MOTION TO COMPEL DENIED: August 21, 2025
CBCA 7992, 7993
LOUIS J. BLAZY,
Appellant,
v.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Respondent.
The case caption as the decision prints it. Every word is kept; the rule the Board draws around it is not text, so it is not repeated here.
Louis J. Blazy, pro se, Alexandria, VA.
Alexandra N. Wilson, Office of the Legal Adviser, Buildings and Acquisitions, Department of State, Washington, DC, counsel for Respondent.
GOODMAN, Board Judge.
Order1
During a telephone conference on June 16, 2025, conducted by the presiding judge with appellant and respondent’s counsel, appellant asserted that respondent failed to produce information (metadata) regarding documents previously produced pursuant to discovery requests. Discovery was extended, to address this issue, through August 15, 2025. Appellant filed discovery requests seeking the information allegedly not produced, and respondent’s counsel filed objections in response.
This order is being published to assist in providing greater transparency to the public about how the Board addresses issues. Although single-judge orders like this one are binding in the appeals in which they are issued, they are, consistent with Rule 1(d) (48 CFR 6101.1(d) (2024)), not precedential in other appeals before the Board.
On July 21, 2025, appellant filed a motion to compel production of the information sought. Respondent filed a response to the motion on July 24, 2025, stating that the information appellant seeks is duplicative of that previously produced. Respondent explains that appellant is requesting respondent’s third-party vendor to provide an “audit log or system records.” Respondent provides examples to show that the work product of the third-party vendor would only contain the previously produced information in another format, without additional relevant information.
Appellant also moves to compel the Government to provide declarations by records custodians for any of the information that appellant contends might be unavailable or destroyed, to which respondent has objected, as no declarations exist.
Having reviewed the parties’ submissions, respondent has clearly demonstrated that 1) the information appellant requests has been previously produced, though not in the format appellant now seeks (i.e., in audit logs or system records); and 2) declarations by record custodians do not exist. Appellant cannot compel respondent to create the audit logs or system records and declarations. E.g., Wheeler Logging, Inc. v. Department of Agriculture, CBCA 97, 08-1 BCA ¶ 33,746, at 167,057 (2007) (parties cannot compel creation of documents that do not exist). Appellant’s motion to compel is DENIED.
Allan H. Goodman
Board Judge
Respondent’s counsel states in the response to the motion to compel that she attempted to contact appellant to discuss the objections to the requests for production, but appellant filed the motion to compel without speaking to her. In the motion to compel, appellant did not represent that he had attempted to discuss the grounds for the motion with respondent’s counsel, or that an effort was made to resolve the matter informally, before filing the motion. On that basis alone, we could deny the motion to compel. Rules 8(a), 13(e)(2). Even so, the issues raised in the motion are addressed herein as part of our greater obligation to assist the parties to resolve the case as promptly as practicable. J.R. Mannes Government Services Corp., v. Department of Justice, CBCA 5911, 18-1 BCA ¶ 36,994, at 180,163; LFH, LLC v. General Services Administration, CBCA 395, et al., 07-1 BCA ¶ 33,537, at 166,141.
This is a verbatim capture of the text layer of the Board's own document in Louis J. Blazy, CBCA 7992, 7993. Nothing is summarized or reworded, and the sections run in the order the Board wrote them. What the page shows and the text does not repeat is the pagination furniture: the page numbers and the rules the Board draws around its caption and under its signatures. The signatures are set back into the columns the Board prints them in, each judge under the name he or she signed, and the typed copy of that name the page carries beneath each signature is not repeated.