 
requirement that discovery be “relevant to any party’s claim or defense.”  Generally 
speaking, “[c]ourts have recognized that discovery, in the Title VII context, must be limited 
to the practices at issue in the case and, where an individualized claim of disparate 
treatment is alleged, the discovery of information concerning other employees should be 
limited to employees who are similarly situated to the [p]laintiff.”  Onwuka v. Fed. Express 

Corp., 

 (D. Minn. 1997); see also, e.g., Farmers Ins. Exch. v. West, 
No. 11-cv-2297 (PAM/JJK), 

, at *8 (D. Minn. Sept. 21, 2012) (“[M]ost 
courts that allow . . . discovery [of other incidents of discrimination] conclude that it should 
be limited by such factors as time, the type of action complained of, or the type of 
discrimination alleged.”); Jensen v. Astrazeneca LP, No. 02-cv-4844 (JRT/FLN), 

, at *2 (D. Minn. Aug. 30, 2004) (“[D]iscovery of information related to prior 
claims of discrimination is properly limited to the employment practices and classes at 
issue in the particular case, the facility and people implicated in the allegations, and to a 
reasonable time period around the alleged discriminatory action.”); Burns v. Hy-Vee, Inc., 
No.  02-cv-254  (JRT/FLN),  

,  at  *2  (D.  Minn.  Nov.  21,  2002) 

(“Discovery, in the Title VII context, must be limited to the employment practices at issue 
in the case.”).  Here, Plaintiff seeks complaints of any and all types of discrimination, not 
just for racial discrimination, which is the discriminatory conduct alleged to have taken 
place in this case.  The Eighth Circuit has held that it is not an abuse of discretion to limit 
all-encompassing, every-allegation-of-discrimination discovery requests as overly broad. 
See, e.g., Sallis v. Univ. of Minnesota, 

 (8th Cir. 2005) (citing favorably 

Onwuka, 

).                                               
    Moreover,  in  the  Title  VII  context,  the  Eighth  Circuit  has  described  suitable 
individuals for comparison as those individuals who are “similarly situated in all relevant 
respects”  and  “have  dealt  with  the  same  supervisor,  have  been  subject  to  the  same 
standards, and engaged in the same conduct without any mitigating or distinguishing 
circumstances.”  Clark v. Runyon, 

 (8th Cir. 2000).  Just because an 

individual is “on the same level of management,”—such as, for example, a supervisor—
does not mean that he or she is similarly situated to the plaintiff when there is no shared 
supervisor.  See, e.g., Beasley v. Warren Unilube, Inc., 

 (8th Cir. 2019) 
(employees “on same level of management” were not similarly situated to plaintiff where 
plaintiff “never show[ed] that he and any of these people shared the same supervisor, were 

subject to the same standards, or engaged in the same conduct”); see also, e.g., Evance v. 
Trumann Health Servs., LLC, 

 (8th Cir. 2013) (employees with “different 
job titles and supervisors” not similarly situated); Bone v. G4S Youth Servs., LLC, 

 (8th Cir. 2012) (employees “not valid comparators because they had different 
immediate supervisors from Bone and did not engage in the same conduct as Bone”).  As 

such,  information  “relate[d]  to  the  entire  Minnesota  Department  of  Human  Services 
supervisory pool” is neither relevant nor proportional to the needs of this case, which 
concerns claims of racial discrimination in the Behavioral Health Division, located within 
Defendant’s Community Supports Administration.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), (2)(C)(iii). 
    Based on the foregoing, the Court will deny Plaintiff’s motion with respect to 
Interrogatory No. 10.                                                     

         5.  Interrogatory No. 12                                        
    Interrogatory No. 12 requests “the name, qualifications, interview panel scores, and 
race of the individual who w[as] offered and accepted the Moving Home Minnesota 
position,” which Plaintiff had been a finalist for.  Pl.’ Mot. to Compel at 7; see Second Am. 
Compl. at 11-12.  Interrogatory No. 12 further requested “the individual’s employment 
status before he or she was hired in the Moving Home Minnesota position” and to 

“[i]nclude if the individual was on any type of unpaid leave, if so, state the reason the 
individual was on leave.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 7.  Defendant identified the individual, 
A.P., and provided the requested information, except that Defendant was “unaware of any 
interview panel scores” for the individual and did not include any leave information.  Pl.’s 
Mot. to Compel at 7.                                                      

    Plaintiff  asserts  that  Defendant’s  response  was  incomplete  due  to  the  missing 
interview scores and leave information.  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 8.  In response, Defendant 
reiterates that it is unaware of any interview scores for A.P.  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 13.  
Defendant further responds that it “interpreted [Interrogatory No. 12] as requiring it to 
include information on the successful candidate’s leave, in the event that this individual 

was on leave at the time of her hire for the Moving Home Minnesota Director position,” 
and, “[b]ecause [A.P.] was not on leave at the time of her hire, [Defendant] did not include 
any information.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 12.  Defendant goes on to state, however, that 
Plaintiff  subsequently  propounded  an  additional  interrogatory  (Interrogatory  No.  18) 
inquiring whether A.P. “was placed on any type of employment leave, Expectation Letters, 
or discipline of any type while employed [with Defendant],” and the dates, reason, and 

timeframe for such leave.  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 13 (quotation omitted); see also ECF 
No. 96 at 8.  While Defendant believes this subsequent interrogatory is untimely and 
exceeds the number of interrogatories permitted under the Pretrial Scheduling Order, 
Defendant  has  stated  that  it  will  respond  to  Interrogatory  No.  18  as  “a  matter  of 
fundamental fairness because Plaintiff, who is proceeding pro se, likely incorrectly thought 
she would elicit this information with Interrogatory No. 12 (which was timely served).”3  

Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 13.                                               
    Plaintiff’s motion is denied in part with respect to Interrogatory No. 12 to the extent 
she seeks any interview panel scores for A.P.  A party cannot be compelled to produce 
what it does not have.  See, e.g., Edeh v. Equifax Info. Servs., LLC, 

 
(D. Minn. 2013) (“Here, Equifax maintains that it does not have the documents requested 

in Requests for Production Nos. 3 and 4. If Equifax does not have the documents in its 
possession, custody, or control, it cannot be compelled to produce them.”); see also 
Farmers Ins. Exch., 

, at *5 (“Of course, the Court cannot order any 
party to produce something in discovery that does not, in fact, exist.”). 
    Plaintiff’s motion is, however, granted in part to the extent Defendant has not yet 

responded to Interrogatory No. 18 and supplemented its response to Interrogatory No. 13 
to include the responsive leave information.                              


