Civil Practice – Discovery – Protective order

Where a plaintiff that brought suit to enforce a promissory note has moved for a protective order, that request should be denied because the plaintiff has not made any showing of a “specific prejudice or harm” from responding to the defendant’s discovery requests.

“Before the Court is Plaintiff Diamond Funding Investors, LLC’s (‘DFI’) motion for a protective order. In this case, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant Michael Marano signed a Promissory Note in the original amount of $1,050,000.00 but ceased payments in March of 2023.

“Plaintiff first objects to Interrogatory No. 5, which asks ‘for payments made by the Defendant to the Plaintiff under the Promissory Note.’ Interrogatory No. 5 states, ‘Identify the bank account(s) where any payments made to DFI by Mr. Marano were deposited, and state whether the funds remain there today, and, if not, when, why and for what purpose the funds were moved.’

“To the extent that Defendant is requesting records of payments made by Defendant under the Promissory Note, it is not clear to the Court how responding to this request would harm Plaintiff. To obtain a protective order under Rule 26(c), Plaintiff must show good cause. Plaintiff has not demonstrated good cause. It has not described any kind of specific harm, besides a vague statement that Defendant is able to access this information without any effort from Plaintiff. Plaintiff has not cited any caselaw demonstrating that this reason is sufficient to show good cause.

“Plaintiff also objects to Interrogatories 6, 7, and 14, and Requests for Production 16 to 24, stating that all of these discovery requests ‘ha[ve] nothing to do with the debt memorialized in the Promissory Note which, in fact, the Defendant began paying on for a period of approximately three (3) years.’

“Defendant responds that this information is essential for his defense that the ‘Note is not enforceable based on defenses of misrepresentation, material omission, and unclean hands.’ Further, Defendant states that Plaintiff’s ‘conclusory statements’ ‘fail[] to explain how it has met the high standard for entry of a protective order.’

“The Court agrees. Plaintiff’s argument that it is entitled to a protective order lacks any showing of a ‘specific prejudice or harm.’ ... Instead, Plaintiff has only presented conclusory statements that the requested discovery has ‘nothing to do with the debt memorialized in the Promissory Note.’ Furthermore, Plaintiff did not file a reply in response to Defendant’s argument that the requested discovery contains relevant information. Plaintiff has not provided sufficient information to the Court for a protective order to be justified.”

Diamond Funding Investors, LLC v. Marano; MiLW 02-107957, 9 pages; U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan; Levy, J.

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