Judge: Daniel S. Murphy, Case: 21STCV07398, Date: 2023-10-27 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 21STCV07398    Hearing Date: February 21, 2024    Dept: 32

BACKGROUND

            On February 24, 2021, Kristina Turpin (“Plaintiff”) filed this employment discrimination action against Learning with a Difference, Inc. (“Defendant”).    

On December 27, 2023 and January 4, 2024, Plaintiff filed three motions to compel further responses to its Special Interrogatories (Sets Two and Three) and its Requests for Production (Set Two). On January 5, 2024, Defendant filed a motion for protective order pertaining to the same requests. The parties filed their respective oppositions to each motion on February 6, 2024. The parties filed their replies on February 13, 2024.

LEGAL STANDARD

Upon receiving responses to its discovery requests, the propounding party may move for an order compelling further responses if the responses are incomplete or evasive, or objections are without merit or too general. (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 2030.300(a), 2031.310(a), 2033.290(a).)

“The court shall limit the scope of discovery if it determines that the burden, expense, or intrusiveness of that discovery clearly outweighs the likelihood that the information sought will lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. The court may make this determination pursuant to a motion for protective order by a party or other affected person.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2017.020(a).) “The issuance and formulation of protective orders are to a large extent discretionary.” (Nativi v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 261, 316.) “[T]he burden is on the party seeking the protective order to show good cause for whatever order is sought.” (Id. at p. 318.)

DISCUSSION

I. SROG Set Three

            Plaintiff seeks further responses to SROG Nos. 13-19. The SROGs are organized in the following manner. SROG No. 13 asks for the identity of each teacher who had school responsibilities beyond a fulltime teaching load in the 2020-21 school year. SROG Nos. 14-16 ask for more specific information on the teachers identified in No. 13—what work they performed, whether they were additionally compensated, and the classes they taught. SROG No. 17 asks for the identity of each teacher who had work hours beyond fulltime teaching hours in the 2020-21 school year. SROG Nos. 18 and 19 ask for specific information on those teachers—the nature of the work performed during the additional hours and whether they were additionally compensated. Defendant objected to the requests as irrelevant, invading privacy, overbroad, harassing, and vague.

            a. Relevance

“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.) Plaintiff argues that the information is relevant because Plaintiff was historically paid a stipend for additional afterschool work until Defendant altered her job description for the 2020-21 school year and increased her workload while refusing to pay the stipend. Plaintiff seeks to prove that Defendant’s proffered rationale for doing this is false and that Defendant treated Plaintiff differently compared to other teachers who continued to receive a stipend.   

The Court agrees that evidence that Defendant treated Plaintiff differently than similarly situated employees would tend to show that Defendant harbored discriminatory animus. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 2017.010; D.Z. v. Los Angeles Unified School Dist. (2019) 35 Cal.App.5th 210, 229 [“‘Relevant’ evidence is evidence ‘having any tendency in reason to prove or disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action’”].) However, Plaintiff seeks information for 2020-2021 even though she was terminated on August 31, 2020. The request is limited to information up to August 31, 2020.

b. Privacy

The facts requested do not constitute a serious invasion of privacy, and Plaintiff’s need for the information outweighs any privacy concerns, which can also be addressed by a protective order. (See Williams v. Sup. Ct. (2017) 3 Cal.5th 531, 552; Hill v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1, 38.)  

c. Burden

Defendant avers that it employed 50 teachers during the 2020-21 school year, and there are no documents that identify each teacher by school year, classes taught, compensation, and additional hours. (Johnson Decl. ¶¶ 9-10.) Defendant claims that it would have to speak to every implicated teacher in order to ascertain the information sought by the interrogatories, and 13 of those teachers no longer work for Defendant. (Id., ¶¶ 11, 13.)

The fact that there is no document containing all of the information sought does not render Defendant incapable of ascertaining the information to answer the interrogatories. Defendant must make “a reasonable and good faith effort to obtain the information by inquiry to other natural persons or organizations.” (See Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.220(c).) Defendant has not demonstrated that speaking with its teachers is unduly burdensome in comparison to the relevance of the information. However, Defendant is not required to seek out ex-employees. In sum, Defendant must provide further responses to SROG Nos. 13-19.

II. SROG Set Two

            a. SROG No. 5

            SROG No. 5 asks Defendant to identify by name, job title, and subject taught, each employee from the 2018-19 school year who had an appendix or exhibit attached to their contract and the reason for the attachment. Defendant objected to the request as irrelevant, compound, invading privacy, and harassing.