3 The Court appreciates the professionalism of counsel in this regard.    
         6.  Interrogatory No. 13                                        
    Interrogatory No. 13 seeks hiring demographics for each position in the Behavioral 

Health Division from January 1, 2017 through the present, including the title of the 
position; the total number of applicants, categorized by race; and the race of the individual 
hired.  See Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 8.  Defendant objected to Interrogatory No. 13 on 
grounds that it is “overly broad, unduly burdensome, and not proportional to the needs of 
this case.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 8.  Defendant also objected to Interrogatory No. 13 as 
“not relevant to Plaintiff’s claim regarding the Moving Home Director position,” which is 

not located “within the Behavioral Health Division.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 8. 
    Plaintiff  asserts  that  Defendant  read  Interrogatory  No.  13  too  narrowly  by 
“assuming [it] relate[d] to the Moving Home Minnesota position.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel 
at 8.  Plaintiff asserts that Interrogatory No. 13 “relates to the broader Behavioral Health 
Division and whether the Division is hiring people of color or if the result of the hiring 

process reflects discrimination.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 8-9.  Defendant responds that, 
“[a]t  present,  there  are  more  than  120  employees  working  in  the  Behavioral  Health 
Division,” and “[i]t would be unduly burdensome and irrelevant to an issue raised in the 
Second Amended Complaint for [Defendant] to delineate every single job title, the total 
number of applicants for each of the 120 positions, and the race of the individual hired – 

especially for a period of multiple years.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 14.  According to 
Defendant, “none of this hiring data has any probative value as to whether Plaintiff suffered 
unlawful discriminatory or retaliatory treatment years later based on her race (when a letter 
of expectations was issued to her because of communications issues or when she was not 
offered the Moving Home Minnesota Division).”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 14 (footnote 
omitted).  Defendant has, however, “produce[d] to Plaintiff charts indicating [its] target 

percentages  for  hiring  BIPOC  (Black,  Indigenous,  People  of  Color)  employees  and 
supervisors as well as the actual percentages of BIPOC hires” based “upon data provided 
by employees who voluntarily self-report their race.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 15 & n.9. 
    Plaintiff explains that she seeks hiring information beyond the Moving Home 
Minnesota Director position because such information goes to “whether [the Behavioral 
Health] Division is hiring people of color or if the result of the hiring process reflects 

discrimination.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 9.  Such an argument more closely resembles a 
disparate-impact  theory  of  employment  discrimination,  see,  e.g.,  U.S.  Equal  Emp. 
Opportunity Comm'n v. Stan Koch & Sons Trucking, Inc., 

, 891 (D. 
Minn. 2021) (“Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment practices 
that are ‘facially neutral but that fall more harshly on one group than another and cannot 

be justified by business necessity.’” (quoting Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 

 (1993)), but, as best as this Court is able to tell, Plaintiff has alleged disparate treatment 
not disparate impact. Cf. Stone v. Harry, 

 (8th Cir. 2004) (“When we say 
that a pro se complaint should be given liberal construction, we mean that if the essence of 
an allegation is discernible, even though it is not pleaded with legal nicety, then the district 

court should construe the complaint in a way that permits the layperson’s claim to be 
considered within the proper legal framework.”).                          
    Nor has Plaintiff sufficiently articulated how hiring demographics of positions 
within another department are relevant to her claim that she was discriminated against in 
connection with the Moving Home Minnesota Director position.  Plaintiff seeks hiring 
demographics regarding the Behavioral Health Division, but the Moving Home Minnesota 

Director position she was a finalist for is not located within the Behavioral Health Division.  
Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at n.8; Ex. B at 34 to Ghreichi Decl., ECF No. 103-2.  Cf. LaCroix 
v. Sears, Roebuck, & Co., 

 (8th Cir. 2001) (employees having different 
positions in different departments were not similarly situated).          
    Based on the record before the Court, the relevance of the Behavioral Health 
Division’s hiring demographics to the issues in this litigation is marginal at best.  See Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1) (considering “the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues”).  
Further, having compared the burden of responding to Interrogatory No. 13 to the benefit 
such information may have to the claims asserted in this case, the information sought is 
disproportionate to the needs of this case.4  See 

 (consider “whether the burden or 
expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit”).  According, Plaintiff’s 

motion is denied with respect to Interrogatory No. 13.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), 
(2)(C)(iii).                                                              
    B. Document Requests                                                 
    Plaintiff also seeks to compel Defendant to respond to two document requests: 
Document Request Nos. 5 and 6.                                            



4 That is not to say hiring demographics and statistical information are never relevant in an individual Title VII case, 
only that Plaintiff has not persuasively articulated the relevance of the requested information to the claims asserted 
in this case.  Cf., e.g., Easley v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 

 (8th Cir. 1985); Craik v. Minnesota 
State Univ. Bd., 

, 471 (8th Cir. 1984).                       
         1.  Document Request No. 5                                      
    Document Request No. 5 seeks “[a]ny and all diaries, calendars, journals, notes, 

receipts, or any other records, whether handwritten, electronically stored, or in other form, 
kept or taken by Defendant that describe the race of all suspended individuals in the . . . 
Behavioral Health Division between January 2017 and June 2021.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel 
at 9.  Subject to a number of objections, Defendant answered “None.” Pl.’s Mot. to Compel 
at 9.                                                                     
    Plaintiff asserts that Defendant has not responded to this request.  Defendant “does 

not maintain lists of employee discipline by division.”  Decl. of Sean Tolefree ¶ 3, ECF 
No. 105.  While Plaintiff may have thought otherwise or not be satisfied with Defendant’s 
response that it does not have documents responsive to her request, that does not mean that 
Defendant has not complied with its obligation to respond.  As stated above, a party cannot 
be compelled to produce what it does not have.  See Edeh, 

; Farmers Ins. 

Exch., 

, at *5.  Moreover, to the extent Plaintiff asserts that Defendant 
should have “provide[d] all information as available” and responded to Document Request 
No. 5 with a list or documentation of all individuals who have been suspended in the 
Behavioral Health Division in lieu of the requested race information, such a request is 
considerably different in kind than the request Plaintiff in fact propounded. 

    Plaintiff’s motion is denied with respect to Document Request No. 5. 
         2.  Document Request No. 6                                      
    Document Request No. 6 seeks “[a]ny and all diaries, calendars, journals, notes, 
receipts, or any other records, whether handwritten, electronically stored, or in other form, 
kept or taken by Defendant that identify and describe the hostile and toxic environment of 
the . . . Behavioral Health Division between January 2017-June 2021.”  Pl.’s Mot. to 

Compel at 10.  Similarly, subject to a number of objections, Defendant again answered 
“None” this request.  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 10.  Plaintiff likewise asserts that Defendant 
has not responded to this request.                                        
    The Court will grant Plaintiff’s motion in part with respect to Document Request 
No. 6 consistent with its ruling in regard to Interrogatory No. 8, and direct Defendant to 
supplement its response to Document Request No. 6, to the extent it has not done so 

already, to identify the five articles resulting from its search of article summaries involving 
the Behavioral Health Division and a “hostile” or “toxic” work environment.  See supra 
Section III.A.3.  Plaintiff’s motion is otherwise denied as to Document Request No. 6.  
Again, it is not apparent to this Court that Plaintiff is asserting a hostile-work-environment 
claim, thereby creating considerable doubt as to the importance of the requested discovery 

in resolving the issues at the heart of this litigation, namely, whether Plaintiff experienced 
discrimination and retaliation.  See supra Section III.A.3.               
             IV. COMPILING & COMPLIANCE MOTION                           
    As best as this Court is able to tell, Plaintiff’s motion is informative in nature.  The 
substance of Plaintiff’s motion states in its entirety:                   

         The Plaintiff is compiling and complying with Rule 26(a) of     
         the  Federal  Rules  of  Civil  Procedure.    The  confidential 
         documents  enclosed  are  from  The  Middle  Management         
         Association (MMA) and will be used in the case listed above.    
         The documents were used by MMA to resolve and comply            
         with their union responsibilities and to represent Plaintiff.   
ECF No. 108.  Plaintiff’s motion is accompanied by close to 500 pages of documents.  See 
generally ECF Nos. 109 through 109-2.  Defendant did not respond to the motion. 

