Reina Isabel Yah v. Peet’s Coffee, Inc. et al.

Legal Standard

“If a subpoena requires the attendance of a witness or the production of books, documents, electronically stored information, or other things . . . the court . . . may make an order quashing the subpoena entirely, modifying it, or directing compliance with it upon those terms or conditions as the court shall declare, including protective orders. In addition, the court may make any other order as may be appropriate to protect the person from unreasonable or oppressive demands, including unreasonable violations of the right of privacy of that person.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 1987.1, subd. (a).) A subpoena may be attacked on numerous grounds, including that it seeks information outside the permissible scope of discovery. (Weil & Brown, Cal. Practice Guide: Civil Procedure Before Trial (The Rutter Group 2024) ¶ 8:598.)

Discussion

Medical Subpoenas

The subpoenas to Marin Community Clinics and Novato Community Hospital seek the same documents. Defendants are requesting “[a]ny and all records pertaining to” Plaintiff and “relating to” every conceivable aspect of her mental health history and mental health treatment history for the period from January 1, 2012, through the present – a period commencing a full seven years before Plaintiff even started working at Peet’s. (See Goldstein Dec., Exs. E2, E3; FAC, ¶ 12.) Defendants further demand “[a]ny and all records pertaining to” Plaintiff and “relating to” “[a]ny pregnancy related care[,]” specifically including (but certainly not limited to) anything related to abortions, for the period of December 1, 2020, through December 31, 2021. (Goldstein Dec., Exs.

E2, E3 [emphasis added].) Finally, Defendants want “[a]ny and all records of visits, appointments, check-ins, treatments, procedures, or services of any kind” occurring on any of four specified dates in February 2021. (Ibid. [emphasis added].)

The California State Constitution protects the right to privacy and accords such right “the constitutional status of an ‘inalienable right,’ on a par with defending life and possessing property.” (Vinson v. Superior Court (1987) 43 Cal.3d 833, 841 [quoting Cal. Const., art. 1, § 1].) “Where discovery involves matters encompassed by the right to privacy, courts recognize that ‘judicial discovery orders inevitably involve state-compelled disclosure[.]’” (Mendez v. Superior Court (1988) 206 Cal.App.3d 557, 566 [quoting Britt v. Superior Court (1978) 20 Cal.3d 844, 856, fn. 3].) “Therefore, in reviewing a party’s resistance to a discovery order, based

on the claim that it entrenches upon a constitutional right, we treat the compelled disclosure as a product of state action subject to constitutional constraints.” (Id., p. 566-567.)

To establish that certain conduct constitutes an invasion of the state constitutional right to privacy, a plaintiff must establish: (1) a legally protected privacy interest; (2) a reasonable expectation of privacy under the circumstances; and (3) that the conduct at issue constitutes a serious invasion of that privacy interest. (Williams v. Superior Court (2017) 3 Cal.5th 531, 552; see also Hill v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1, 39-40.) In the discovery context, the party seeking discovery may then “raise in response whatever legitimate and important countervailing interests disclosure serves, while the party seeking protection may identify feasible alternatives that serve the same interests or protective measures that would diminish the loss of privacy.

A court must then balance these competing considerations.” (Williams, supra, 3 Cal.5th 531, 552.) “The proponent of discovery of constitutionally protected material” must make “a threshold showing that the evidence sought is ‘directly relevant’ to the claim or defense” and “essential to the fair resolution of the lawsuit[.]” (Harris v. Superior Court (1992) 3 Cal.App.4th 661, 665 [disapproved on other grounds by Williams, supra, 3 Cal.5th 531, 557, fn. 8] [quoting Britt, supra, 20 Cal.3d 844, 859].)

That Plaintiff has a legally protected interest in keeping the records demanded in the Medical Subpoenas private is beyond dispute. (See Grafilo v. Wolfsohn (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th 1024, 1034 [“well-settled” that patients have a right to keep the information in their medical records private]; Cross v. Superior Court (2017) 11 Cal.App.5th 305, 325-326 [same]; County of Los Angeles v. Superior Court (2021) 65 Cal.App.5th 621, 643 [same for prescription records, which are themselves medical records]; People v.

