Ivy v. Bolin
- Dulce Foster
- 0:24-cv-03425
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 17
In Ivy v. Bolin, Magistrate Judge Foster partially granted and partially denied prisoner Rashad Ramon Ivy's motion to compel discovery from Minnesota Department of Corrections employees, ordering defendants to produce a redacted version of Ivy's presentence investigation report, identify which of his convictions involved harm to a minor, and take other limited steps, while denying most of his other discovery demands.
Incarcerated individuals bringing civil rights lawsuits under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, particularly those seeking discovery from state correctional departments; also relevant to correctional employees sued in civil rights cases regarding visitation restrictions, and parties in federal court who may mistakenly rely on state law to resist discovery obligations.
What happened
In Ivy v. Bolin (Case No. 24-cv-3425), Rashad Ramon Ivy, a Minnesota prisoner, is suing several Department of Corrections employees under the federal civil rights statute 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming they wrongfully denied him contact and video visits with his children for over eight years. His convictions in 2016 included sex trafficking and related offenses. The lawsuit focuses on the actions of the Abuse Review Committee, which is responsible for setting visitation restrictions. After a period of back-and-forth over discovery requests — including document requests, written questions (interrogatories), and requests for admission — Ivy filed a motion asking the court to force defendants to provide fuller responses.
The court found that defendants' July 31, 2025 letter and a supplemental document production had already resolved several of Ivy's complaints. However, a number of disputes remained. On the key question of Ivy's presentence investigation report — a document prepared after conviction but before sentencing summarizing the defendant's background and offense — the court ruled that defendants must produce it, rejecting their reliance on a Minnesota state confidentiality law as having no binding force in federal court. The court did allow defendants to redact victim names, specific birthdates, addresses, phone numbers, and co-defendant information, but required that victims' birth years remain visible and that names be replaced with unique identifiers so the ages of any victims could still be assessed.
Magistrate Judge Foster granted the motion in part and denied it in part. Beyond the presentence report, defendants were ordered to: provide a privilege log for any documents withheld under attorney-client privilege in response to a document request; add defendant Kate Rudesill's name, title, and business address to their interrogatory response; clarify which of Ivy's convictions, if any, involved harm to a minor; and conduct a thorough review of documents listed in a request for admission to determine whether they can confirm those documents' authenticity. The court denied Ivy's requests for documents comparing his treatment to other inmates (finding no equal-treatment claim in the lawsuit), declined to compel responses to several vague interrogatories, and denied other requests where defendants had already fully responded or where Ivy's complaints went to the truthfulness rather than completeness of defendants' answers.
The detailed version
Case: Ivy v. Bolin, No. 24-cv-3425 (LMP/DJF), United States District Court, District of Minnesota. Ruling issued September 30, 2025, by United States Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster.
Background
Plaintiff Rashad Ramon Ivy is an incarcerated person, previously held at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater and transferred to the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Rush City as of September 8, 2025. He brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 — the federal civil rights statute allowing individuals to sue state officials for constitutional violations — against multiple Department of Corrections (DOC) employees in both their individual and official capacities. Ivy alleges that defendants, including members of the Abuse Review Committee (ARC), wrongfully denied him contact and video visits with his children for over eight years. He was convicted in 2016 on ten counts including sex trafficking, domestic assault by strangulation, solicitation to practice prostitution, and criminal sexual conduct. See Minnesota v. Ivy, 902 N.W.2d 652 (Minn. Ct. App. 2017).
Discovery Background
Ivy served discovery requests on defendants around April 4, 2025. Defendants responded on May 5, 2025, producing 245 pages of documents. The parties met and conferred over several months. Before the August 1, 2025 non-dispositive motion deadline, Ivy mailed a motion to compel on July 30, 2025. The next day, defendants sent a letter withdrawing some objections and producing an additional 94 pages. The court found this resolved several disputes, including those regarding Requests for Production 2, 5, 8, and 11, and Interrogatories 9 and 10.