    Rule 26(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure identifies three different types of 
disclosures: initial disclosures, expert disclosures, and pretrial disclosures.  Fed. R. Civ. P. 
26(a)(1)-(3).  It is not clear from Plaintiff’s motion which particular type of disclosure(s) 
she intends these documents to serve as.  Moreover, it is not clear from Plaintiff’s motion 
what sort of relief she wants from the Court.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 7(b)(1)(C) (a motion must 
“state the relief sought”).  As best as this Court is able to tell, Plaintiff’s motion is intended 

to inform the Court that she is in the process of compiling documents in order to fulfill her 
disclosure obligations under Rule 26(a).                                  
    As there is no relief sought, the Court will deny Plaintiff’s motion without prejudice.  
In doing so, the Court is not in any way commenting on the documents accompanying the 
motion or the sufficiency of any disclosure made under Rule 26(a).        

                           V. ORDER                                      
    Based on the foregoing, and all of the files, records, and proceedings herein, IT IS 
HEREBY ORDERED that:                                                      
    1.  Plaintiff’s “Motion to Compel,” ECF No. 94, is GRANTED IN PART and 
      DENIED IN PART as set forth herein.                                

    2.  Defendant shall supplement its responses as outlined herein within 14 days 
      from the date of this Order.                                       

    3.  Each party shall be responsible for its own costs and attorney fees.  See Fed. R. 
      Civ. P. 37(a)(5)(C).                                               

    4.  Plaintiff’s  “Proposed  Motion  to  Compel,”  ECF  No.  98,  is  
      ADMINISTRATIVELY TERMINATED.                                       
    5.  Plaintiff’s “Motion of Compiling with Complying Requests,” ECF No. 108, is 
      DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.                                          

    6.  All prior consistent orders remain in full force and effect.     

    7.  Failure to comply with any provision of this Order or any other prior consistent 
      Order shall subject the non-complying party, non-complying counsel and/or the 
      party such counsel represents to any and all appropriate remedies, sanctions and 
      the like, including without limitation: assessment of costs, fines and attorneys’ 
      fees and disbursements; waiver of rights to object; exclusion or limitation of 
      witnesses,  testimony,  exhibits  and  other  evidence;  striking  of  pleadings; 
      complete or partial dismissal with prejudice; entry of whole or partial default 
      judgment; and/or any other relief that this Court may from time to time deem 
      appropriate.                                                       




Dated: April     27  , 2022             s/ Tony N. Leung                                      
                                  Tony N. Leung                          
                                  United States Magistrate Judge         
                                  District of Minnesota                  


                                  Jackson v. Minnesota Department of     
                                  Human Services                         
                                  Case No. 20-cv-749 (KMM/TNL)           

                UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT                             
                    DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA                                


Deidre Sherell Jackson,            Case No. 20-cv-749 (KMM/TNL)          

          Plaintiff,                                                     

v.                                          ORDER                        

Minnesota Department of Human                                            
Services,                                                                

          Defendant.                                                     


Deidre Sherell Jackson, 1720 Woodland Lane, Maplewood, MN 55109 (pro se  
Plaintiff); and                                                          

Kathleen M. Ghreichi, Assistant Attorney General, Minnesota Attorney General’s 
Office, 445 Minnesota Street, Suite 1400, St. Paul, MN 55101 (for Defendant). 


                       I. INTRODUCTION                                   

    This matter comes before the Court on pro se Plaintiff Deidre Sherell Jackson’s 
“Motion to Compel,” ECF No. 94; “Proposed Motion to Compel,” ECF No. 98; and 
“Motion of Compiling with Complying Requests,” ECF No. 108.  The Court has taken 
these matters under advisement, on the papers, without a hearing.  See D. Minn. LR 7.1(b). 
                       II. BACKGROUND                                    
    By Second Amended Complaint, Plaintiff “claims that her employer, [Defendant] 
Minnesota Department of Human Services . . . , has discriminated against her based on her 
race and color, retaliated against her for complaining about discrimination, and violated 
her right to due process.”  Jackson v. Minn. Dep’t of Human Servs., No. 20-cv-749 
(ECT/TNL), 

, at *1 (D. Minn. Mar. 23, 2021).  The Second Amended 
Complaint was previously construed to contain “the following claims: (1) discrimination 

based on race in violation of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.; (2) discrimination based 
on color in violation of Title VII; (3) retaliation in violation of Title VII; and (4) violation 
of [Plaintiff’s] right to procedural due process.”  Id. at *3 (citations omitted).  Plaintiff’s 
Title VII claims for discrimination and retaliation “arising out of [a] February 2019 written 
reprimand” related to “unapproved use of a state cell phone” were previously dismissed 
with prejudice as untimely.  Id. at *5, 8.  Plaintiff’s Title VII claims for color discrimination 

(as  distinguished  from  racial  discrimination)  were  also  previously  dismissed  without 
prejudice for failure to exhaust administrative remedies and failure to state a claim.  Id. at 
*6-8.                                                                     
                    III. MOTION TO COMPEL1                               
    Plaintiff moves to compel responses to seven interrogatories and two document 

requests.  The Court has broad discretion in handling pretrial procedure and discovery.  
See, e.g., Hill v. Sw. Energy Co., 

 (8th Cir. 2017) (“A district court has 
very wide discretion in handling pretrial discovery . . . .” (quoting United States ex rel. 
Kraxberger v. Kansas City Power & Light Co., 

 (8th Cir. 2014)); 
Solutran, Inc. v. U.S. Bancorp, No. 13-cv-2637 (SRN/BRT), 

, at *2 (D. 



1 Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel and Proposed Motion to Compel are essentially duplicate filings.  Compare ECF No. 
94 with ECF No. 98.  The Court interprets Plaintiff’s Proposed Motion to Compel as an effort to comply with the 
Court’s directive that she file a proposed order in connection with her Motion to Compel as required under Local 
Rule 7.1(b)(1).  See ECF No. 95 at 2.  Given the nature of the filings, the Court will administratively terminate the 
Proposed Motion to Compel as it is not in fact a new motion but a proposed order in connection with the previously 
filed Motion to Compel.                                                   
Minn. Dec. 20, 2016) (“Further, magistrate judges ‘are afforded wide discretion in handling 
discovery matters and are free to use and control pretrial procedure in furtherance of the 

orderly administration of justice.’” (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Favors v. 
Hoover, No. 13-cv-428 (JRT/LIB), 

, at *3 n.3 (D. Minn. Dec. 12, 2013)). 
    In general, “[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding 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).  “Some threshold showing of relevance must be made[, however,] 
before parties are required to open wide the doors of discovery and to produce a variety of 

information which does not reasonably bear upon the issues in the case.”  Hofer v. Mack 
Trucks, Inc., 

 (8th Cir. 1992).  Further, “[t]he parties and the court have 
a collective responsibility to consider the proportionality of all discovery and consider it in 
resolving discovery disputes.”  Vallejo v. Amgen, Inc., 

 (8th Cir. 2018) 
(quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 26 advisory committee’s note to 2015 amendment); see also 

Miscellaneous Docket Matter No. 1 v. Miscellaneous Docket Matter No. 2, 

 (8th Cir. 1999) (“[E]ven if relevant, discovery is not permitted where no need is shown, 
or compliance would be unduly burdensome, or where harm to the person from whom 
discovery  is  sought  outweighs  the  need  of  the  person  seeking  discovery  of  the 
information.” (quotation omitted)).  “[A] court can—and must—limit proposed discovery 

that it determines is not proportional to the needs of the case.”  Vallejo, 

 
(quotation  omitted);  see  Fed.  R.  Civ.  P.  26(b)(2)(C)(iii).    Considerations  bearing  on 
proportionality include “the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in 
controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the 
importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of 
the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.”  Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1); see also 

