California Supreme Court Expands Scope of PAGA Discovery

On July 13, 2017, in a decision with serious repercussions on the scope of PAGA discovery, the California Supreme Court overruled the Court of Appeals in Williams v. Superior Court to allow state-wide discovery of Marshalls employees' contact information, without the plaintiff first having to show any evidence to support his own individual claims or the existence of a company-wide policy.

Plaintiff was a Marshalls employee who brought an action under the California Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act ("PAGA") for meal and rest break violations, timely wage payment, and wage statement violations. At the start of discovery, the plaintiff sought employee contact information pertaining to the approximately 16,500 non-exempt workers across all Marshalls locations in California. Although the trial court and the Court of Appeals held that incremental discovery was more appropriate and denied the plaintiff's request for any employee contact information outside of his own work location until after undergoing "six productive hours of deposition," the California Supreme Court disagreed.

Instead, the Supreme Court, in a lengthy opinion, shut down each of the Court of Appeals' objections to the plaintiff's request for state-wide discovery. First, the Supreme Court held that "[i]n pursuing such [representative] discovery, the strength or weakness of the plaintiff's individual claim is immaterial." Second, the Supreme Court stated that state-wide discovery was proper absent any company-wide or uniform policy as "[a] uniform policy may be a convenient or desirable way to show commonality of interest in a case where class certification is sought, but it is not a condition for discovery, or even success, in a PAGA action..."

Third, regarding objections to the plaintiff's discovery requests for undue burden and overbreadth, the Supreme Court similarly stated that the plaintiff's right to discovery is broad and that, absent claims of privilege or significant evidence of undue burden, his right to discovery extends to all information that is reasonably calculated to lead to discoverable information. Fourth, regarding the privacy rights that other employees have in their contact information, the Supreme Court stated that such privacy rights were not related to any "serious privacy invasion[s]." In making this ruling on privacy rights, the Supreme Court expressly disapproved of numerous California cases that have held that a "compelling interest" is required...