Littlejohn v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 6 WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT TACOMA ELIZABETH ANN LITTLEJOHN, Case No. 3:23-cv-06194-TMC Plaintiff, ORDER ON DISCOVERY HEARING v. KAISER FOUNDATION HEALTH PLAN OF WASHINGTON, Defendant.

I. ORDER On September 12, 2025, the Court held a discovery hearing to address Defendant’s responses to Plaintiff’s interrogatories and requests for production. For the reasons stated on the record, the expedited discovery motions filed at Dkt. 62 and 63 are GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. The Court ORDERS as follows: 1. Interrogatories a. Interrogatories 1 and 2: Defendant must provide a supplemental answer within days of this order. The answer must identify all responsive individuals and provide contact information unless the responsive individual is a managing agent of Defendant, in which case Defendant may direct that they be 1 contacted through counsel. See Wright v. Group Health Hosp., 103 Wn.2d 2 192, 201–03, 691 P.2d 564 (1984).

3 b. Interrogatory 3: Defendant must provide the information previously given to 4 Plaintiff’s counsel in a supplemental answer within 7 days of this Order.

5 c. Interrogatory 4: The parties are instructed to meet and confer within 7 days of 6 this Order to narrow the scope of this interrogatory to encompass only 7 employees with positions similar to Plaintiff’s.

8 d. Interrogatories 7 and 8: Defendant must provide a supplemental answer within 9 7 days of this Order that identifies by bates number the responsive documents 10 that answer these interrogatories. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(d).

11 e. Interrogatories 9, 11, 12: Defendant must provide its supplemental answers 12 within 7 days of this Order.

13 f. Interrogatory 13: Defendant must provide a supplemental answer within 7 14 days of this Order clarifying whether it tracked the COVID transmission data 15 sought.

16 g. Interrogatories 14 and 16: The parties are directed to meet and confer within 7 17 days of this Order to determine an efficient way for Defendant to provide 18 responsive information about the types of accommodations granted to 19 employees at the Redmond and Bellevue facilities and what protective 20 measures were required (including both patient-facing and non-patient-facing 21 employees).

22 2. Requests for Production 23 a. The parties are directed to meet and confer within 7 days of this Order about 24 the outstanding requests for production.

1 b. Within 7 days of that conference, Defendant must provide supplemental 2 responses to each request for production that clarify whether any responsive 3 documents are being withheld based on an objection (in addition to 4 supplemental responses based on the results of the efforts to meet and confer).

5 See Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(C). If any documents are withheld based on a 6 privilege objection, they must be identified on a privilege log. Defendants 7 must also disclose their ESI search protocol as required by the undersigned 8 judge’s chambers procedures.

9 c. If any disputes cannot be resolved through the parties’ conference, the parties 10 shall contact the courtroom deputy to schedule an additional discovery hearing 11 and provide an updated joint statement that identifies the issues remaining in 12 dispute.

13 d. While the Court expects the parties to work in good faith to agree on a scope 14 of production that is not unduly burdensome, or alternative methods of 15 discovery (such as depositions) that may be more efficient, the topics of RFP 16 Nos. 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, and 40 are plainly relevant to the 17 claims and defenses at issue in this lawsuit.

18 3. Redactions 19 a. Defendant shall produce unredacted copies of the documents provided at 20 Dkt. 63-2 within 7 days of this Order. Any similar redactions to the names of 21 employees involved in processing requests for religious accommodations shall 22 also be removed.

23 4. Case Schedule l a. The parties are directed to meet and confer within 7 days of this Order as to 2 whether discovery can be completed within the existing case schedule.

3 5. Settlement Conference 4 a. If both parties believe this case would benefit from a settlement conference 5 with a Magistrate Judge, the Court is willing to make such a referral. A 6 request for a settlement conference should be made by email to the courtroom 7 deputy.

8 It is so ORDERED.

9 Dated this 12th day of September, 2025.

Sg 11 Tiffany. Cartwright United States District Judge