Vallejo, 

-43.                                                 
    A. Interrogatories                                                   
    “An interrogatory may relate to any matter that may be inquired into under Rule 
26(b).”  Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(a)(2).  “Each interrogatory must, to the extent that it is not 
objected to, be answered separately and fully in writing under oath.”  Fed. R. Civ. P. 
33(b)(3).                                                                 

         1.  Interrogatory Nos. 2 and 5                                  
    Interrogatory Nos. 2 and 5 seek information regarding events that led to Plaintiff’s 
suspension in December 2019.  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 2-3, ECF No. 94.  Defendant 
objected to these interrogatories on the basis that “Plaintiff released all claims and disputes 
relating to her suspension in a fully executed Settlement and Release that went into effect 

October 21, 2020.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 2; see Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 3; see also Def.’s 
Mem. in Opp’n at 3, ECF No. 101.                                          
    Among the allegations in the Second Amended Complaint, Plaintiff describes a 
series of events stemming from a conversation she had with a subordinate employee around 
early September 2019, in which another employee voiced concern over the volume of 

Plaintiff’s voice.  See Second Am. Compl. at 10-11, 36-39, ECF No. 53.  Plaintiff received 
a one-day suspension in December 2019 as a result.  See Second Am. Compl. at 11, 40-41.  
Plaintiff alleges that she did not receive certain procedural protections and grieved her 
suspension.  See Second Am. Compl. at 11; see also Second Am. Compl. at 42-47; Ex. A 
at 1 to Decl. of Kathleen M. Ghreichi, ECF No. 103-1.                     
    In October 2020, Plaintiff entered into a Settlement and Release Agreement with 

Defendant related to the one-day suspension.  See generally Ex. A to Ghreichi Decl.  The 
Settlement and Release Agreement states, among other things, that “the parties desire to 
finally and forever resolve all grievances and disputes regarding this matter” and “[a]ll 
claims and/or disputes relating to the matters underlying this grievance are released upon 
execution of this Settlement and Release.”  Ex. A at 1 to Ghreichi Decl.  The Settlement 
and Release Agreement further stated that “[n]othing in this Settlement and Release shall 

preclude [Defendant] from properly responding to a lawful request made pursuant to the 
MN Data Practices Act.”  Ex. A at 1 to Ghreichi Decl.  The Settlement and Release 
Agreement  is  signed  by  Plaintiff,  signifying  that  she  “understand[s]  and  voluntarily 
agree[s] to and accept[s] the terms of this Settlement and Release Agreement.”  Ex. A at 2 
to Ghreichi Decl.                                                         

    Plaintiff does not dispute the existence of the Settlement and Release Agreement.  
Rather, she asserts that the Settlement and Release Agreement “did not excuse or release 
the Defendant from providing legal documents for this lawsuit,” referencing the clause 
concerning  the  Minnesota  Government  Data  Practices  Act  (“MGDPA”),  

 et seq.  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 3; see also Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 3-4.  See 

generally, e.g., 

, subd. 3 (request for access to data).  Plaintiff asserts 
that, because her “‘suspension’ was an event that happened, the Defendant is obligated to 
answer the question in detail” under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.  Pl.’s Mot. to 
Compel at 3; see also Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 3-4.                        
    Defendant maintains that the execution of the Settlement and Release Agreement 
means the events leading to Plaintiff’s suspension in December 2019 “are no longer 

relevant to the claims in this lawsuit.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 3.  Defendant additionally 
asserts that Interrogatory Nos. 2 and 5 are not equivalent to a request made under the 
MGDPA  and,  in  any  event,  Plaintiff  has  “equal  access”  to  the  information  because 
Defendant “has already produced to Plaintiff a copy of an independent investigative report 
documenting witness accounts of Plaintiff’s conduct that led to the suspension.”  Def.’s 
Mem. in Opp’n at 4.                                                       

    Events related to Plaintiff’s suspension in December 2019 form a significant portion 
of the factual allegations underlying Plaintiff’s remaining claims for discrimination and 
retaliation.  Interrogatory Nos. 2 and 5 therefore seek relevant information within the scope 
of Rule 26(b)(1).  See Sherman v. Sheffield Fin., LLC, 

, 252 (D. Minn. 2021) 
(“[T]he scope of discovery is intended to focus on the actual claims or defenses that are at 

issue  in  the  litigation.”).    Defendant’s  contention  that  the  Settlement  and  Release 
Agreement bars Plaintiff’s discrimination and retaliation claims based on her December 
2019 suspension goes not to the relevancy of the information sought, but to the merits of 
the  claims  themselves.    Accepting  Defendant’s  argument  that  the  existence  of  the 
Settlement and Release Agreement precludes any and all discovery regarding Plaintiff’s 

suspension in December 2019 would essentially amount to rendering a dispositive ruling 
on those claims.                                                          
    Therefore, the Court will grant Plaintiff’s motion with respect to Interrogatory Nos. 
2 and 5.                                                                  
         2.  Interrogatory No. 6                                         
    Interrogatory No. 6 seeks information regarding any complaints made regarding 

“Plaintiff’s ability to do the work assigned,” including the race and ethnicity of the 
complainant, and “a list of the overall rating of each of  . . . Plaintiff’s annual performance 
reviews.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 4.                                     
    Among other objections, Defendant objected to providing the race and ethnicity of 
each complainant on grounds that such information is private personnel data and, in any 
event, is not maintained in connection with the identity of a complainant.  Pl.’s Mot. to 

Compel at 4.  Subject to its objections, Defendant responded:             
         Generally, Defendant has received complaints about Plaintiff    
         in her employment with Defendant.  These complaints include     
         but  are  not  limited  to:  communications  issues  noted  in  
         Plaintiff’s 2018 performance review; Plaintiff’s February 2019  
         written reprimand based on data plan overages associated with   
         her state cell phone; and issues in 2019 regarding Defendant’s  
         Respectful Workplace policy.  Plaintiff’s annual performance    
         reviews include her overall rating and speak for themselves.    

Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 4.                                                
    Plaintiff asserts that Defendant “did not cite a specific complaint regarding [her] 
ability to do the work assigned for any time period (either duration of the employment, or 
timeframe  of  this  case)”;  “did  not  cite  any  individuals  who  made  or  initiated  any 
complaints”;  and  did  not  provide  “race  identification”  information  despite  such 
information being provided elsewhere in other interrogatory responses.  Pl.’s Mot. to 
Compel  at  4-5.    Defendant  responds  that  while  Plaintiff  “does  not  appear  to  view 
documentation of [her] communication issues as relevant to her ‘ability to do the work,’” 
communication skills are “clearly part of Plaintiff’s work” alongside “technical skills and 
specialized knowledge concerning the provision of adult mental health services.”  Def.’s  

Mem. in Opp’n at 5.  Defendant additionally responds that, in response to another discovery 
request seeking investigative reports and findings of which Plaintiff was the subject, it “has 
already  produced  an  independent  investigative  report  documenting  witness  accounts 
concerning Plaintiff’s Respectful Workplace policy issue in 2019 as well as an Internal 
Investigative Report documenting Plaintiff’s communication issues in 2018.”  Def.’s Mem. 
in Opp’n at 5 (citations omitted).  Defendant has also “produced Plaintiff’s performance 

reviews  from  2014  to  [the]  present,  a  number  of  which  document  communication 
concerns.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 5.                                    
    Plaintiff’s motion will be granted in part with respect to Interrogatory No. 6.   
Defendant shall supplement its answer to Interrogatory No. 6 to identify those individuals 
who made complaints in connection with issues in 2019 regarding Defendant’s Respectful 

