Wills v. City of Monterey, 3:21-cv-01998

Cynthia Wills, acting pro se, alleges the City of Monterey violated her Eighth Amendment rights by criminalizing involuntary homelessness through police threats and insufficient responses to her complaints in 2019.
Wills claims police threatened her with citation/arrest for illegal camping, threatened to impound her dog, and failed to respond to reports of harassment.
The City of Monterey submitted a discovery letter seeking further responses to interrogatories, requests for admission, and requests for production of documents relevant to Wills’s claims.
Discovery and communication issues arose regarding appropriate service methods and Wills’s refusals to cooperate fully with the City’s legal team.
The court addressed these discovery disputes shortly before the fact discovery deadline of March 28, 2024.
The case is proceeding under an active discovery deadline, despite a pending motion to stay.

Issue	Plaintiff’s Argument	Defendant’s Argument	Held
Sufficiency of Discovery Responses	Wills objected to several discovery requests, citing privilege, burden, and lack of relevancy; sometimes responded incompletely	City alleged Wills failed to adequately respond to interrogatories and produce requested documents	Court largely overruled Wills’s objections, ordered supplemental responses and production for most disputed requests
Compliance with Court Service Orders	Claimed City’s attorneys did not properly serve her by regular mail, violating prior order	City contended they complied; mail type and envelope size for service was reasonable	Court encouraged compliance but found no basis to sanction City or for finding noncompliance on record
Participation in Meet-and-Confer	Wills refused to confer with one City attorney and did not participate in joint letter briefing	City argued Wills refused meaningful meet-and-confer	Court mandated Wills must confer with any of City’s counsel; sanctions threatened for further non-cooperation
Appropriateness of Deposition Format	Requested protection from in-person deposition due to health, preferred video	City requested in-person/video deposition in office setting	Court ordered deposition to proceed by videoconference at neutral location per prior judicial suggestion

Martin v. City of Boise, 920 F.3d 584 (9th Cir. 2019) (clarifies Eighth Amendment standards in criminalizing involuntary homelessness)