Isaacs v. Pacer Serv. Ctr. (Summary)

DOCUMENT PRODUCTION

Isaacs v. Pacer Serv. Ctr., Nos. SA-14-MC-12-XR & 12-CV-40-JL (D.N.H.) (W.D. Tex. Apr. 22, 2014)

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas granted a physician’s motion to enforce a subpoena to compel a court records producer to produce certain documents.  The physician is party to a pending litigation against the hospital where he completed his residency and sought certain court records in order to prove that he was abused by the faculty at that hospital which he claimed had taken an “obsessive interest” in a lawsuit that he had filed against his medical school alleging disability discrimination.  The physician obtained a third-party subpoena requesting the court records producer to produce records showing that the hospital had accessed court records pertinent to his lawsuit against his medical school; however, after the deadline for production had passed, the producer e-mailed the physician letting him know that his request had been denied because it failed to satisfy the federal judiciary’s disclosure regulations and the producer’s privacy and security policy.

The court found that the physician sufficiently complied with the regulations and ordered the records producer to provide the requested information.  Despite his initial subpoena request and accompanying letter which failed to demonstrate relevance and an inability to obtain the information from other sources, the physician had attempted to communicate with the producer after his initial subpoena request was denied.  The court reasoned that the physician demonstrated the relevance of the information and the need for it.  Furthermore, the records producer did not contend that responding to the subpoena would be burdensome.