Workplace policy.2  In addition, to the extent it has not done so already, Defendant shall 
supplement  its  response  to  Interrogatory  No.  6  to  specify  the  Bates  numbers  of  the 
produced annual performance reviews for Plaintiff from which a list of her overall ratings 
can be derived.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(d)(1) (permitting party to answer interrogatory by 
“specifying  the  records  that  must  be  reviewed,  in  sufficient  detail  to  enable  the 

interrogating party to locate and identify them as readily as the responding party could” 


2 The Court notes that Defendant has not expressed any concern regarding Plaintiff having access to the names of 
any complaining individuals and, as stated above, “has already produced an independent investigative report 
documenting witness accounts concerning Plaintiff’s Respectful Workplace policy issue in 2019.”  Def.’s Mem. in 
Opp’n at 5.                                                               
when “the answer to [the] interrogatory may be determined by examining, auditing, 
compiling, abstracting, or summarizing a party’s business records . . . and . . . burden of 

deriving or ascertaining the answer will be substantially the same for either party”). 
    Plaintiff’s motion is otherwise denied with respect to Interrogatory No. 6.  Plaintiff’s 
motion is denied to the extent she characterizes Defendant’s response as being non-
responsive  to  her  inquiry  concerning  work-related  complaints.    Plaintiff’s  motion  is 
likewise  denied  as  to  the  race  and  ethnicity  of  the  complainants.    Plaintiff  has  not 
sufficiently articulated the relevance of the information to her claims.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 

26(b)(1),  (2)(C)(iii).    Plaintiff’s  motion  is  further  denied  as  to  the  identity  of  any 
complainants concerning communications issues noted in Plaintiff’s 2018 performance 
review and Plaintiff’s February 2019 written reprimand based on data plan overages 
associated with her state cell phone.  As best as this Court is able to tell, the claims in the 
Second Amended Complaint do not involve any 2018 “communications issues” and her 

retaliation claims arising out of the February 2019 written reprimand were previously 
dismissed by the district court with prejudice.  Accordingly, it is not apparent to this Court 
what relevance the identities of those complainants have to the issues remaining in this 
litigation.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), (2)(C)(iii).                   
         3.  Interrogatory No. 8                                         

    Interrogatory No. 8 asks Defendant to “[s]tate whether there are any publications[, 
including newspapers, employee complaints or other documents,] that describe a hostile 
work environment in the DHS Behavioral Health Division.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 5.  
Among other objections, Defendant objected to Interrogatory No. 8 on grounds that it was 
overly broad (“the Behavioral Health Division has multiple managers, supervisor, and lead 
employee positions, some of which are wholly unrelated to Plaintiff’s employment”) and 

“to  the  extent  that  it  seeks  information  relating  to  third-party  publications,  such  as 
newspapers, not generated by Defendant or in Defendant’s possession or control.”  Pl.’s 
Mot. to Compel at 5.  Subject to its objections, Defendant stated it was “unaware of any 
such publications regarding employees within Plaintiff’s management and supervisory 
chain.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 5.                                       
    Plaintiff asserts that Interrogatory No. 8 “is narrowly tailored to the Behavioral 

Health Division” and “materially relates to the case given this case relates to discrimination 
and retaliation.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 5-6.  Plaintiff additionally asserts that “Defendant 
has a Communications Department who collects news articles, through newspapers and 
local news, from across the state of Minnesota on a daily basis and distributes these news 
clips through an email to executive leadership and division level leadership.”  Pl.’s Mot. to 

Compel at 5; see also Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 6 (“During this same timeframe there were 
articles published that included individuals who were suspended and/or left the Department 
due  to  discriminatory  and  retaliatory  experiences.”).  Lastly,  Plaintiff  asserts  that 
“Defendant did not state whether there were any complaints related to a hostile work 
environment that were initiated by Behavioral Health Division employees.”  Pl.’s Mot. to 

Compel at 6.                                                              
    Defendant responds that Interrogatory No. 8 “seeks news articles from an unlimited 
timeframe”; “it does not generate, maintain, or control news articles”; and “Plaintiff has 
equal access to any articles and news reports that have been published and may search them 
for herself.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 5-6 (emphasis omitted).  Defendant further responds 
that it “is unable to provide articles describing ‘the hostile work environment,’ because 

there is not a hostile work environment in the Behavioral Health Division.”  Def.’s Mem. 
in Opp’n at 6.                                                            
    At the same time, Defendant acknowledges that its “Communications Department 
does circulate emails with hyperlinks to articles relating to [the Department of Human 
Services].”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 6.  Defendant states that, while it “does not have a 
searchable archived database of those emails or of the linked news articles,” it “does have 

Word documents containing links and a short summary of articles circulated internally 
from 2018 to the present.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 6.  Defendant “has run searches of the 
summaries in the Word documents to identify any articles from 2018 to the present 
involving the Behavioral Health Division and a ‘hostile’ or ‘toxic’ work environment” and 
supplemented its production to include the five news articles that resulted from its search.   

Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 6.                                                
    As for any complaints of a hostile work environment by Behavioral Health Division 
employees, Defendant states it would be disproportionate to the needs of this case to 
determine whether any such complaints exist.  Because its internal software does not have 
the capacity to sort by complaints of a hostile work environment, Defendant would first 

need  to  separate  out  the  complaints  of  individuals  in  the  Community  Supports 
Administration, wherein the Behavioral Health Division is located.  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n 
at 8; see Decl. of Zecharias Hailu ¶¶ 3-5, 7 ECF No. 106.  Next, Defendant “would . . . 
need to review the individual complaint forms (kept in paper files) or consult a long series 
of organizational charts to determine which of the complainants worked in the Behavioral 
Health Division at the time of the complaint.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 8; see Hailu Decl. 

¶ 7.  Defendant “would then have to review each individual complaint form in that subset 
to determine whether it alleges a hostile work environment.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 8; 
see Hailu Decl. ¶ 7.  Defendant estimates that it would take between 80 and 160 hours to 
complete such a review.  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 8; see Hailu Decl. ¶ 7.  Defendant has 
supported this estimate with the declaration of its Equal Opportunity & Access Division 
director.  See generally Hailu Decl.                                      

     First, it is not apparent to this Court that Plaintiff is bringing a hostile-work-
environment claim.  See Jackson, 

, at *3 n.6 (“[I]t is unclear whether 
Jackson also intended to raise a Title VII hostile-work-environment claim.”); see also Joint 
Rule 26(f) Report at 2-3 (Plaintiff describing case as “being discriminated and retaliated 
against” in statement of the case); cf. Anderson v. Durham D & M, L.L.C., 

 (8th Cir. 2010) (“To sustain a claim for hostile work environment, a plaintiff must 
show that (1) he or she is a member of a protected class; (2) he or she is subjected to 
unwelcome race-based harassment; (3) the harassment was because of membership in the 
protected class; and (4) the harassment affected a term, condition, or privilege of his or her 
employment.  The workplace must be permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, 

and insult that is sufficiently severe and pervasive.” (quotation omitted)). 
    As best as this Court is able to tell, Plaintiff has brought claims for discrimination 
and retaliation based on a series of “discrete acts” rather than a claim “based on the 
cumulative effect of individual acts.”  Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 

 (2002); see also 

; Wallace v. Interbake Foods, LLC, 

 (D. S.D. 2013).  “In granting the deference owed to pro se parties, [the court 

may not] assume the role of advocate for the pro se litigant.”  Machen v. Iverson, No. 11-
cv-1557 (DWF/JSM), 

