Frederick Luehring, III v. Eunmee Lee, et al.

Whether a district court’s refusal to accept written deposition answers under Fed. R. Civ. P. 31(a)(1), and its imposition of testimony-preclusion sanctions on a pro se litigant who was out of town and lacked videoconference technology, constitutes a departure from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings warranting this Court’s supervisory power under Rule 10(a).

Whether testimony-preclusion sanctions imposed without a finding of willfulness, bad faith, or flagrant misconduct, and without first considering less drastic alternatives, violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Whether a pro se litigant’s offer to provide written deposition answers, when the opposing party already possesses the identical information through interrogatories, requests for admission, and requests for production, constitutes “substantial justification” under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(d)(3), precluding sanctions for failure to appear at an oral deposition.

Whether the Ninth Circuit’s rigid application of the final-judgment rule under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 to magistrate judge discovery orders that effectively terminate a pro se litigant’s right to present evidence and oppose summary judgment creates a jurisdictional gap that denies litigants any meaningful appellate review in violation of due process.