motion to compel the documents at issue. The Court was required to hold a hearing to
determine the discoverability of the documents. The City’s actions, or inaction, shows
that it was disregarding the plaintiff's discovery request, or misleading the plaintiff about
the availability of responsive documents. Under these circumstances, sanctions are
appropriate to compensate the plaintiff for the costs related to discovering the
documents at issue.
Additionally, the Court finds that the City has not demonstrated substantial
justification for the conduct at issue or other circumstances that would make the
imposition of sanctions unfair. Indeed, the Court notes and admonishes the City for its
objection to the plaintiffs request for sanctions. The Court finds the City's objection to
go against the underlying facts, which the City admitted were uncontested at the
hearing. The Court also finds the tone of City’s objection concerning. (See, e.g., City's
Obj. 7 A (‘The plaintiff's motion is rife with unsupported and inflammatory allegations,
conjecture, and hyperbole unworthy of a motion before this Court.”); id. q U (‘The
plaintiffs behavior in filing this frivolous motion arguably meets the definition of obdurate
and obstinate”).) Moreover, the Court notes that at the hearing the City represented
that it was unclear when the City discovered the emails were unobtainable, (hr'g at
10:22), however, in its objection the City stated that “[elarly on in the process it was
discovered that the emails from the month of September 2019 were unobtainable due to
file corruption[,J" (City's Obj. ] T). The Court is concerned about the City’s candor and
if the City attempted in good faith to resolve the discovery dispute over the documents
at issue. See N.H. Super, Ct. R. 21(f) (requiring the parties to make “a good faith effort
to resolve informally a dispute concerning discovery.”) The stark contrast between the
Ortolano v. The City of Nashua / 2020-CV-00133
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