Judge: James L. Crandall, Case: 19-1094708, Date: 2022-08-04 Tentative Ruling

Motion to Compel Production

Defendant Walt Disney Parks and Resorts U.S., Inc.’s (“WDPR”) motion to compel Plaintiff Martin Anthony Silva to provide a response to WDPR’s Request for Production of Documents, Set One, Request No. 53 is GRANTED.

On 6/16/22, the court continued the Motion to Compel Regarding Requests for Production as it relates to Request for Production No. 53 and ordered the parties to meet and confer about the scope of Request No. 53 based on the court’s ruling on the Motion to Quash and to file a Joint Statement if the parties are unable to resolve the dispute. Having been unsuccessful at resolving the dispute, on 7/26/22, the parties filed a Joint Statement.

The Revised RFP No. 53 which is at issue here requests: “All DOCUMENTS constituting, referring or relating to any evaluations, disciplinary action or reviews that PLAINTIFF received from any employer from February 1, 2018 to the present.”

Since Plaintiff’s termination of employment with WDPR, Plaintiff has been employed by two employers, Amazon.com (“Amazon”) and EAM Mosca (“EAM”).

EAM is Plaintiff’s current employer. Plaintiff has offered to respond to WDPR’s Request No. 53 by producing all disciplinary actions and reviews received by Plaintiff from Amazon.com but has refused to provide this information for his current employment with EAM.

Plaintiff contends that any reviews or disciplinary actions from his current employment with EAM are not relevant and protected by privacy interests in his employment records for which a reasonable expectation of privacy exists. Plaintiff relies on the court’s order on the Motion to Quash where the court, based on Stanchfield v. Hamer Toyota, Inc. (Stanchfield) (1995) 37 Cal. App. 4th 1495, 1502, found that documents reflecting Plaintiff’s performance such as disciplinary records and performance reviews from Amazon are relevant to Plaintiff’s duty to mitigate since they are directly relevant to whether Plaintiff failed to retain comparable employment once it had been secured.

Plaintiff contends that since Plaintiff’s employment with EAM is not in a supervisory position and he has not been terminated from his employment with EAM, the reasoning in Stanchfield does not apply here and therefore production of Plaintiff’s employment records from EAM should not be compelled.

WDPR contends that records from EAM are relevant because the information sought would allow Defendants to test Plaintiff’s claim that he cannot find employment comparable to his former position with WDPR because WDPR terminated his employment.

Specifically, in his Declaration in Support of Opposition to Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment, Plaintiff states that he has been unable to secure comparable employment because “[w]henever [he is] applying for other jobs” he is “[c]onstantly having to explain why [he] was terminated, which ends [his] ability to obtain a position higher than technician.” (WDPR Ex. 1.)

WDPR argues that whether Plaintiff’s own decisions, misconduct, or performance deficiencies at any of his post-WDPR employers—including his current employer—have caused Plaintiff to be unable to achieve employment or compensation equal to his WDPR position is relevant to his claim for economic damages.

Further, WDPR contends that Plaintiff continues to make claims about his good character and excellent management skills in order to bolster his claim that WDPR’s reason for his termination—his poor performance—was pretextual. Therefore, WDPR contends Defendants are entitled to discover whether these statements are true.

WDPR has sufficiently shown that documents relating to Plaintiff’s evaluations, disciplinary action or reviews that Plaintiff received from his post-WDPR employers are relevant to his claim that he cannot find comparable employment and to his claim for damages.

Accordingly, the request to compel a further response to the revised Request No. 53 is GRANTED.

Plaintiff is ORDERED to provide a response to Request No. 53 within 20 days of the notice of this ruling.

Moving Defendant to give notice.

Future hearing events

12/15/22 – Motion to Dismiss

1/20/23 – MSC

2/21/23 – Jury Trial