Martinez (2001) 88 Cal.App.4th 465, 474-475 [“It is settled that a person’s medical history, including psychological records, falls within the zone of informational privacy protected under Section 1 [of the California Constitution].”].) In addition to calling for information protected by the state constitutional right to privacy, the subpoenas also call for information protected by the physician-patient and psychotherapist-patient privileges. (Evid. Code, §§ 992, 994, 1012, 1014.)

Plaintiff has, to an extent, put her mental health and emotional condition in issue. She alleges that she has experienced, and continues to experience, emotional distress as a result of Defendants’ alleged conduct (see, e.g., FAC, ¶¶ 31, 39, 48, 55) and seeks damages for that injury (id. at Prayer, ¶ 5), so she should reasonably expect some discovery into her emotional condition. But given that Plaintiff is alleging discrete mental health/emotional symptoms resulting from conduct that allegedly began in April 2020 (id. at ¶ 13), an expectation that the litigation will not compel disclosure of every conceivable aspect of her mental health history for a period beginning eight years before that is reasonable.

Similarly, Plaintiff has put certain aspects of her pregnancy-related medical care in issue by alleging that her pregnancy rendered her disabled and that Peet’s failed to reasonably accommodate that disability. (See, e.g., FAC, ¶¶ 45-46, 54.) Her expectation that these allegations would not compromise the privacy of every aspect of her pregnancy-related care (even over a limited period), including medical information unrelated to

the manner in which her pregnancy limited her abilities, is reasonable. The Court concludes that the Medical Subpoenas call for substantial information in which Plaintiff has a reasonable expectation of privacy.

As for the severity of the intrusion, these requests speak for themselves. Information about one’s psychological history and prenatal care is highly sensitive. It is difficult to imagine how a defendant could seek information relating to emotional distress in a more invasive way. The gratuitous request for information about any abortion care Plaintiff may or may not have had appears, on its face, intended only to scare her, as that has no plausible relevance to any aspect of this case.

Plaintiff has satisfied the three-prong test described in Williams, supra, 3 Cal.5th 531, 552. The Court turns to Defendants’ showing that the information sought is directly relevant to Plaintiff’s claims and essential to a fair resolution of the suit. (Harris, supra, 3 Cal.App.4th 661, 665.) It will address this issue on a categorical basis.

Category 1

The Medical Subpoenas’ Category 1 seeks Plaintiff’s records relating to certain psychological symptoms she has alleged that she has experienced, or continues to experience, due to Defendants’ conduct, and certain physical conditions she has reported as manifestations of her emotional distress.

Defendants argue that Plaintiff has placed her emotional condition in issue, 1 so they are entitled to examine her medical providers’ records pertaining to her emotional condition to check the veracity of her allegations and to look for evidence of alternative causation. As the Court alluded to above, the FAC alleges that Plaintiff “has suffered and continues to suffer pain and suffering, emotional distress, mental anguish, shame, embarrassment, and injury to reputation.” (FAC, ¶¶ 31, 39, 48, 79; see also 55, 63, 89 [other allegations of emotional distress].)

She has indicated in discovery that her emotional distress has manifested in physical symptoms, and that her injuries are ongoing. (Wynne Dec., Exs. A [Form Interrogatory Nos. 212.2, 212.3], B [285:4-286:2].) She seeks compensation for these injuries. (Prayer, ¶ 5.) Based on these allegations, the Court agrees with Defendants that the evidence sought in Category 1 is directly relevant to Plaintiff’s claims and essential to a fair resolution of the lawsuit (subject to a time restriction, discussed

1 The parties argue over whether Plaintiff is alleging what they call “gardenvariety emotional distress” as distinguished from some other kind of emotional distress. Neither party adequately explains what role this distinction should play in the Court’s resolution of this motion to quash. The concept of “garden-variety emotional distress” is generally relevant to the question of whether a plaintiff has waived the federal law psychotherapist-patient privilege by alleging emotional distress in a lawsuit, thus justifying the disclosure of her psychological records in discovery. (See, e.g., Fitzgerald v. Cassil (N.D. Cal. 2003) 216 F.R.D. 632, 637; Stallworth v. Brollini (N.D. Cal. 2012) 288 F.R.D. 439, 443.) The instant motion is governed exclusively by state law.

