Bernard v. Individual Members of Ind. Med. Licensing Bd.

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CAITLIN BERNARD, Plaintiff, v. INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF THE INDIANA MEDICAL LICENSING BOARD, et al. Defendants.

THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL, Interested Party.

No. 1:19-cv-01660-SEB-DML

United States District Court, S.D. Indiana, Indianapolis Division

December 3, 2021

ORDER OVERRULING DEFENDANTS' OBJECTION TO MAGISTRATE JUDGE'S ORDER ON MOTION TO QUASH AND CROSS-MOTION TO COMPEL

SARAH EVANS BARKER, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT JUDGE

This matter comes before the Court on Defendants' Objection to Magistrate Judge's Order on Motion to Quash Subpoena and Cross-Motion to Compel [Dkt. 137]. Defendants object to the Order insofar as the Magistrate Judge granted the motion to quash Defendants' 30(b)(6) deposition subpoena to non-party Thomas Jefferson University Hospital (the "Hospital") as to topics 1-6 and 8 identified in Defendants' subpoena. For the reasons detailed below Defendants' Objection is OVERRULED.

Background

This litigation concerns the constitutionality of House Enrolled Act 1211 ("HEA 1211"), an Indiana abortion law enacted and made effective July 1, 2019 (the "Act") which criminalizes (except where necessary to save a mother's life or prevent "serious health risk to her") a doctor's performance of what the Act refers to as a "dismemberment abortion," which, although not a recognized medical term, is intended to and does encompass a medical procedure known as "dilation and evacuation" or "D&E," a procedure commonly and predominately used by doctors to end or abort a pregnancy in the second trimester. The Act prohibits D&E when it is performed, as is customary, before steps are taken to first cause fetal demise. In 2019, we preliminarily enjoined the Act's enforcement on grounds that the fetal demise requirement imposes a substantial undue burden on the right of a woman in Indiana to seek a previability abortion in the second trimester. See Bernard v. Individual Members of Indiana Medical Licensing Bd., 392 F.Supp.3d 935, 964 (S.D. Ind. June 28, 2019). The State of Indiana did not appeal that decision and HEA 1211 currently remains preliminarily enjoined.

In late December 2020, apparently after learning of a 2012 peer-reviewed study authored by doctors affiliated with the Hospital, titled "Fetal Intracardiac Chloride Injection to Expedite Second-Trimester Dilation and Evacuation," the State served a documents subpoena on the Hospital, seeking data and patient medical records underlying the Study; additional patient medical records where fetal demise was first induced and an abortion performed when the gestational age was less than 18 weeks and any policies/procedures documents relating to performing abortions where fetal demise is first induced.^[1] The Hospital after requesting additional time to respond to the State's discovery requests and inquiring of the State regarding the relevance of the information sought, ultimately responded that it had conducted a reasonable investigation for responsive information and, other than a single document deemed responsive to the request for policies/procedures, it had none. As to the lone document identified as responsive, the Hospital refused to produce it, principally on the ground that the document is not relevant to this litigation.

Dissatisfied with the Hospital's response, the State served a deposition subpoena seeking Rule 30(b)(6) testimony related to thirteen topics, including, as relevant here, the "process" the Hospital used to search for potentially relevant documents and to determine it had identified responsive documents [Topics 1-4]; the volume of documents located in attempting to identify responsive documents [Topic 5]; whether it searched "all hospital, departmental, individual healthcare provider documents, and individual patient medical records" [Topic 6]; and its system for maintaining records about abortions performed at 18 weeks or less gestation [Topic 8]. The Hospital filed a motion to quash the deposition subpoena and the State filed a cross-motion to enforce the subpoena and to compel the Hospital to produce the policies/procedures document. The Hospital is not a named party in this litigation.

The Magistrate Judge addressed these discovery motions in a July 12, 2021 Order on Motion to Quash Subpoena and Cross-Motion to Compel (the "Order"), granting the Hospital's request to quash the deposition subpoena and granting the State's motion to compel the Hospital to produce the single responsive document it had identified but refused to turn over to the State. Now before us is the State's objection to the Order to the extent that it granted the Hospital's motion to quash the deposition subpoena as to Topics 1-6 and 8 only.

Standard of Review

Rule 72(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides, in pertinent part, that the district court "must consider timely objections and modify or set aside any part of the [magistrate judge's] order that is clearly erroneous or contrary to law." A finding is clearly erroneous when the reviewing court is "left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed." Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. 493, 513 (2011). This is an "extremely deferential standard." Elder Care Providers of Indiana, Inc. v. Home Instead, Inc., No. 1:14-CV-01984-SEB-MJD, 2017 WL 4250107, at *2 (S.D. Ind. Sept. 26, 2017); see also, Pinkston v. Madry, 440 F.3d 879, 888 (7th Cir. 2006).

Discussion

Defendants argue that the Magistrate Judge committed clear error in denying the State the opportunity to depose the Hospital regarding its search for records responsive to the State's document subpoena because: (1) the State established a sufficient basis to inquire into...