, at *15 (D. Minn. Jan. 23, 2012) (quotation 
omitted), report and recommendation adopted, 

 (D. Minn. Feb. 21, 2012); 
see Bracken v. Dormire, 

 (8th Cir. 2001) (Arnold, J., dissenting) (“Of 
course, a pro se pleading is not a magic hat out of which a court may pull any claim it 
thinks should have been advanced.”).                                      

    While the Court can certainly understand describing a work environment in which 
acts of discriminatory and retaliatory conduct have allegedly occurred as hostile in the 
colloquial sense, claims of discrimination and retaliation are not equivalent to hostile-
work-environment claims in the legal sense, making the relevance of the information 
sought in Interrogatory No. 8 highly questionable to the issues of whether Plaintiff herself 

experienced discrimination and retaliation.  Given this questionable relevance and the 
burden of obtaining the requested complaints, the Court concludes that the employee-
hostile-work-environment complaints sought by Plaintiff are disproportionate to the needs 
of this case.                                                             
    The Court will, however, grant Plaintiff’s motion in part and Defendant shall, to the 

extent it has not done so already, supplement its response to Interrogatory No. 8 to identify 
the five articles produced as a result of its search for news articles in its possession, custody, 
and control relating to the Behavioral Health Division and a “hostile” or “toxic” work 
environment.                                                              
    Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff’s motion is otherwise denied with respect to 
Interrogatory No. 8.                                                      

         4.  Interrogatory No. 10                                        
    Interrogatory  No.  10  seeks  information  regarding  “any  charge,  lawsuit, 
substantiated complaints, settlements or intent to sue has been filed against the Defendant 
by any Supervisor or Human Services Supervisor for race or any other discrimination from 
January 2017 to [the] present.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 6.  Defendant objected to 
Interrogatory No. 10 “as overly broad and not proportional to the needs of the case.”  Pl.’s 

Mot. to Compel at 6.  Among other things, Defendant stated that the “[Department of 
Human Services] is a large agency,” with “multiple . . . divisions in which Plaintiff has 
never worked and which are wholly unrelated to Plaintiff’s employment.”  Pl.’s Mot. 
Compel at 6.  Defendant also stated the Behavioral Health Division, where Plaintiff is 
employed, “did not exist in 2017 or part of 2018” and this division itself “has multiple 

managers, supervisor, and lead employee positions, some of which are wholly unrelated to 
Plaintiff’s employment.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 6.  Subject to these and other objections, 
Defendant identified one individual in the “Community Supports Administration managers 
or supervisors within Plaintiff’s management and supervisory chain from January 2017 to 
the present.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 6-7.                               

    Plaintiff  asserts  that  Defendant  has  “self-defined  [its]  response  based  on  the 
Plaintiff[’]s supervisor chain[,] which is exceedingly narrow.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 8.  
Plaintiff reiterates that she seeks information “relate[d] to the entire Minnesota Department 
of Human Services supervisory pool to establish the fact patten of discrimination and 
retaliation of people of color in supervisory roles.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 7. 
    Defendant responds that Plaintiff “appears to be fishing for evidence about other 

supervisors’ allegations of discrimination in an attempt to show that [its] explanations for 
the  alleged  adverse  employment  actions  against  her  are  mere  pretext  for  intentional 
discrimination/retaliation.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 10-11.  According to Defendant, 
“other supervisors throughout [the Department of Human Services] who report to different 
supervisors  than  Plaintiff  (and  may  never  interact  in  any  way  with  Plaintiff  or  her 
supervisors)  are  not  similarly-situated”  to  Plaintiff.    Def.’s  Mem.  in  Opp’n  at  11.  

Defendant also responds that “it would be unduly burdensome and disproportionate to the 
needs of this case” to respond to the interrogatory as written.  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 11.  
Defendant states that it would take “staff anywhere between 40 and 80 . . . hours[] just to 
determine a list of complainants” because its system cannot be searched for complaints by 
supervisors.  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 12.  Rather, staff “would need to review the entire 

list of complaints in [the system], and compare the complainant name and date of the 
complaint to organizational charts to determine if, at the time the complaint was filed, the 
complainant was a supervisor.”  Hailu Decl. ¶ 9.  Similarly, Defendant “does not have a 
database of charges, lawsuits, settlements, and intents to sue.  The only available method 
. . . to determine whether a [Department of Human Services] supervisor has brought a 

discrimination charge, lawsuit, entered a settlement, or submitted an intent to sue would be 
to have the name of that supervisor to learn if any complaints have been made” and then 
“review the paper file of each complaint to see whether any of those items are documented 
in the paper file.”  Hailu Decl. ¶ 10.                                    
    The Court concludes that Interrogatory No. 10, which seeks any and all complaints 
of discrimination not just those related to racial discrimination and not just those of 

individuals who are similarly situated to Plaintiff runs counter to Rule 26(b)(1)’s core 
requirement that discovery be “relevant to any party’s claim or defense.”  Generally 
speaking, “[c]ourts have recognized that discovery, in the Title VII context, must be limited 
to the practices at issue in the case and, where an individualized claim of disparate 
treatment is alleged, the discovery of information concerning other employees should be 
limited to employees who are similarly situated to the [p]laintiff.”  Onwuka v. Fed. Express 

Corp., 

 (D. Minn. 1997); see also, e.g., Farmers Ins. Exch. v. West, 
No. 11-cv-2297 (PAM/JJK), 

, at *8 (D. Minn. Sept. 21, 2012) (“[M]ost 
courts that allow . . . discovery [of other incidents of discrimination] conclude that it should 
be limited by such factors as time, the type of action complained of, or the type of 
discrimination alleged.”); Jensen v. Astrazeneca LP, No. 02-cv-4844 (JRT/FLN), 

, at *2 (D. Minn. Aug. 30, 2004) (“[D]iscovery of information related to prior 
claims of discrimination is properly limited to the employment practices and classes at 
issue in the particular case, the facility and people implicated in the allegations, and to a 
reasonable time period around the alleged discriminatory action.”); Burns v. Hy-Vee, Inc., 
No.  02-cv-254  (JRT/FLN),  

,  at  *2  (D.  Minn.  Nov.  21,  2002) 

(“Discovery, in the Title VII context, must be limited to the employment practices at issue 
in the case.”).  Here, Plaintiff seeks complaints of any and all types of discrimination, not 
just for racial discrimination, which is the discriminatory conduct alleged to have taken 
place in this case.  The Eighth Circuit has held that it is not an abuse of discretion to limit 
all-encompassing, every-allegation-of-discrimination discovery requests as overly broad. 
See, e.g., Sallis v. Univ. of Minnesota, 

 (8th Cir. 2005) (citing favorably 

Onwuka, 

).                                               
    Moreover,  in  the  Title  VII  context,  the  Eighth  Circuit  has  described  suitable 
individuals for comparison as those individuals who are “similarly situated in all relevant 
respects”  and  “have  dealt  with  the  same  supervisor,  have  been  subject  to  the  same 
standards, and engaged in the same conduct without any mitigating or distinguishing 
circumstances.”  Clark v. Runyon, 

 (8th Cir. 2000).  Just because an 

individual is “on the same level of management,”—such as, for example, a supervisor—
does not mean that he or she is similarly situated to the plaintiff when there is no shared 
supervisor.  See, e.g., Beasley v. Warren Unilube, Inc., 

