Akpan v. Rhode Island Hospital et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
VERONICA S. AKPAN 	:
:
v. 	: 	C.A. No. 22-00267-JJM
:
RHODE ISLAND HOSPITAL, alias, 	:
and LIFESPAN CORPORATION, alias 	:
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
Pending before me for determination (28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A)) is Plaintiff’s Motion to
Strike Objections and Compel Discovery Responses. 	(ECF No. 16). 	Defendants filed an
Objection. (ECF No. 18). Plaintiff filed a Reply. (ECF No. 20). Based on a thorough review of
the parties’ lengthy submissions, Plaintiff’s Motion is GRANTED in part and otherwise DENIED
as provided herein.
Plaintiff worked for Rhode Island Hospital as a nurse for nearly twenty-five years. 	She
was hired in 1995. She suffered a work-related injury in 2013 and had a break in service related
to a lengthy medical leave. She was rehired in 2015 and ultimately terminated from employment
in 2020 for an alleged HIPAA violation. She alleges race and age discrimination and retaliation.
The parties have widely divergent views of the appropriate breadth of discovery which has resulted
in the instant dispute.
Defendants argue that discovery should be narrow because this case “revolves” around a
single incident in 2020 that led to Plaintiff’s termination, and that the “focus” of Plaintiff’s
Complaint is on the alleged bad acts of Erin Truman, a Clinical Manager who became Plaintiff’s
direct supervisor when she was rehired in 2015. In support of their disproportionality argument,
Defendants also point out that the Commission for Human Rights administratively found no
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probable cause of discrimination when it preliminarily reviewed this matter, that the labor union
representing Plaintiff chose not to file a grievance on her behalf challenging the grounds for her
termination, and that, in any event, Plaintiff has only limited back pay damages since she found a
new, higher-paying nursing position in early 2022. Finally, Defendants accurately point out that
several of Plaintiff’s allegations of organization-wide conduct are conclusory, speculative, and
solely based “on information and belief.”
Plaintiff counters that this is plainly not a single incident discrimination case and thus she
is entitled to broad organization-wide and “pattern and practice” discovery. Plaintiff asserts that,
“as the only Black, African American woman of Nigerian descent in her unit (and one of
Defendants’ oldest employees [age sixty-one when terminated]), she was subjected to constant
discrimination and a hostile workplace in favor of younger and/or White women in the workplace
beginning in or about early 2015.” (ECF No. 20 at p. 3). The Complaint alleges that Ms. Truman
became Plaintiff’s direct supervisor in April 2015 and contains specific factual allegations of Ms.
Truman’s purported discriminatory and retaliatory acts. However, as previously noted, when the
Complaint alleges that there was a “concerted effort” to get rid of Plaintiff and that Ms. Truman
took certain acts in concert with or at the behest of others, it is generally nonspecific and apparently
based on speculation and surmise. Plaintiff presumably seeks to fill in those blanks, if possible,
through the disputed discovery requests.
In ruling on this discovery dispute, I am guided primarily by the relevance and
proportionality parameters laid out in Rule 26(b) as applied to the claims and defenses presented
in the pleadings to date.1 	In addition, I am mindful of the dictates of Rule 1 and the Court’s
1 The parties debate the precedential value of a March 31, 2023 Text Order denying Defendants’ prior Motion for
Protective Order. I find that it has little, if any, relevance to the instant dispute. It involved a subpoena served on a
third party and implicated the stringent Rule 26(c) good cause standard. In addition, there was no objection raised
by the third party and thus a significant question about whether Defendants even had standing to pursue the Motion.
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important role in securing the “just, speedy, and inexpensive” administration of cases. With these
principles in mind, my rulings on the particular discovery requests in issue is set forth below. Also,
my ruling is grounded, in part, by the practical observation that, if there was some concerted or
systemic effort to discriminate or retaliate against Plaintiff as she alleges, such conduct would
presumably have to have been implemented by the supervisors and HR representative named in
the Complaint and/or already disclosed in discovery who dealt directly with Plaintiff. 	Thus,
discovery directed at those individuals should uncover at least some evidence indicative of whether
they took actions with the involvement and direction of others if such was the case. If any such
substantiating evidence is uncovered, Plaintiff may seek leave to conduct broader follow-up
discovery.
Further, the facts and claims plead in this Complaint, although serious, present no more
than a garden-variety discrimination and retaliation claim, and do not directly support the system-
wide, pattern and practice claims suggested by Plaintiff. 	If Plaintiff’s wide-ranging discovery
requests were endorsed in this case, then every garden-variety discrimination case would be
entitled to such broad discovery which is simply not contemplated by the rules. In addition, such
discovery in this case involving a large hospital with thousands of employees and a healthcare
network made up of several hospitals, and numerous specialty clinics and medical practices would
clearly implicate proportionality concerns.
A. 	Interrogatories
2. 	Defendants shall supplement their response by describing the centralization, if any,
of the human resources function among Lifespan partners including Rhode Island Hospital.
3. 	DENIED subject to Defendants’ ongoing obligation to supplement if any additional
individuals are identified that are responsive. See Rule 26(e)(1), Fed. R. Civ. P.
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5. 	DENIED.
10. 	DENIED.
11. 	Defendants shall supplement their response and provide the requested information
for Ms. Bautista, Mr. Smith, Ms. Truman, and Ms. Farquhar.
17. 	Defendants shall supplement their response and provide the requested information
for employment-related reports or complaints concerning Ms. Bautista, Mr. Smith, Ms. Truman,
and Ms. Farquhar, and limited to the period 2015 to present.
18. 	DENIED.
20. 	DENIED.
B. 	Document Requests
33. 	Defendants shall produce Ms. Truman’s disciplinary and performance review
records.
34. 	If not included in the workplace profile already produced by Defendants, they shall
produce documents showing the age and race of the nurses hired to work in Plaintiff’s former unit
from the date of her termination to present.
35-36. Defendants shall produce investigatory and disciplinary records for all Rhode
Island Hospital employees disciplined or terminated from 2015 to present for violating HIPAA
provisions or policies, or patient/healthcare information privacy policies.
38-39. Defendants shall produce the requested records for the nurses employed in
Plaintiff’s former unit from 2015 to present.
40, 45-46. 	Defendants shall produce the requested documents for employment-related
reports or complaints concerning Ms. Bautista, Mr. Smith, Ms. Truman, and Ms. Farquhar, and
limited to the period 2015 to present.
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11, 22, 26, 28-29, and 32. Plaintiff’s claim of a misleading “document dump” in response
to these requests is unsupported. 	Given the specific nature of these requests, the particular
responsive documents should be easily identifiable. If Plaintiff’s counsel identifies any specific
document that he is unable to categorize, he shall confer in good faith with Defendants’ counsel to
ascertain the particular request to which the document is responsive and Defendants’ counsel shall
cooperate and respond to such a request in good faith.
SO ORDERED
/s/ 	Lincoln D. Almond
LINCOLN D. ALMOND
United States Magistrate Judge
August 11, 2023
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