Judge: Armen Tamzarian, Case: 22STCV26384, Date: 2023-12-18 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 22STCV26384 Hearing Date: December 18, 2023 Dept: 52
Plaintiff Lajos “Lali” Hugyetz’s
Motion to Compel Further Responses to Special Interrogatories
Plaintiff Lajos “Lali” Hugyetz moves
to compel defendant Equinox Holdings, Inc. to provide a further response to
special interrogatory, set two, No. 41. A
party propounding interrogatories may move to compel further responses when an
answer “is evasive or incomplete,” “[a]n exercise of the option to produce
documents under Section 2030.230 is unwarranted or the required specification
of those documents is inadequate,” or “[a]n objection to an interrogatory is
without merit or too general.” (CCP §
2030.300(a).)
Defendant made meritless objections
to special interrogatory No. 41. The
interrogatory requests the “full name, address, telephone number,
and date of hire, for the first three Personal Trainers that were hired at” the
gym where plaintiff worked. Defendant
responded, “Defendant objects on the grounds that this Interrogatory is
overbroad in time, and therefore, seeks information irrelevant to the subject
matter of this case, and the information sought is not reasonably calculated to
lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.
Defendant further objects to this interrogatory to the extent that it violates the privacy
rights of third parties.”
This interrogatory is not overbroad
in time. It asks defendant to identify
only the first three personal trainers it hired after February 23, 2022. The question can only apply to the time from
that date to the present. That is a
reasonable and narrow scope.
Defendant’s privacy objection does
not warrant denying this discovery.
Defendant’s reliance on Life
Technologies Corp. v. Superior Court (2011) 197 Cal.App.4th 640 is
misplaced. There, the Court of Appeal
applied a standard, which has since been rejected, that discovery of
“confidential information in third party personnel files” should be denied “unless
the litigant can show a compelling need for the particular documents and
that the information cannot reasonably be obtained through depositions or from
nonconfidential sources.” (Id.
at p. 652.) The California Supreme Court
expressly disapproved Life Technologies “to the extent [it] assume[d],
without conducting the” necessary analysis, “that a compelling interest or
compelling need automatically is required.”
(Williams v. Superior Court (2017) 3 Cal.5th 531, 557, fn. 8 (Williams).)
Williams set forth the following test for adjudicating privacy objections: “The
party asserting a privacy right must establish a legally protected privacy
interest, an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the given
circumstances, and a threatened intrusion that is serious.” (Williams, supra, 3 Cal.5th at
p. 552.) If the objecting party shows
all three elements, then the court must balance the need for disclosure against
the right to privacy. (Ibid.)
Defendant
shows a legally protected privacy interest and an objectively reasonable
expectation of privacy but does not show a serious threatened intrusion. Plaintiff asks for three personal trainers’
names, addresses, phone numbers, and dates of hire. “[T]he requested information, while personal,
is not particularly sensitive, as it is merely contact information, not medical
or financial details, political affiliations, sexual relationships, or
personnel information.” (Puerto v.
Superior Court (2008) 158 Cal.App.4th 1242, 1253.) Disclosing individuals’ contact information “involves
no revelation of personal or business secrets, intimate activities, or similar
private information, and threatens no undue intrusion into one’s personal life,
such as mass-marketing efforts or unsolicited sales pitches.” (Pioneer Electronics (USA), Inc. v.
Superior Court (2007) 40 Cal.4th 360, 373.)
Though defendant did not itself identify these personal trainers as
witnesses, plaintiff establishes a reasonable basis that they may have
admissible evidence.
Evidence
regarding the employees hired after plaintiff’s termination may support an
inference that discriminatory intent was a substantial motivating factor in the
decision to terminate plaintiff. “Evidence
that an employer replaced a plaintiff with a less qualified person outside the
protected class can be evidence of pretext.”
(Mayes v. WinCo Holdings, Inc. (9th Cir. 2017) 846 F.3d 1274,
1282; accord Raad v. Fairbanks North Star Borough School Dist. (9th Cir.
2003) 323 F.3d 1185, 1197 [“the fact that an employer hired a far less
qualified person than the plaintiff naturally gives rise to an inference that
the non-discriminatory explanation offered by the employer is pretextual”].) “Evidence that an employer treated ‘
“similarly situated” ’ employees outside the plaintiff’s protected class ‘
“more favorably” ’ is probative of the employer’s discriminatory or retaliatory
intent.” (Gupta v. Trustees of
California State University (2019) 40 Cal.App.5th 510, 519.) This interrogatory is reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of
admissible evidence to prove discriminatory intent or pretext.
Defendant’s objections to special
interrogatory No. 41 are overruled.
Disposition
Plaintiff Lajos “Lali” Hugyetz’s
motion to compel further responses to special interrogatories is granted.
Defendant Equinox Holdings, Inc. is ordered to provide a further verified response without
objections to special interrogatory, set two, No. 41, within 20 days.