below). Critically, Category 1 has been reasonably tailored to target records pertaining to the specific psychological injuries and associated physical symptoms Plaintiff has alleged that she has experienced due to Defendants’ conduct. The Court would have granted the motion as to Category 1 if this were not the case, because this is required to bring the request within the confines of Evidence Code, section 1016’s patient-litigant exception to the psychotherapistpatient privilege:

“Under section 1016 disclosure can be compelled only with respect to those mental conditions the patient-litigant has ‘disclose[d] . . . by bringing an action in which they are in issue’; communications which are not directly relevant to those specific conditions do not fall within the terms of section 1016’s exception and therefore remain privileged. . . . The patient is thus not obligated to sacrifice all privacy to seek redress for a specific mental or emotional injury; the scope of the inquiry permitted depends upon the nature of the injuries which the patient- litigant himself has brought before the court.”

(In re Lifschutz (1970) 2 Cal.3d 415, 435 [quoting City and County of San Francisco v. Superior Court (1951) 37 Cal.2d 227, 232]; accord Britt v. Superior Court (1978) 20 Cal.3d 844, 864.)

This request seeks documents from January 1, 2012 to the present. Defendants explain that they are seeking records that would permit them to investigate alternative causes of the emotional injuries Plaintiff attributes to their alleged conduct. This inquiry is permissible given Plaintiff’s allegations. (See Vinson, supra, 43 Cal.3d 833, 839-840 [“[B]y asserting a causal link between her mental distress and defendants’ conduct, plaintiff implicitly claims it was not caused by a preexisting mental condition, thereby raising the question of alternative sources for the distress.”].)

Reaching back eight years before the conduct allegedly commenced, however, is excessive. Arguing otherwise, Defendants rely on In re Lifschutz (1970) 2 Cal.3d 415. That case arose out of a separate lawsuit in which a plaintiff (Housek) sued a defendant (Arabian) for assault, alleging both physical and emotional injuries. (2 Cal.3d 415, 559.) During his deposition, Housek revealed that he had received psychiatric treatment from Dr. Joseph Lifschutz for a sixmonth period ten years previously. (Ibid.)

Arabian then subpoenaed Lifschutz, demanding all of his medical records pertaining to the treatment of Housek. (Ibid.) Lifschutz refused to produce the records or to answer any questions about his treatment of patients. (Ibid.) Arabian moved to compel Lifschutz to provide the records and to answer questions about his treatment of Housek at deposition, and the trial court granted the motion, holding that the statutory psychotherapistpatient privilege did not apply. (Id. at p. 421.) Lifschutz refused to comply and was held in contempt. (Ibid.)

Lifschutz does not support the proposition for which Defendants offer it, which is that where a plaintiff alleges psychological harm, a defendant may obtain the plaintiff’s psychological records

for a period predating the conduct that is the subject of the litigation by up to ten years in order to investigate alternative causation. Lifschutz was a proceeding on Lifschutz’s habeas petition and largely concerned matters unrelated to the propriety of the trial court’s order compelling Lifschutz to cooperate with discovery efforts in the underlying assault case (Housek v. Arabian). The Supreme Court did not address the ten-years-in-the-past aspect of the trial court’s order except to say that it doubted records that old could be discovered in light of the psychotherapistpatient privilege and the scope of the patient-litigant exception to that privilege. (2 Cal.3d 415, 436.)

The trial court’s decision in Housek v. Arabian is not binding on this Court, and the limited details Lifschutz provides regarding that decision do not suggest that it is persuasive given the facts of this case. There is no indication that the trial court’s decision on the motion to compel had anything to do with alternative causation.

To diminish Plaintiff’s loss of privacy, the Court is limiting Category 1 to the period from April 1, 2018 (approximately two years before the time Plaintiff alleges Defendants’ wrongful conduct commenced, see FAC, ¶ 13) to the present. Defendants may obtain the records described in Category 1 for that time period. The motion is otherwise GRANTED as to Category 1.

Category 2

The Court is not persuaded that requests for essentially all psychological records pertaining to Plaintiff (Category 2) are directly relevant and essential to a fair resolution of this case, or even “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2017.010.) Plaintiff has not placed her entire psyche in issue by making allegations of specified psychological symptoms, and this category would embrace records pertaining strictly to psychological conditions she does not attribute to Defendants, meaning it demands privileged information. (Evid. Code, § 1014; Lifschutz, supra, 2 Cal.3d 415, 435.) The motion is GRANTED as to Category 2.

