CAROL E. JACKSON, District Judge.
This matter is before the Court on defendant's motion to deem its requests for admission admitted. Plaintiff has filed a response in opposition.
Plaintiff HHCS Pharmacy, Inc., located in Florida and doing business as Freedom Pharmacy, provides traditional pharmacy and compounding services. Defendant Express Scripts, Inc., is a pharmacy benefits manager that processes and pays insurance claims for prescription drugs. Patients in plans managed by defendant receive prescription drugs from participating pharmacies such as plaintiff or directly from defendant through the mail-order pharmacy it owns and operates. Amended Complaint at ¶¶15, 19 [hereinafter, "Doc. # 47"].
In May 2014, plaintiff joined defendant's network of pharmacies. [Doc. # 47 at ¶21]. On June 13, 2016, defendant notified plaintiff that it was terminating the parties' provider agreement because it had determined that plaintiff was a mail order, rather than a retail, pharmacy and that plaintiff mailed drugs to patients in states in which it did not have "appropriate licensure." [Doc. # 54-2]. Plaintiff alleges that its termination is not justified under the provider agreement. Plaintiff also alleges that defendant did not comply with provisions requiring notice 90 days before termination and a 30-day period for dispute resolution. [Doc. # 47 at ¶¶29-31, 44, 52]. Plaintiff asserts claims of breach of contract, breach of the implied duty of good faith and fair dealing, unjust enrichment, and declaratory judgment.
On September 29, 2016, defendant served its first set of requests for admission. In requests 5 through 24, defendant asked plaintiff to admit or deny that, between January 1, 2014 and November 15, 2015, it (a) "mailed, shipped, and/or delivered" prescriptions to eleven states and (b) it did not have a "nonresident license" when it made the deliveries.
Plaintiff served amended responses on November 9, 2016, in which it admitted mailing, shipping or delivering prescriptions to nine of the eleven states during the specified dates. [Doc. # 56-3]. With respect to defendant's requests that plaintiff admit that it did not have a non-resident license, plaintiff responded with a simple denial in response to three states to which it admitted sending prescriptions. [Doc. # 56-3 at ¶¶14, 18, 26]. For the other six states, plaintiff responded:
[Doc. # 56-3 at ¶¶6, 8, 12, 20, 22, 24]. Counsel for defendant conferred with defense counsel about these responses and was informed that plaintiff would provide supplemental responses.
On November 23, 2016, plaintiff served supplemental responses to requests 14 through 24. [Doc. # 56-4]. In response to each request, including those it previously denied outright,
The parties were unable to resolve their disagreement regarding the adequacy of these responses and defendant filed the instant motion, asking the Court to deem its requests 14 through 24 admitted.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 36(a) provides: "A party may serve . . . a written request to admit . . . the truth of any matters within the scope of Rule 26(b)(1) relating to . . . facts, the application of law to fact, or opinions about either. Fed.R.Civ.P. 36(a)(1)(A). Rule 36 further provides:
Rule 36(a)(4)-(5). Where, as here, the requesting party moves to determine the sufficiency of an answer or objection, the court must order the responding party to answer, unless the court finds its objection is justified. If the court determines that the answer does not comply with the rule, the court may order either that the matter is admitted or that an amended answer be served. Rule 36(a)(6).
"The quintessential function of Requests for Admissions is to allow the narrowing of issues, to permit facilitation in presenting cases to the factfinder and, at a minimum, to provide notification as to those facts, or opinions, that remain in dispute."
The Court first addresses defendant's assertion that, based on allegations in the first amended complaint, plaintiff "agrees that its mail order business was the basis for its termination" from the provider network and that, therefore, plaintiff should have little difficulty "confirm[ing] certain elemental facts" that underlie this dispute. [Doc. # 56 at pp. 7-8]. Defendant misconstrues the complaint — plaintiff alleges that defendant claimed to have determined that plaintiff operated as a mail order business rather than a retail pharmacy, which defendant further claimed was a valid basis for immediate termination of the provider agreement.
Defendant also asserts that plaintiff is "dancing around clear answers . . . to keep summary judgment at bay." [Doc. # 56 at p. 10]. According to defendant, an admission by plaintiff that it mailed prescriptions to states where it lacked appropriate licensure is outcome determinative. The Court will certainly address any properly presented argument that defendant had grounds for terminating the provider agreement if the evidence establishes that plaintiff mailed prescriptions without appropriate licensure. It is not obvious at this stage, however, how such evidence would bear on plaintiff's claims that defendant did not comply with contractual and statutory requirements regarding notice and an opportunity to cure.
Turning to plaintiff's arguments, plaintiff makes a general assertion that, before determining whether to deem defendant's requests admitted, the Court must first determine whether plaintiff's objections are justified. [Doc. # 61 at 2]. The only objections appear in plaintiff's amended responses — the second of the three sets plaintiff has served — in which plaintiff asserted that the requests lacked an appropriate time limitation. The 23-month period covered by the requests does not seem overlong and plaintiff has made no argument for finding otherwise. Plaintiff also asserted without explanation that the requests are vague and overbroad. Such boilerplate objections are unacceptable.
In its opposition, plaintiff asserts that defendant is not entitled to information regarding prescriptions provided to members of other pharmacy benefit managers. Plaintiff also asserts that it would be better able to respond to requests regarding whether it provided prescriptions to out-of-state members if defendant identifies specific prescriptions. Indeed, plaintiff states that it has provided defendant with its licenses and so, plaintiff argues, defendant should "circulate discovery relative" to any prescriptions defendant knows were "sent into a state where a license does not exist." [Doc. # 61 at p. 4]. To the extent that plaintiff intends to assert these arguments as objections to the requests for admission, the appropriate place to do so was in its responses. However, plaintiff is required to provide responses to defendant's requests if it possesses or can readily obtain the information necessary to do so, regardless of whether defendant also possesses that information.
Finally, the Court determines that plaintiff's supplemental response to defendant's requests for admission is not adequate. First, plaintiff fails to either admit or deny that it mailed prescriptions to the specific states between January 1, 2014, and November 15, 2015, even though it was able to provide admissions or denials in its amended responses. Second, the response is ambiguous with respect to whether plaintiff possessed licenses for the specific states between January 1, 2014 and November 15, 2015. Plaintiff suggests that any ambiguity in its response is the result of defendant's "overly broad and vague" requests but plaintiff does not sufficiently identify the manner in which the requests are overbroad and vague.
Defendant asks the Court to deem its requests admitted or, in the alternative, to order plaintiff to amend its answers. The Court concludes that it is appropriate to give plaintiff another opportunity to provide proper answers to defendant's requests for admission.
Accordingly,