 (8th Cir. 2019) 
(employees “on same level of management” were not similarly situated to plaintiff where 
plaintiff “never show[ed] that he and any of these people shared the same supervisor, were 

subject to the same standards, or engaged in the same conduct”); see also, e.g., Evance v. 
Trumann Health Servs., LLC, 

 (8th Cir. 2013) (employees with “different 
job titles and supervisors” not similarly situated); Bone v. G4S Youth Servs., LLC, 

 (8th Cir. 2012) (employees “not valid comparators because they had different 
immediate supervisors from Bone and did not engage in the same conduct as Bone”).  As 

such,  information  “relate[d]  to  the  entire  Minnesota  Department  of  Human  Services 
supervisory pool” is neither relevant nor proportional to the needs of this case, which 
concerns claims of racial discrimination in the Behavioral Health Division, located within 
Defendant’s Community Supports Administration.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), (2)(C)(iii). 
    Based on the foregoing, the Court will deny Plaintiff’s motion with respect to 
Interrogatory No. 10.                                                     

         5.  Interrogatory No. 12                                        
    Interrogatory No. 12 requests “the name, qualifications, interview panel scores, and 
race of the individual who w[as] offered and accepted the Moving Home Minnesota 
position,” which Plaintiff had been a finalist for.  Pl.’ Mot. to Compel at 7; see Second Am. 
Compl. at 11-12.  Interrogatory No. 12 further requested “the individual’s employment 
status before he or she was hired in the Moving Home Minnesota position” and to 

“[i]nclude if the individual was on any type of unpaid leave, if so, state the reason the 
individual was on leave.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 7.  Defendant identified the individual, 
A.P., and provided the requested information, except that Defendant was “unaware of any 
interview panel scores” for the individual and did not include any leave information.  Pl.’s 
Mot. to Compel at 7.                                                      

    Plaintiff  asserts  that  Defendant’s  response  was  incomplete  due  to  the  missing 
interview scores and leave information.  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 8.  In response, Defendant 
reiterates that it is unaware of any interview scores for A.P.  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 13.  
Defendant further responds that it “interpreted [Interrogatory No. 12] as requiring it to 
include information on the successful candidate’s leave, in the event that this individual 

was on leave at the time of her hire for the Moving Home Minnesota Director position,” 
and, “[b]ecause [A.P.] was not on leave at the time of her hire, [Defendant] did not include 
any information.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 12.  Defendant goes on to state, however, that 
Plaintiff  subsequently  propounded  an  additional  interrogatory  (Interrogatory  No.  18) 
inquiring whether A.P. “was placed on any type of employment leave, Expectation Letters, 
or discipline of any type while employed [with Defendant],” and the dates, reason, and 

timeframe for such leave.  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 13 (quotation omitted); see also ECF 
No. 96 at 8.  While Defendant believes this subsequent interrogatory is untimely and 
exceeds the number of interrogatories permitted under the Pretrial Scheduling Order, 
Defendant  has  stated  that  it  will  respond  to  Interrogatory  No.  18  as  “a  matter  of 
fundamental fairness because Plaintiff, who is proceeding pro se, likely incorrectly thought 
she would elicit this information with Interrogatory No. 12 (which was timely served).”3  

Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 13.                                               
    Plaintiff’s motion is denied in part with respect to Interrogatory No. 12 to the extent 
she seeks any interview panel scores for A.P.  A party cannot be compelled to produce 
what it does not have.  See, e.g., Edeh v. Equifax Info. Servs., LLC, 

 
(D. Minn. 2013) (“Here, Equifax maintains that it does not have the documents requested 

in Requests for Production Nos. 3 and 4. If Equifax does not have the documents in its 
possession, custody, or control, it cannot be compelled to produce them.”); see also 
Farmers Ins. Exch., 

, at *5 (“Of course, the Court cannot order any 
party to produce something in discovery that does not, in fact, exist.”). 
    Plaintiff’s motion is, however, granted in part to the extent Defendant has not yet 

responded to Interrogatory No. 18 and supplemented its response to Interrogatory No. 13 
to include the responsive leave information.                              


3 The Court appreciates the professionalism of counsel in this regard.    
         6.  Interrogatory No. 13                                        
    Interrogatory No. 13 seeks hiring demographics for each position in the Behavioral 

Health Division from January 1, 2017 through the present, including the title of the 
position; the total number of applicants, categorized by race; and the race of the individual 
hired.  See Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 8.  Defendant objected to Interrogatory No. 13 on 
grounds that it is “overly broad, unduly burdensome, and not proportional to the needs of 
this case.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 8.  Defendant also objected to Interrogatory No. 13 as 
“not relevant to Plaintiff’s claim regarding the Moving Home Director position,” which is 

not located “within the Behavioral Health Division.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 8. 
    Plaintiff  asserts  that  Defendant  read  Interrogatory  No.  13  too  narrowly  by 
“assuming [it] relate[d] to the Moving Home Minnesota position.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel 
at 8.  Plaintiff asserts that Interrogatory No. 13 “relates to the broader Behavioral Health 
Division and whether the Division is hiring people of color or if the result of the hiring 

process reflects discrimination.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 8-9.  Defendant responds that, 
“[a]t  present,  there  are  more  than  120  employees  working  in  the  Behavioral  Health 
Division,” and “[i]t would be unduly burdensome and irrelevant to an issue raised in the 
Second Amended Complaint for [Defendant] to delineate every single job title, the total 
number of applicants for each of the 120 positions, and the race of the individual hired – 

especially for a period of multiple years.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 14.  According to 
Defendant, “none of this hiring data has any probative value as to whether Plaintiff suffered 
unlawful discriminatory or retaliatory treatment years later based on her race (when a letter 
of expectations was issued to her because of communications issues or when she was not 
offered the Moving Home Minnesota Division).”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 14 (footnote 
omitted).  Defendant has, however, “produce[d] to Plaintiff charts indicating [its] target 

percentages  for  hiring  BIPOC  (Black,  Indigenous,  People  of  Color)  employees  and 
supervisors as well as the actual percentages of BIPOC hires” based “upon data provided 
by employees who voluntarily self-report their race.”  Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at 15 & n.9. 
    Plaintiff explains that she seeks hiring information beyond the Moving Home 
Minnesota Director position because such information goes to “whether [the Behavioral 
Health] Division is hiring people of color or if the result of the hiring process reflects 

discrimination.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 9.  Such an argument more closely resembles a 
disparate-impact  theory  of  employment  discrimination,  see,  e.g.,  U.S.  Equal  Emp. 
Opportunity Comm'n v. Stan Koch & Sons Trucking, Inc., 

, 891 (D. 
Minn. 2021) (“Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment practices 
that are ‘facially neutral but that fall more harshly on one group than another and cannot 

be justified by business necessity.’” (quoting Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 

 (1993)), but, as best as this Court is able to tell, Plaintiff has alleged disparate treatment 
not disparate impact. Cf. Stone v. Harry, 

 (8th Cir. 2004) (“When we say 
that a pro se complaint should be given liberal construction, we mean that if the essence of 
an allegation is discernible, even though it is not pleaded with legal nicety, then the district 

court should construe the complaint in a way that permits the layperson’s claim to be 
considered within the proper legal framework.”).                          
    Nor has Plaintiff sufficiently articulated how hiring demographics of positions 
within another department are relevant to her claim that she was discriminated against in 
connection with the Moving Home Minnesota Director position.  Plaintiff seeks hiring 
demographics regarding the Behavioral Health Division, but the Moving Home Minnesota 