Category 3

Category 3 seeks the health care providers’ records relating to disability certifications, leave of absence documentation, work restrictions, job modifications, and the like. Plaintiff is alleging that her pregnancy rendered her disabled and that Defendants failed to accommodate her disability. As a result, medical records bearing on the nature and extent of her pregnancy-related disability, or on what kind of accommodation she would need, are directly relevant, are essential to a fair resolution of the lawsuit, and fall within the patient-litigant exception to the physicianpatient privilege. (Evid.

Code, § 996.) But Category 3 goes further than that. It demands disability certifications, fitness-for-duty evaluations, return-to-work clearances, and the like “relating to emotional distress, . . . stress, anxiety, . . . or any psychological or physical condition[.]” Given that Plaintiff does not allege that she had a disability related to her psychological state, or that she requested accommodations at work related to such a disability, this portion of Category 3 does not seek documents that are directly related to her claims and

essential to a fair resolution of the lawsuit, or even that are reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2017.010.) It also seeks documents protected by the psychotherapist-patient privilege. (Evid. Code, § 1014.) The motion to quash is GRANTED as to Category 3 to the extent it seeks records not related to “pregnancy” or “miscarriage.”

What remains of Category 3 is temporally overbroad. Defendants are seeking records dating back to January 2012. The only explanation Defendants offer as to why some of their requests go back this far is that they are looking for evidence of alternative causes of Plaintiff’s alleged psychological injuries. This explanation does not make any sense as applied to the surviving portion of Category 3. The Court sees no reason why records otherwise responsive to the surviving portion of Category 3 would be relevant to this case at all, let alone directly relevant and essential to a fair resolution of the suit, if they are not temporally associated with the pregnancy-related disability alleged in the FAC.

Plaintiff alleges that she reported the pregnancy to her employer and requested accommodations on approximately February 3, 2021, and unfortunately miscarried in late February. (FAC, ¶¶ 19-21.) January 1, 2021, through March 31, 2021, seems like an appropriate date range for this request, unless there is evidence that Plaintiff’s pregnancy began prior to January 1, 2021.

Category 4

Category 4 demands records bearing on any history Plaintiff may have of psychiatric drug use. This request is simply too tangential to what Plaintiff is alleging in this case for the Court to conclude that it seeks “directly relevant” information. The Court cannot locate any allegation from Plaintiff that she required psychiatric treatment as a result of Defendants’ alleged conduct, so this request feels like a fishing expedition of the impermissible sort. The motion is GRANTED as to Category 4.

Category 5

Category 5 requests “[a]ny and all records pertaining to” Plaintiff and “relating to” “[a]ny pregnancy related care, prenatal care, miscarriage, abortion, pregnancy complications, emotional distress associated with pregnancy or miscarriage, or any related physical or psychological symptoms from December 1, 2020 through December 31, 2021.” Defendants suggest that “[r]ecords from [Plaintiff’s] medical providers concerning pregnancy-related care” are directly relevant to her claims because she “alleges pregnancy discrimination, pregnancy-related disability, failure to accommodate and failure to engage in the interactive process[.]” (Opposition, p. 11.)

The logic here is not clear to the Court. These allegations might implicate records bearing on the nature or extent of Plaintiff’s pregnancy-related disability, or on what kind of accommodation she would need (that is, the records the Court is permitting Defendants to obtain through Category 3). But this request is much broader than that. To the extent Defendants are seeking records that would permit them to investigate whether Plaintiff’s

pregnancy was the true cause of the emotional injuries she attributes to their behavior, those records would be forthcoming through Category 1 and need not be sought through Category 5 as well. The motion to quash is GRANTED as to Category 5.

Category 6

The Court feels similarly about Category 6, which asks for records of essentially any contact Plaintiff had with her medical providers on four specified dates in February 2021. This request is not limited by topic, meaning it would embrace medical records having nothing to do with this case. The motion is GRANTED as to Category 6.

