Judge: Matthew C. Braner, Case: 37-2023-00012828-CU-OE-CTL, Date: 2024-03-29 Tentative Ruling

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA,

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HALL OF JUSTICE

TENTATIVE RULINGS - March 28, 2024

03/29/2024  09:00:00 AM  C-60 COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO

JUDICIAL OFFICER:Matthew C. Braner

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Civil - Unlimited  Other employment Discovery Hearing 37-2023-00012828-CU-OE-CTL FIGUEROA VS FLETCHER [IMAGED] CAUSAL DOCUMENT/DATE FILED:

The court is inclined to deny Plaintiff Grecia Figueroa's motion to quash the documents subpoena to Meta Platforms, Inc., but will hear from the parties regarding its comments set forth below.

First, although Plaintiff concedes the document requests to Meta Platforms, Inc. seek relevant information and documents, she nonetheless takes issue with Defendant Fletcher's use of the undefined word 'content' in each of the six requests. In both her objection to the subpoena and her motion papers, she argues the term renders the requests vague, ambiguous, unintelligible, and overly broad, and would result in production of Plaintiff's personal identifying information, geolocations, and passwords.

However, Plaintiff's concern was rather quickly addressed by Defendant's proposed clarifying letter to Meta, which would have specifically instructed Meta's custodian of records 'that the requests do not seek the production of any metadata, geographic information, passwords, or user account credentials and that no metadata, geographic information, passwords, or user account credentials should be produced in response to any of the records requests.' (ROA #204, McKaveney Dec., Ex. G.) Defendant Fletcher proposed this limitation the same day Plaintiff served her objection to the July 7, 2023 subpoena (on August 2, 2023). Thus, Plaintiff's present objection appears to be a delay tactic, particularly in light of Plaintiff's recent document subpoena to Meta requesting the same or similar documents as Defendant's subpoena, and using the same undefined 'content' term. (McKaveney Dec., Ex. D.) Second, Plaintiff proposes defining the term 'content,' and thereby limiting Defendant's requests, in the following manner: The term 'content' as used herein shall mean data that is stored and processed digitally, including text, images, audio, or video; however, this specifically excludes any personally identifiable information of Grecia Figueroa, such as her confidential passwords, sensitive information, geolocation data, or other private information subject to Meta Platforms, Inc.'s privacy policy.

The court considers this to be a reasonable limitation. However, it is effectively the same limitation proposed by Defendant nearly eight months ago, further leading the court to view Plaintiff's instant motion as a delay tactic.

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