The Centech Group, Inc. v. United States, 19-1752

CENTECH contracted with the USAF to provide communications infrastructure; it subcontracted material procurement to Iron Bow, which placed an order with Communications Supply Corporation (CSC).
USAF canceled the material order, refused reimbursement, CENTECH withheld payment to Iron Bow, and CSC sued Iron Bow; CENTECH pursued a sponsored breach-of-contract claim against USAF.
The court authorized limited discovery pending resolution of CSC v. Iron Bow; CENTECH served nine RFPs, including RFP No. 6 (labor review/approval) and RFP No. 7 (budget/funding).
The government agreed to produce most unobjected-to documents but objected to portions of RFPs 6 and 7 as irrelevant and disproportionate, produced documents piecemeal, and sought a protective order before further production.
CENTECH moved to compel overruling of objections, completion/supplementation of production by a date certain, and recovery of fees; the court held a discovery hearing, directed the parties to narrow RFPs 6 and 7, and ordered a full discovery schedule.
Decision: the court granted in part and denied in part CENTECH’s motion to compel (rejecting the government’s relevance objections but preserving proportionality tailoring), denied the request to compel a date-certain completion or supplementation order, and denied CENTECH’s request for expenses and fees.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Relevance/proportionality of RFP Nos. 6 & 7	RFPs seek information relevant to breach and should be produced; overrule objections	RFPs are overbroad, not proportional, and some aspects not relevant to CENTECH’s breach claim	Court rejected government relevance objections but instructed parties to narrowly tailor RFPs for proportionality; denied plaintiff’s request to overrule proportionality objections
Compel production of unobjected-to documents and require supplementation/by date certain	Government has delayed, produced piecemeal; court should order complete production by a date certain and supplement missing docs	Government timely responded to RFPs, produced many docs, and needed time for agency/DOJ review; no specified production deadline in requests	Court denied order compelling date-certain completion or mandatory supplementation given limited-discovery context and ongoing productions; adopted parties’ proposed schedule instead
Award of expenses and attorney’s fees under RCFC 37(a)(5)	Plaintiff seeks fees for bringing the motion due to government’s lack of responsiveness	Government opposes fee award; argues partial success and reasonable objections justify denial	Court exercised discretion, denied fees: government partially complied, objections were reasonable in part, and awarding fees would be counterproductive to case resolution

Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340 (1978) (defines broad scope of relevance for discovery)
Schism v. United States, 316 F.3d 1259 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (courts exercise broad discretion in discovery rulings)
New Orleans Reg'l Physician Hosp. Org., Inc. v. United States, 122 Fed. Cl. 807 (2015) (discussing court discretion under discovery rules)
Council for Tribal Employment Rights v. United States, 110 Fed. Cl. 244 (2013) (RCFC 37 aims to secure compliance, not reward movants)
Confidential Informant 59-05071 v. United States, 121 Fed. Cl. 36 (2015) (discretion to apportion fees when motion is partly granted)
Fairholme Funds, Inc. v. United States, 132 Fed. Cl. 391 (2017) (declining fee awards when not advancing case resolution)
Jicarilla Apache Nation v. United States, 88 Fed. Cl. 1 (2009) (declining to apportion expenses when neither party fully prevailed)
Herrmann v. United States, 127 Fed. Cl. 22 (2016) (relevant discovery need not be admissible if reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence)
Allogonac Mfg. Co. v. United States, 458 F.2d 1372 (Ct. Cl. 1972) (treating FRCP and RCFC discovery parallels)