Judge: Daniel S. Murphy, Case: 23STCV21324, Date: 2025-01-24 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23STCV21324    Hearing Date: January 24, 2025    Dept: 32

BACKGROUND

            On September 5, 2023, Plaintiff Jannell Rivera filed this action for wage violations under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) on behalf of herself and other aggrieved employees. The Defendants are Wal-Mart Associates, Inc. and Sam’s West, Inc.

            On December 6, 2024, Plaintiff filed the instant motion to compel Defendants to provide a further response to Special Interrogatory No. 1. Defendants filed their opposition on January 10, 2025.

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).)

DISCUSSION

            SROG No. 1 asks for a list of “the name, last known home address, telephone number, and email address of each COVERED EMPLOYEE,” which means “all current and former non-exempt employees of Defendant[s] . . . in California during the period of July 2, 2022 to the present.” Defendants objected to the SROG on the following grounds: (1) violation of third-party privacy; (2) compound; and (3) not proportional to the needs of the case. The response then states that Defendants “will provide contact information for a sample of allegedly aggrieved employees, subject to an opt-out notice.”

            Plaintiff argues that she is entitled to information on all employees. However, this includes over 15,000 employees. (Applen Decl. ¶ 4.) During meet and confer, Plaintiff’s own counsel had proposed a compromise wherein Defendants would produce a 10% sample of employees, while Plaintiff would reserve the right to seek further information later in the litigation. (Stahle Decl., ¶¶ 10-11, Ex. H.) Plaintiff’s counsel avers that he did not receive a response from Defendants to this proposal. (Id., ¶ 15.)

However, defense counsel presents emails indicating further communications between the parties after Plaintiff’s proposal. Specifically, defense counsel asked whether Plaintiff preferred the 10% sample to be obtained from a class list which was only current up to February 2024, or for Defendants to generate a new class list. (Applen Decl., Ex. 2-3.) Defense counsel indicated that a new class list would take “a couple of weeks” to generate. (Ibid.) Plaintiff’s counsel responded that “we would like an up-to-date class list.” (Id., Ex. 4.)

Based on this record, the parties appear to have agreed on a 10% sample of employees. Thus, Defendants provided a responsive and accurate answer to SROG No. 1 by stating that they “will provide contact information for a sample of allegedly aggrieved employees, subject to an opt-out notice.” Defendants were entitled to assert objections to preserve them while providing a substantive response.

The interrogatory is properly limited to a 10% sample because that is what the parties agreed to. Plaintiff has reserved her right to obtain the contact information of the remaining employees later in the litigation. Therefore, there is no basis to compel Defendants to provide the entire class list in response to SROG No. 1.

CONCLUSION

            Plaintiff’s motion to compel further responses is DENIED.