EDD Subpoena

The EDD Subpoena seeks literally everything in EDD’s possession relating to Plaintiff, without any topic or time constraint. (See Goldstein Dec., Ex. E1 [seeking “[a]ny and all records pertaining to REINA ISABEL YAH (DOB: January 6, 1986; SSN: xxx-xx-[xxxx]), including all written, printed, typed, recorded, electronic, photographic, or graphic materials of any kind[.]”].) The subpoena describes certain categories of materials it is seeking, but it states that the records sought include, but are not limited to, those categories. (Ibid.) This discovery device is obviously not “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence[.]” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2017.010.)

Plaintiff challenges the EDD Subpoena primarily on the ground that it seeks privileged information. The Unemployment Insurance Code provides that subject to certain exceptions no one contends apply here, “the information obtained in the administration of this code is confidential, not open to the public, and shall be for the exclusive use and information of the director in discharge of his or her duties.” (Unemp. Ins. Code, § 1094, subd. (a).) By its terms, this statutory protection appears to apply to at least a substantial portion of what is sought in the EDD Subpoena, and Defendants do not present any argument otherwise.

Instead, they essentially concede that it applies and suggest that the Court limit the subpoena to get around this issue. (See Opposition, p. 13 [“Even assuming certain categories of EDD records may be protected under the Unemployment Insurance Code, that does not justify quashing the Subpoena in its entirety.”].) The Court does not see how it could limit the subpoena to eliminate the requests for statutorily protected documents without performing a wholesale rewrite. It cannot cure the problem by limiting the EDD Subpoena to those documents described in its seven enumerated categories and/or granting the motion to quash as to discrete categories, because all of the categorical requests seek a mix of documents that appear to fall within Section 1094(a)’s protections and documents that do not.

The Court will not take up the task of redrafting this discovery request without any guidance from Defendants. The motion is GRANTED as to the EDD Subpoena.

Sanctions

When the court rules on a motion brought under Code of Civil Procedure, section 1987.1, it “may in its discretion award the amount of the reasonable expenses incurred in making or opposing the motion, including reasonable attorney’s fees, if the court finds the motion was made or opposed in bad faith or without substantial justification or that one or more of the requirements of the subpoena was oppressive.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 1987.2, subd. (a).) Plaintiff’s request for fees is GRANTED in the amount of $9,612.00 (Goldstein Dec., ¶ 15) based on the following oppressive requests: (1) Defendants’ legally unsupported request for disclosure of Plaintiff’s complete psychological and psychiatric history over a fourteen-year period; (2) their equally unsupported request for disclosure of all pregnancy-related healthcare she received over a year-long period; and (3) their gratuitous, speculative, and irrelevant request for information about her history of abortion care.

Contrary to Defendants’ belief, Plaintiff did not seek fees solely in relation to the EDD Subpoena. (See Memorandum, p. 10.)

Defendants’ Request for Continuance of Discovery

Defendants request that to the extent the Court denies the motion, it permit discovery relating to the subpoenaed records to extend past the current discovery cut-off date of June 16, 2026 and through July 1, 2026. While it finds this request reasonable, the Court doubts that it is permitted to grant the request as posed in Defendants’ opposition to Plaintiff’s motion to quash, because Code of Civil Procedure, section 2024.050 (governing requests for an extension of the discovery period) contemplates a separate motion. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2024.050, subd. (a).) The parties are encouraged to stipulate to the extension Defendants describe to avoid the need for that motion. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 2024.060.)

All parties must comply with Marin County Superior Court Local Rules, Rule 2.10(B) to contest the tentative decision. Parties who request oral argument are required to appear in person or remotely by ZOOM. Regardless of whether a party requests oral argument in accordance with Rule 2.10(B), the prevailing party shall prepare an order consistent with the announced ruling as required by Marin County Superior Court Local Rules, Rule 2.11.

The Zoom appearance information for June, 2026 is as follows: https://marin-courts-ca-gov.zoomgov.com/j/1605267272?pwd=908CbP6TV2mhCAyai1nzo6lyz2dKaw.1

Meeting ID: 160 526 7272 Passcode: 026935

If you are unable to join by video, you may join by telephone by calling (669) 254-5252 and using the above-provided passcode. Zoom appearance information may also be found on the Court’s website: https://www.marin.courts.ca.gov