Judge William A. Crowfoot, Case Number: 22AHCV00856, Date: 2024-05-03 Tentative Ruling

Judge: William A. Crowfoot, Case: 22AHCV00856, Date: 2024-05-03 Tentative Ruling

On October 17, 2022, plaintiff Luz Mercado (“Plaintiff”) filed this action against defendant ADP Technology Services. Inc. (“Defendant”) and Margot Dear. Plaintiff alleges that she experienced gender and disability discrimination while employed as a UX Designer by Defendant, and was retaliated against after filing an ethics complaint.

On March 7, 2024, Defendant filed this motion for a protective order. Specifically, Defendant seeks an order: (1) finding the number of special interrogatories and requests for production propounded by Plaintiff to be excessive, overbroad, unduly burdensome, and harassing; (2) excusing Defendant from answering Plaintiff’s Special Interrogatories, Set Three and Requests for Production, Set Three; and (3) precluding Plaintiff from serving any additional special interrogatories and document requests.

Upon the motion of any party affected, “[t]he court, for good cause shown, may make any order that justice requires to protect any party, deponent, or other natural person or organization from unwarranted annoyance, embarrassment, or oppression, or undue burden and expense.” (Code Civ. Proc. § 2030.090, subd. (a)-(b); 2031.060, subd. (a).)

With respect to specially prepared interrogatories, a protective order may include any number of directions, including, but not limited to instructions (1) that “the set of interrogatories, or particular interrogatories in the set, need not be answered at all,” (2) that, “contrary to the representations made in a declaration submitted under Section 2030.050, the number of specially prepared interrogatories is unwarranted,” (3) that “the response be made only on specified terms and conditions,” or (4) that “the method of discovery be an oral deposition instead of interrogatories to a party.” (Code Civ. Proc.. § 2030.090 subd. (b)(1)-(5).) “If the motion for a protective order is denied in whole or in part, the court may order that the responding party provide or permit the discovery” that the proponent sought. (Id., subd. (c).)

With respect to requests for document production, a party seeking a protective order must show good cause for issuance of the order by a preponderance of evidence. (Stadish v. Sup.Ct. (1999) 71 Cal.App.4th 1130, 1145.) Upon a showing of good cause, the court may issue an order:

- Excusing production of some or all of the items demanded, or setting terms and conditions on which items shall be produced;

- Protecting confidential commercial information (trade secrets, etc.) by restricting the manner in which it is disclosed;

Plaintiff’s Third Set of Special Interrogatories includes 49 special interrogatories and brings the total number of special interrogatories propounded to 82. When more than 35 special interrogatories have been propounded, and the responding party seeks a protective order, the burden is on the propounding party to prove that the number of requests is justified. (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 2030.030, 2030.040, 2030.070.) Specifically, the propounding party must show that the number of requests is warranted by “any of the following:

- The complexity or the quantity of the existing and potential issues in the particular case.

- The financial burden on a party entailed in conducting the discovery by oral deposition.

- The expedience of using this method of discovery to provide to the responding party the opportunity to conduct an inquiry, investigation, or search of files or records to supply the information sought.”

(Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.040, subd. (a); Catanese v. Superior Ct. (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1159, 1165.)

Plaintiff argues that the 49 special interrogatories can be broken into three categories. First, SROG Nos. 34 to 77 relate to Defendant’s internal investigations of four complaints, each which are individually identified using Defendant’s numbering system. Plaintiff states she seeks information regarding the different components forming these investigations, which include all witnesses interviewed, all documents and evidence reviewed, all “issues to be resolved”, all “findings”, all “analysis/conclusions”, all “issue disposition”, all “actions taken”, and all decision makers.

Defendant argues that the interrogatories are duplicative because it has already produced all the investigation reports and related documents, and the information sought is contained within the investigation reports themselves. However, Defendant can avail itself of Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.230 and reference the documents which have already been produced, and add any information as needed. Furthermore, identification of documents and persons is generally better accomplished on paper than by oral deposition, and it affords the propounding party an opportunity to identify with accuracy and specificity the individuals and documents that contain information relevant to the action. In this way, such special interrogatories avoid the “financial burden” of an unnecessary deposition, and accordingly, the special interrogatory is an “expedien[t]” way for Plaintiff to obtain this information. (§ 2030.040, subd. (a)(2)-(3).)

Next, Plaintiff explains that SROG Nos. 78-80 seek information about complaints made against three managers in Plaintiff’s same department, and SROG Nos. 81-83 seek information about any disciplinary actions taken against employees as a result of complaints alleging discrimination, harassment, or retaliation. (Opp., pp. 8-9.) This information is reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence supporting Plaintiff’s discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims. Furthermore, these six interrogatories do not appear to pose any particular burden on Defendant, who does not address these six interrogatories in its motion.

The Court specifically notes that Defendant is not being ordered to provide a substantive answer to a particular interrogatory, but only that Defendant is not entitled to a blanket protective order with respect to SROG Nos. 34 through 83.

Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s third set of 26 document requests is excessive because she previously already propounded 61 requests. Defendant argues that a single-plaintiff case does not require 87 document requests and stresses that it has already produced 1,300 pages of documents. Defendant also argues that the scope of each request is overbroad because they demand writings authored by or sent to certain individuals, as well as members of its Global Ethics Department, relating to “any investigation of complaints submitted . . . by [Defendant’s] employees or independent contractors” regarding Defendant’s office in Pasadena. Although Defendant claims that “the burden and expense of responding to each of these . . . document requests outweighs the usefulness of the information gleaned” and demands that Plaintiff narrow her demands to only include complaints about claims of discrimination on the basis of gender and disability, Defendant submits no evidence of any burden or expense it would incur. Also, while Defendant may have produced documents relating to the internal investigations conducted in response to Plaintiff’s complaints, these document requests seek documents relating to complaints submitted by other employees.

Therefore, the Court does not find that a protective order is appropriate or necessary. Again, the Court is not ordering that Defendant provide substantive responses or produce documents, but is only ruling that a blanket protective order is not warranted.

Finally, the court is required to “impose a monetary sanction . . . against any party, person, or attorney who unsuccessfully makes or opposes a motion for a protective order under this section, unless it finds that the one subject to the sanction acted with substantial justification or that other circumstances make the imposition of the sanction unjust.” (§ 2030.090, subd. (d).)

William A. Crowfoot

Judge of the Superior Court

Parties who intend to submit on this tentative must send an email to the Court at ALHDEPT3@lacourt.org indicating intention to submit on the tentative as directed by the instructions provided on the court website at www.lacourt.org. Please be advised that if you submit on the tentative and elect not to appear at the hearing, the opposing party may nevertheless appear at the hearing and argue the matter. Unless you receive a submission from all other parties in the matter, you should assume that others might appear at the hearing to argue. If the Court does not receive emails from the parties indicating submission on this tentative ruling and there are no appearances at the hearing, the Court may, at its discretion, adopt the tentative as the final order or place the motion off calendar.