SHEETS
v.
PRESSELLER
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
The Court granted the non-party's motion to quash the discovery subpoena because it imposed an undue burden and was not properly tailored to the case's issues.
Plaintiff served a discovery subpoena on non-party City of North Port seeking "any and all documents, emails, audio, and video recordings containing t…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Unduly Burdensome Discovery cases and more on FLexlaw
Non-party City of North Port moves to quash a discovery subpoena served by Plaintiff Andrew Sheets. (Doc. 87.) [fn 1] Sheets has not responded, and the time to do so expired. The Court thus treats the motion as unopposed. See Local Rule 3.01.
“Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case." Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). The typical mechanism to obtain discovery from a nonparty is a subpoena. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 45. Under Rule 45, a party may subpoena documents in a nonparty's possession and require a nonparty to testify at a deposition. Id. at 45(a)(1).
North Port argues that responding to the subpoena will impose an "undue burden." (Doc. 87 at 3.) The Court agrees. Rule 45(d)(1) requires parties to "take reasonable steps to avoid imposing an undue burden or expense on a person subject to the subpoena." Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(d)(1). That didn't happen here. Sheets demands “any and all documents, emails, audio, and video recordings containing the name Andrew Sheets from 2012 to present." (Doc. 87 at 5.) Literally construed, this request calls for every record related to Sheets no matter how irrelevant to his underlying claims— spanning over a decade. Despite Rule 45's clear command, Sheets “made no effort to tailor the [s]ubpoena to the issues in the case.” Cadle v. GEICO Gen. Ins. Co., No. 6:13-CV-1591-ORL-31-GJK, 2014 WL 12621189, at *3 (M.D. Fla. May 28, 2014). Accordingly, the Court GRANTS North Port's motion and QUASHES the subpoena. [fn 2]
ORDERED in Fort Myers, Florida on January 21, 2025.
Kyle C. Dudek United States Magistrate Judge
[fn 1]: Unless otherwise indicated, all internal quotation marks, citations, case history, and alterations have been omitted in this and later citations.
[fn 2]: Nort Port separately argues that Sheets did not properly serve the subpoena. (Doc. 87 at 2.) Given the subpoena is otherwise unenforceable, the Court declines to address this unsettled procedural issue on incomplete briefing. See, e.g., Castleberry v. Camden Cnty., 331 F.R.D. 559, 561 (S.D. Ga. 2019) (“The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has not fully resolved the need for personal service of a Rule 45 subpoenas, and district courts have reached different conclusions.").