Williams v. Super. Ct.

Filed 5/15/15 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

MICHAEL WILLIAMS, B259967

Petitioner, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BC503806) v.

SUPERIOR COURT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY,

Respondent;

MARSHALLS OF CA, LLC,

Real Party in Interest.

Petition for extraordinary writ. William F. Highberger, Judge. Petition is denied. Capstone Law, Glenn A. Danas, Robert Drexler, Stan Karas, Liana Carter for Petitioner. No appearance for Respondent. Littler Mendelson, Robert G. Hulteng, Joshua J. Cliffe, Emily E. O’Connor, Scott D. Helsinger for Real Party in Interest. _______________

Background Beginning in January 2012, plaintiff Michael Williams was an employee at a retail store operated by Marshalls of CA (Marshalls) in Costa Mesa, California. On March 22, 2013, after a little more than one year of employment, he brought a representative action against Marshalls under the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA) (Lab. Code, §§ 2698-2699.5), alleging Marshalls failed to provide its employees with meal and rest breaks or premium pay in lieu thereof (Lab. Code, §§ 226.7 & 512),1 to provide accurate wage statements (§ 226, subd. (a)), to reimburse employees for necessary business-related expenses (§§ 2800 & 2802), and to pay all earned wages during employment (§ 204). On February 5, 2014, plaintiff served special interrogatories seeking production of the names and contact information of all nonexempt Marshalls employees in California who had worked for the company beginning on March 22, 2012. Marshalls objected to the discovery on the ground it was irrelevant, overbroad, unduly burdensome, and implicated the privacy rights of its employees. Plaintiff met and conferred with Marshalls, offering to address its privacy concerns with a “Belaire-West notice,”2 but Marshalls rejected the offer. Plaintiff moved to compel the discovery, arguing the contact information was routinely discoverable in representative employee actions and vital to the prosecution of his PAGA claims. The trial court granted plaintiff’s motion in part, compelling Marshalls to produce contact information for the employees only at its Costa Mesa store and denying production of the contact information of employees at Marshalls other 128 stores statewide. The court ordered that plaintiff could renew his motion to compel the remaining information after he had been deposed “for at least six productive hours.” The court also ruled that in opposition to any such motion, Marshalls could attempt to show plaintiff’s substantive claims had no factual merit.