Kasso v. Police Officers’ Federation of Minneapolis

CASE: Leila Kasso v. Police Officers' Federation of Minneapolis, No. 23-cv-2777 (KMM/DLM), U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. RULING BY: Magistrate Judge Douglas L. Micko. DATE: October 21, 2025.

BACKGROUND: Plaintiff Leila Kasso, proceeding pro se (without an attorney), is a former Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officer. She originally filed suit in September 2023 against the Police Officers' Federation of Minneapolis (the Federation, her union), the City of Minneapolis, and the MPD, alleging Title VII race and sex discrimination, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) violations, age discrimination, defamation, retaliation, and other claims. On January 5, 2025, Ms. Kasso filed a Second Amended Complaint naming only the Federation. The presiding district judge (Judge Menendez) later dismissed all claims except one: a Title VII claim that the Federation undermined and then failed to assist Ms. Kasso's employment in the way it would have assisted a white male officer facing similar or worse circumstances. The relevant time period for this claim was identified as approximately 2018 to 2020. Ms. Kasso also maintains a separate parallel lawsuit against the City arising from the same facts (Case No. 23-cv-2782).

THE SUBPOENA: During discovery, Ms. Kasso served a Rule 45 subpoena duces tecum (a court-issued command requiring a non-party to produce documents, electronically stored information, or tangible things) on the City of Minneapolis on July 22, 2025. The City timely objected within the 14-day window required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45(d)(2)(B). Meet-and-confer efforts required by Local Rule 7.1 were unsuccessful. Ms. Kasso then filed her Second Motion to Compel, seeking an order forcing the City to comply with all 23 requests, plus fees, costs, and an adverse inference instruction.

LEGAL STANDARDS APPLIED: The court applied Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26 and 45. Rule 26(b)(1) limits discovery to non-privileged information relevant to actual claims or defenses and proportional to the case's needs, considering factors such as importance of the issues, amount in controversy, parties' relative access to information, resources, importance of the discovery, and burden versus benefit. The party seeking discovery bears the initial burden of showing relevance; if shown, the resisting party must show lack of relevance or undue burden. Rule 45 allows subpoenas to non-parties but requires the issuing party to take reasonable steps to avoid undue burden or expense on the non-party, and that concern carries 'special weight' in the analysis. Courts must quash or modify subpoenas that impose undue burden or seek irrelevant information. Rule 26(b)(2)(C) further requires limiting discovery that is unreasonably cumulative or duplicative or obtainable from a more convenient or less burdensome source.

RULINGS ON EACH REQUEST:

— Requests 1–7, 13–15 (DENIED): These sought all emails, text messages, call logs, and phone numbers for nine named City employees, some covering periods before 2018. The court found: (a) requests for phone numbers and contact details fall outside Rule 45's scope (which covers documents, ESI, and tangible things, not interrogatory-type information); (b) most requests relied on relevance to dismissed claims, which are no longer operative; (c) even to the extent marginally relevant to the Title VII claim, the requests were disproportionate—seeking a 'sea of information' including over one million emails—and unduly burdensome on a non-party. Request No. 15 (contact details for a former lieutenant) was denied entirely as beyond Rule 45's scope.

— Requests 8 and 20 (DENIED): Request 8 sought Visinet case records about Ms. Kasso's May 20, 2018 bicycle accident, justified as relevant to 'the City's claim of defense.' Request 20 sought Ms. Kasso's Medica Insurance coverage information. The court noted the City is a non-party, not a defendant, so it has no 'defense' to support relevance; what the City knew may be relevant to the parallel City lawsuit but not to the Federation lawsuit.

— Request 9 (DENIED): Sought court and arbitration case numbers for seven named individuals to show they benefited from Federation representation. The court found this was an interrogatory improperly directed at a non-party under Rule 45; court records are publicly available; and arbitration records are more appropriately sought from the Federation, the actual party.

— Request 10 (GRANTED, limited to 2018–2020): Sought disciplinary files for eight named MPD officers (Bob Kroll, David Garman, John Laluzerne, Thomas Schmid, Pete Brazaeu, Heather Jorges, Sherry Appledorn, and Sherral Schmidt) in native format with metadata, transcripts, and outcomes, to show the Federation selectively assists white male officers in workplace disputes. The court found Ms. Kasso met the threshold relevance showing under Rules 26 and 45; she need not prove these officers were 'similarly situated' at the motion-to-compel stage; privacy interests did not outweigh her need; and the City is best positioned to provide these files without undue burden. Production ordered within 21 days.