Remaining Disputes and Rulings
1. Presentence Investigation Report (PSI): Defendants objected to producing Ivy's PSI under Minnesota state law (Minn. Stat. §§ 609.115, subd. 4 and 6). The court rejected this objection, holding that state disclosure restrictions have no binding effect in federal court and that under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), relevant, nonprivileged material must be produced. However, the court permitted redaction of victim names (to be replaced with unique identifiers), specific dates of birth, addresses, and phone numbers of victims, as well as co-defendant identities and plea statuses, due to legitimate safety and security concerns. Victims' birth years must remain visible because victim ages are directly relevant to the claims.
2. Request for Production 1 (statements regarding the litigation): Defendants raised a boilerplate privilege objection but stated they did so only as a precaution. The court ordered defendants to produce a privilege log under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5)(A) identifying any documents withheld on privilege or work-product grounds, excluding communications with litigation counsel. If nothing was withheld, defendants must confirm that in writing.
3. Requests for Production 6, 9, and 10 (comparative treatment of other inmates): Denied. The amended complaint asserts no equal-protection or unequal-treatment claim; the requests seek irrelevant information, invade other inmates' privacy, and would disproportionately expand the scope of litigation.
4. Request for Production 7 (criminal complaint documents): Denied. Defendants already produced all versions of Ivy's criminal complaint as requested. Ivy's objection that some documents contained erroneous information goes to the content of the records, not to whether defendants properly responded.
5. Interrogatory 1 (personal and relationship information about ARC members): The court ordered defendants to supplement their response to include defendant Kate Rudesill's (formerly Kate Hoffer) full name, title, and business address, as defendants offered no justification for omitting her. The court denied Ivy's request for relationship and marital status information (marginally relevant, significant security risk) and denied his request for ARC member identities from 2016–2019 and 2022–2023 (Ivy failed to show relevance; defendants stated the ARC reviewed his restrictions only in 2020, 2021, and 2024).
6. Interrogatories 2 and 15: Denied. Interrogatory 2 (seeking identities of individuals deciding visitation appeals) was too vague and ambiguous. Interrogatory 15 (regarding changes after receipt of an Amended Warrant of Commitment) was also too vague; to the extent Ivy sought an admission, he should have used a request for admission.
7. Interrogatory 11 (convictions involving a minor): Granted. The court found the interrogatory not unduly vague, found the information relevant (defendants restricted visitation based on alleged criminal conduct involving a minor), and found defendants' existing response — directing Ivy to their response to Interrogatory 4 and prior document production — insufficient because it did not clearly identify which convictions, if any, involved harm to a minor. Defendants were ordered to supplement their response accordingly.
8. Interrogatory 12 and Request for Admission 6: Denied. Ivy's challenge was to the truthfulness of defendants' responses, not their completeness. The court held that disputes about veracity are questions of fact for trial, not grounds for a compulsion order.
9. Interrogatory 14 (sentence expiration date): Denied. The additional information Ivy sought was conditioned on defendants giving a 'yes' answer to Interrogatory 13, which defendants objected to and did not answer affirmatively. The court agreed that sentence calculation has little relevance to the visitation restriction claims.
10. Request for Admission 1 (document authenticity): Granted in part. Defendants are not required to authenticate documents they did not create, send, or receive. But for documents they did handle, defendants must conduct a thorough inquiry and admit to authenticity where warranted, consistent with Fed. R. Civ. P. 36 and the principle that a party cannot refuse to respond without first making a reasonable inquiry. See Lemond Cycling, Inc. v. Trek Bicycle Corp., No. 08-cv-1010, 2009 WL 10678176 (D. Minn. Nov. 30, 2009).
11. Request for Admission 2 (interpretation of an Offender Kite Form): Denied. The court found the request overly vague and defendants' answer that the document 'speaks for itself' was an adequate response.
Disposition
Motion GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. All other requests denied.
Reviewer note from the AI+
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