Today, the California
Supreme Court issued an important decision, holding that workers prosecuting
wage violations under California’s Private Attorneys General Act of 2004
(“PAGA”) are entitled to receive witnesses’/class members’ contact information
without having to prove their entire case first. As explained in Williams v. Superior Court (Marshalls of CA), “California
law has long made clear that to require a party to supply proof of any claims
or defenses as a condition of discovery in support of those claims or defenses
is to place the cart before the horse.”[1]
The entire decision is required reading for any wage and hour and/or class action
practitioner in California, but a few points are worth highlighting here.
I. PAGA Plaintiffs Are Not Required to Prove the Merits of Their Case Before Receiving State-wide Contact Information for Witnesses/Potential Class Members.
For California employees, the biggest win from the Williams decision is the California Supreme Court’s holding that a
worker bringing a representative PAGA enforcement action, like any other
plaintiff in a civil state court lawsuit, is not required to prove their case
before receiving the information and documents needed to prove their case on behalf of themselves and their co-workers.
The outcome in Williams flows from a plain reading of PAGA and California’s discovery statute, neither
of which impose the “modicum of substantial proof” standard MarshallsCA advanced,
i.e., “a PAGA-specific heightened
proof standard at the threshold, before discovery.”[2] To the
contrary, “to insert such a
requirement into PAGA would undercut the clear legislative purposes the act was
designed to serve” because it would necessarily undermine a representative
plaintiff’s ability “to advance the state‘s public policy of affording
employees workplaces free of Labor Code violations, notwithstanding the
inability of state agencies to monitor every employer or industry.”[3]
Of course, a trial court retains discretion for a “special reason to
limit or postpone a representative plaintiff‘s access to contact information
for those he or she seeks to represent, but the default position is that such
information is within the proper scope of discovery, an essential first step to
prosecution of any representative action.”[4]
II. High Court Reaffirms the Broad Scope of Discovery in California.
The California Supreme Court also used the Williams case to reaffirm the broad scope of civil discovery in
California state court. While broad discovery requests may result in “a
defendant’s inevitable annoyance,” the Court recognized that the California
Legislature “granted such a right anyway, comfortable in the conclusion that
―[m]utual knowledge of all the relevant facts gathered by both parties is
essential to proper litigation.”[5]
The Court also clarified that
the three-step framework established in Hill v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn.[6], not the
“compelling interest” analysis in White v. Davis, should be applied to resolve most parties’ privacy objections to discovery requests unless a request constitutes an “obvious invasion[] of interests fundamental to personal
autonomy.”[7]
The Court made clear that routine requests for witnesses’/class members’
contact information typically do not warrant “compelling interest” scrutiny,
and strongly implied that the Hill
test should frequently result in the production of witness/class member contact
information, particularly
where the parties agree to use a Belaire-West
notice and opt-out process.[8]
III. Defendants Asserting
“Burden” Objections to Discovery Requests Must Provide Specific Facts About the Cost and/or Administrative Difficulty of Complying.
The Court also
underscored that a defendant may not refuse to produce discovery merely because
a defendant disagrees with a plaintiff’s legal theory. In so holding, the Court
emphasized that “the way to raise” a perceived legal deficiency in a
plaintiff’s case “is to plead it as an affirmative defense, and thereafter to
bring a motion for summary adjudication or summary judgment, not resist
discovery until a plaintiff proves he or she” can overcome the defendant’s
affirmative defense.[9] This
aspect of the Williams decision will hopefully
go a long way towards incentivizing defendants to defend against plaintiffs’ claims
on the merits instead of engaging in discovery gamesmanship,
typically resulting in unnecessary and costly motion practice.
Moreover, if responding to a
discovery request poses a genuine burden for a company, then the company must provide
“evidence of the time and cost required to respond” to support its burden objection.[10] While
unsurprising, this portion of the opinion should be used by workers’ advocates
who receive generalized “burden” objections from defendants which lack any specific facts
regarding the nature of the supposed burden to respond.
In Williams, the Court illustrated its point with an example: “depending on the nature of any computer database Marshalls might
maintain, providing information for 10,000 employees might prove little
different than for 1,000, or 100.” If Marshalls had shown that, for example, each store had its own computer
database of employees’ information unconnected to any other store’s database
and no other centralized employee database existed, then the company might have
had solid grounds to assert that coordinating data retrieval between
“approximately 130 stores” in California would have been too costly and
time-consuming.[11] In
that case, the trial court might have ordered cost sharing between
the parties, or a narrower production of information.[12]
On the other hand, if Marshalls had been able to produce contact information
relatively easily regardless of whether it produced employee information for
one store as opposed to all of its stores, then Marshalls’ burden objection
likely would not have been sustained.
In the actual case, Marshalls provided
no “supporting evidence” regarding the nature of the “time and cost required
to” produce contact information for the witnesses/potential class members.[13]
Accordingly, the company’s “burden” argument lacked any legal merit.[14]
IV. Conclusion
Williams will be cited by wage and hour practitioners for years to come because
it both provides much needed clarification regarding the scope and operation of
California’s civil discovery rules as applied to PAGA representative actions, and also affirms the common sense principle that a worker should not have to prove his or her case before receiving the basic information he or she needs to do so.
Workers and workers' advocates should celebrate this tremendous victory weighing in favor of access to justice, and ultimately, robust enforcement of California’s
vital labor laws.
***
If you have believe
that you and your co-workers are or have been subject to unlawful pay practices,
then please contact Bryan Schwartz Law.
[1] Williams v.
S.C. (Marshalls of CA), No. S227228, 2017 WL 2980258, slip op. at 20 (Cal.
July 13, 2017) (“Williams”)
[2] Williams slip
op. at 12, 14.
[3] Williams slip
op. at 13.
[4] Williams slip op. 11.
[5] Williams slip
op. at 20.
[6] 7 Cal. 4th 1, 35. (1994).
[7] Williams slip
op. at 29.
[8] Williams slip
op. at 25-29.
[9] Williams slip
op. at 31 (citing Union Mut. Life Ins.
Co. v. Superior Court, 80 Cal. App. 3d 1, 12 (1978)).
[10] Williams slip
op. at 18 n. 6.
[11] Williams slip
op. at 4.
[12] Williams slip
op. at 18 n. 5.
[13] Williams slip
op. at 18.
[14] Williams slip
op. at 19 (citing Sinaiko Healthcare
Consulting, Inc. v. Pacific Healthcare Consultants, 148 Cal. App. 4th 390,
402 (2007)).