             Here, the information sought is directly relevant because Plaintiff alleges that Defendant attached an appendix to her contract which altered her job duties and fabricated performance issues as retaliation. Plaintiff also alleges that Defendant targeted disabled employees with similar attachments to their contracts. Defendant denies that the appendix was retaliatory and claims that employees regularly have attachments added to their contracts. Plaintiff is entitled to test the veracity of Defendant’s claim and determine whether she was treated like other employees. (See Gupta, supra, 40 Cal.App.5th at p. 519.) The information sought does not constitute a serious invasion of privacy, and Plaintiff’s need for the information outweighs the privacy concerns.

            Defendant argues that the request is burdensome because it employed around 50 teachers in the 2018-19 school year and did not have the space to maintain all of their contracts. (Taylor Decl. ¶¶ 8-9.) Defendant avers that it would have to obtain the records from an offsite custodian. (Id., ¶ 10.) Defendant does not possess any document that specifically identifies teachers by name, job title, and subject taught. (Id., ¶ 13.) Defendant does not demonstrate that obtaining the records from an offsite custodian is unduly burdensome given the relevance of the information. As with above, the fact that the information sought has not been compiled onto a particular document does not absolve Defendant from ascertaining the information to answer the request. Therefore, a further response is required for SROG No. 5.

            b. SROG No. 11

            SROG No. 11 asks when and how Defendant became aware of the disability of Margot Fitzsimmons, Plaintiff’s replacement, to the extent Defendant is aware of such disability. Defendant asserted the same objections as above.

            Ms. Fitzsimmons was hired to replace Plaintiff after Plaintiff was allegedly wrongfully terminated. The information sought is directly relevant because it would reveal whether Defendant replaced Plaintiff with someone who was not disabled, which is probative of discriminatory motive. The request does not seriously intrude upon privacy because it only asks if, when, and how Defendant became aware of Ms. Fitzsimmons’ disability, without inquiring into any details about the disability itself. Therefore, a further response is required for SROG No. 11.

            c. SROG No. 12

            SROG No. 12 asks for each date from school year 2020 to present that Margot Fitzsimmons was provided an employment agreement signed by head of school, Claudia Koochek. Defendant asserted the same objections as above.

            The information sought is irrelevant to the extent it concerns a time period after Plaintiff’s employment with Defendant, up to the present. Plaintiff argues that the information is relevant to showing whether Defendant sought to replace Plaintiff during the interactive process. That only explains the relevance of the first contract offered to Ms. Fitzsimmons. Subsequent events do not constitute proper comparator evidence because Plaintiff no longer worked for Defendant by then. A further response is required for SROG No. 12, but the request is limited to the date of the first contract offered to Margot Fitzsimmons.  

III. RFP Set Two

            a. RFP No. 85

            RFP No. 85 seeks the addenda of teacher contracts from the 2019-2020 school year that set forth a list of job duties. A further response is required for the same reasons discussed above regarding SROG Set Two, No. 5.

            b. RFP No. 92  

            RFP No. 92 requests all communications with Margot Fitzsimmons regarding the Theater Arts Teacher position. Plaintiff argues that the information is relevant to showing whether Defendant sought to replace Plaintiff during the interactive process. The Court agrees. However, Plaintiff is only entitled to communications up to the hiring of Ms. Fitzsimmons. A further response is required for RFP No. 92.  

            c. RFP No. 93

            RFP No. 93 seeks the written agreement, including addenda, signed by Margot Fitzsimmons for the 2020-21 school year. A further response is not required because the information is from beyond the time of Plaintiff’s own employment.

d. RFP No. 94

            RFP No. 94 seeks school schedules for the school year 2020-21. During meet and confer, Plaintiff narrowed the request to bell schedules, after school care staffing schedules, and late bus schedules. Plaintiff argues that the information is directly relevant to ascertaining whether Plaintiff could have adequately performed her duties with reasonable accommodations. The information is relevant, but only up to August 31, 2020. A further response is required for RFP No. 94.

IV. Protective Order

            The majority of discovery requests implicated in Defendant’s motion for protective order have been addressed above. Defendant’s motion addresses the following additional requests from RFP Set Three: Nos. 97, 99, and 104. However, Defendant already responded to these requests by making a statement of compliance or explaining an inability to comply. There is no need for a protective order absolving Defendant from responding to these requests if Defendant has already responded. Defendant must respond to the remaining requests, subject to the limitations described above.  

CONCLUSION

            Plaintiff’s motions to compel further responses are GRANTED in part as set forth above. Defendant’s motion for protective order is DENIED. Document production shall be subject to a protective order. Sanctions are denied as the parties acted with substantial justification.