Director position she was a finalist for is not located within the Behavioral Health Division.  
Def.’s Mem. in Opp’n at n.8; Ex. B at 34 to Ghreichi Decl., ECF No. 103-2.  Cf. LaCroix 
v. Sears, Roebuck, & Co., 

 (8th Cir. 2001) (employees having different 
positions in different departments were not similarly situated).          
    Based on the record before the Court, the relevance of the Behavioral Health 
Division’s hiring demographics to the issues in this litigation is marginal at best.  See Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1) (considering “the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues”).  
Further, having compared the burden of responding to Interrogatory No. 13 to the benefit 
such information may have to the claims asserted in this case, the information sought is 
disproportionate to the needs of this case.4  See 

 (consider “whether the burden or 
expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit”).  According, Plaintiff’s 

motion is denied with respect to Interrogatory No. 13.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), 
(2)(C)(iii).                                                              
    B. Document Requests                                                 
    Plaintiff also seeks to compel Defendant to respond to two document requests: 
Document Request Nos. 5 and 6.                                            



4 That is not to say hiring demographics and statistical information are never relevant in an individual Title VII case, 
only that Plaintiff has not persuasively articulated the relevance of the requested information to the claims asserted 
in this case.  Cf., e.g., Easley v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 

 (8th Cir. 1985); Craik v. Minnesota 
State Univ. Bd., 

, 471 (8th Cir. 1984).                       
         1.  Document Request No. 5                                      
    Document Request No. 5 seeks “[a]ny and all diaries, calendars, journals, notes, 

receipts, or any other records, whether handwritten, electronically stored, or in other form, 
kept or taken by Defendant that describe the race of all suspended individuals in the . . . 
Behavioral Health Division between January 2017 and June 2021.”  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel 
at 9.  Subject to a number of objections, Defendant answered “None.” Pl.’s Mot. to Compel 
at 9.                                                                     
    Plaintiff asserts that Defendant has not responded to this request.  Defendant “does 

not maintain lists of employee discipline by division.”  Decl. of Sean Tolefree ¶ 3, ECF 
No. 105.  While Plaintiff may have thought otherwise or not be satisfied with Defendant’s 
response that it does not have documents responsive to her request, that does not mean that 
Defendant has not complied with its obligation to respond.  As stated above, a party cannot 
be compelled to produce what it does not have.  See Edeh, 

; Farmers Ins. 

Exch., 

, at *5.  Moreover, to the extent Plaintiff asserts that Defendant 
should have “provide[d] all information as available” and responded to Document Request 
No. 5 with a list or documentation of all individuals who have been suspended in the 
Behavioral Health Division in lieu of the requested race information, such a request is 
considerably different in kind than the request Plaintiff in fact propounded. 

    Plaintiff’s motion is denied with respect to Document Request No. 5. 
         2.  Document Request No. 6                                      
    Document Request No. 6 seeks “[a]ny and all diaries, calendars, journals, notes, 
receipts, or any other records, whether handwritten, electronically stored, or in other form, 
kept or taken by Defendant that identify and describe the hostile and toxic environment of 
the . . . Behavioral Health Division between January 2017-June 2021.”  Pl.’s Mot. to 

Compel at 10.  Similarly, subject to a number of objections, Defendant again answered 
“None” this request.  Pl.’s Mot. to Compel at 10.  Plaintiff likewise asserts that Defendant 
has not responded to this request.                                        
    The Court will grant Plaintiff’s motion in part with respect to Document Request 
No. 6 consistent with its ruling in regard to Interrogatory No. 8, and direct Defendant to 
supplement its response to Document Request No. 6, to the extent it has not done so 

already, to identify the five articles resulting from its search of article summaries involving 
the Behavioral Health Division and a “hostile” or “toxic” work environment.  See supra 
Section III.A.3.  Plaintiff’s motion is otherwise denied as to Document Request No. 6.  
Again, it is not apparent to this Court that Plaintiff is asserting a hostile-work-environment 
claim, thereby creating considerable doubt as to the importance of the requested discovery 

in resolving the issues at the heart of this litigation, namely, whether Plaintiff experienced 
discrimination and retaliation.  See supra Section III.A.3.               
             IV. COMPILING & COMPLIANCE MOTION                           
    As best as this Court is able to tell, Plaintiff’s motion is informative in nature.  The 
substance of Plaintiff’s motion states in its entirety:                   

         The Plaintiff is compiling and complying with Rule 26(a) of     
         the  Federal  Rules  of  Civil  Procedure.    The  confidential 
         documents  enclosed  are  from  The  Middle  Management         
         Association (MMA) and will be used in the case listed above.    
         The documents were used by MMA to resolve and comply            
         with their union responsibilities and to represent Plaintiff.   
ECF No. 108.  Plaintiff’s motion is accompanied by close to 500 pages of documents.  See 
generally ECF Nos. 109 through 109-2.  Defendant did not respond to the motion. 

    Rule 26(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure identifies three different types of 
disclosures: initial disclosures, expert disclosures, and pretrial disclosures.  Fed. R. Civ. P. 
26(a)(1)-(3).  It is not clear from Plaintiff’s motion which particular type of disclosure(s) 
she intends these documents to serve as.  Moreover, it is not clear from Plaintiff’s motion 
what sort of relief she wants from the Court.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 7(b)(1)(C) (a motion must 
“state the relief sought”).  As best as this Court is able to tell, Plaintiff’s motion is intended 

to inform the Court that she is in the process of compiling documents in order to fulfill her 
disclosure obligations under Rule 26(a).                                  
    As there is no relief sought, the Court will deny Plaintiff’s motion without prejudice.  
In doing so, the Court is not in any way commenting on the documents accompanying the 
motion or the sufficiency of any disclosure made under Rule 26(a).        

                           V. ORDER                                      
    Based on the foregoing, and all of the files, records, and proceedings herein, IT IS 
HEREBY ORDERED that:                                                      
    1.  Plaintiff’s “Motion to Compel,” ECF No. 94, is GRANTED IN PART and 
      DENIED IN PART as set forth herein.                                

    2.  Defendant shall supplement its responses as outlined herein within 14 days 
      from the date of this Order.                                       

    3.  Each party shall be responsible for its own costs and attorney fees.  See Fed. R. 
      Civ. P. 37(a)(5)(C).                                               

    4.  Plaintiff’s  “Proposed  Motion  to  Compel,”  ECF  No.  98,  is  
      ADMINISTRATIVELY TERMINATED.                                       
    5.  Plaintiff’s “Motion of Compiling with Complying Requests,” ECF No. 108, is 
      DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.                                          

    6.  All prior consistent orders remain in full force and effect.     

    7.  Failure to comply with any provision of this Order or any other prior consistent 
      Order shall subject the non-complying party, non-complying counsel and/or the 
      party such counsel represents to any and all appropriate remedies, sanctions and 
      the like, including without limitation: assessment of costs, fines and attorneys’ 
      fees and disbursements; waiver of rights to object; exclusion or limitation of 
      witnesses,  testimony,  exhibits  and  other  evidence;  striking  of  pleadings; 
      complete or partial dismissal with prejudice; entry of whole or partial default 
      judgment; and/or any other relief that this Court may from time to time deem 
      appropriate.                                                       




Dated: April     27  , 2022             s/ Tony N. Leung                                      
                                  Tony N. Leung                          
                                  United States Magistrate Judge         
                                  District of Minnesota                  


                                  Jackson v. Minnesota Department of     
                                  Human Services                         
                                  Case No. 20-cv-749 (KMM/TNL)