Silloway v. City and County of San Francisco

Background

This discovery order addressed information sought by the City and County of San Francisco (CCSF) from plaintiffs in a collective action involving staff nurses. The requested information concerned nurses whom plaintiffs contend CCSF prevented from working a regularly scheduled shift, involuntarily sent home from a shift, scheduled for fewer hours than their full-time equivalency, or denied the opportunity to work a regularly scheduled shift under the 2024–2027 memorandum of understanding. Plaintiffs had 208 opt-in staff nurses.

The information was relevant to whether staff nurses were guaranteed the opportunity to work the hours corresponding to their full-time equivalency every week. The court cited an earlier appellate decision in the case identifying that issue as material.

Court’s reasoning

The court found that contacting all 208 opt-in nurses would be burdensome, but not unduly burdensome. The information was important and relevant, and plaintiffs’ counsel did not dispute having the nurses’ contact information.

The court rejected plaintiffs’ argument that CCSF’s payroll records made the discovery unnecessary. CCSF stated that it was unaware of any staff nurse being sent home or denied the opportunity to work a normal shift. The court concluded that CCSF could ask plaintiffs the same questions to determine whether plaintiffs had a different answer.

The court also rejected plaintiffs’ argument that CCSF exceeded a limit of 25 interrogatories, or written questions, because the interrogatory was directed to 208 individual parties. Judge Seeborg had limited interrogatories to 25 per party, and the court stated that each nurse who opted into the collective action had party status. The court found that CCSF had asked for much less than the 25 interrogatories it could have asked each opt-in nurse. A different discovery limit agreed to in another case did not apply because the parties here had entered no such agreement.

Finally, the court rejected plaintiffs’ proposal to provide information from only a sample of opt-in nurses. Although experts might use only some of the data, the court found that CCSF reasonably wanted relevant data from all opt-in nurses before deciding how to analyze its payroll decisions.

Ruling

Judge Alex G. Tse ordered plaintiffs to provide the requested information by June 12, 2025. The court concluded that the discovery was relevant and that plaintiffs had not shown that its burden or expense outweighed its likely benefit under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1).

The court declined to set CCSF’s requested May 2, 2025 deadline, reasoning that CCSF had requested it only three days before that date and that three days was too short. The order stated that CCSF could seek relief from Judge Seeborg if it could not meet the expert-disclosure deadline without the authorized discovery.