— Request 11 (DENIED): Sought dollar amounts the City paid out in civil or criminal cases involving nine named officers. The court found this not relevant to the Federation claim and not proportional; moreover, civil settlement records are publicly available on the City's own website.

— Request 12 (DENIED): Sought employment reviews for Bob Kroll and David Garman from January 1, 2005 to January 1, 2009. Denied as falling entirely outside the relevant temporal scope of 2018–2020.

— Requests 16, 17, 22 (DENIED): Request 16 sought a nine-part production of ESI and documents about another officer's (Molly Fischer's) concussion and reinstatement process—found to be essentially a multi-part interrogatory directed at a non-party, seeking sensitive personal data with no sufficient limitation. Request 17 sought workforce scheduling database records to identify an unidentified white male officer with a head injury who allegedly received Federation assistance—found unduly burdensome on a non-party given the vast confidential data involved. Request 22 sought records related to MPD's Early Intervention System (a non-disciplinary officer support program) and Ms. Kasso's participation, with no showing of relevance beyond stating the records would be 'used at trial.' All three denied as seeking minimal relevant information buried in disproportionate volumes of sensitive, personal data.

— Request 18 (DENIED): Sought Ms. Kasso's own personnel and disciplinary files. The City stated it had already produced these in the parallel lawsuit. The court found compelling re-production would be duplicative under Rule 26(b)(2)(C), and Ms. Kasso offered no explanation of relevance to her Federation claim.

— Request 19 (DENIED): Sought contact information for body camera vendor Axon and body camera footage from May 20, 2018. Contact information held to be beyond Rule 45's scope (interrogatory-type) and publicly available; body camera footage denied as duplicative because the City represented Ms. Kasso already possesses it.

— Request 21 (DENIED): Sought contact details for the City's email and cell phone service providers, plus all emails and texts 'regarding the Plaintiff' from any Federation representative to any individual from January 1, 2016 to May 20, 2020. Contact details held to be interrogatory requests beyond Rule 45's scope. Although emails and texts about Ms. Kasso from Federation representatives might be relevant, Ms. Kasso made no relevance showing, failing to meet her threshold burden; request also found overbroad and unduly burdensome (over 1,000 emails plus four years of text data).

— Request 23 (DENIED): Sought all ESI, documents, notes, reports, medical opinions, and communications with 'Risk Management, Occupational Health Consultants, and Health and Wellness.' Found too ambiguous to be understood and unsupported by any relevance showing.

OTHER RELIEF DENIED: — Waiver argument: Rejected; the City objected within 14 days as required. — Attorneys' fees and costs under Rule 37(a)(5)(C): Denied. Although the motion was partially granted, the court found Ms. Kasso's good-faith pre-filing efforts were 'at best conflicting,' the City's objections were 'substantially justified,' and the motion succeeded on only 1 of 23 requests. The court warned Ms. Kasso that Rule 37 and Rule 45(d)(1) could be used against her if she continues imposing undue burdens. — Adverse inference instruction: Denied. Such an instruction (telling a jury that missing evidence would have been unfavorable) requires proof that a party intentionally destroyed evidence to deprive the other side of it under Rule 37(e)(2). No such evidence existed, and the City is not even a party to this case.

AI-GENERATED CITATIONS WARNING: The court found that Ms. Kasso repeatedly cited nonexistent or misrepresented cases in her filings, consistent with irresponsible use of AI. Specific examples: (1) Klingenstein v. Pettit, 297 F. Supp. 2d 435 (S.D.N.Y. 2003)—does not exist; (2) In re Application of Time, Inc., 1999 WL 804090 (S.D.N.Y.)—is actually from the Eastern District of Louisiana and the quoted language does not appear in it; (3) Miller v. Pruneda, 236 F.R.D. 277 (N.D. Tex. 2006)—is actually a 2004 case from the Northern District of West Virginia and does not support the cited proposition. The court also identified real cases cited for propositions they do not support. The court held this conduct violates Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11, which imposes a personal, non-delegable duty to verify the truth and legal reasonableness of court filings, and applies equally to pro se litigants. The court issued a formal warning that further use of fictitious or inaccurate authorities will result in unspecified 'steep consequences,' citing sanctions and dismissals imposed in other courts for similar conduct.