Silloway v. City and County of San Francisco

Background

This was a discovery order concerning staff nurses’ unpaid time and overtime claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act. According to the City and County of San Francisco (CCSF), staff nurses sometimes asked the payroll department not to pay them for certain holiday-related hours and to defer using those hours until later. CCSF’s payroll system had no existing code for those situations, so its experts created a post hoc “Voluntary Leave Without Pay” code to account for them in this litigation.

What the Plaintiffs Sought

The plaintiffs sought documents showing when named plaintiffs or opt-in plaintiffs requested, or CCSF approved, pay deferrals for holiday-related hours during the relevant period. They also sought documents concerning any CCSF policy or practice for processing those requests. The court said the records could help determine whether unpaid time resulted from CCSF’s actions, such as cutting shifts or pay, or from nurses’ requests to defer holiday pay. That distinction was relevant to whether the nurses qualified as professionals exempt from Fair Labor Standards Act overtime requirements.

Ruling

Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse ordered CCSF to produce, by June 13, 2025, all documents within those categories. The court held that the discovery was relevant to the claims and defenses and that CCSF had not shown that its burden or expense outweighed the likely benefit. The order covered relevant documents even if CCSF’s experts did not rely, or did not plan to rely, on them. CCSF did not have to reproduce documents it had already produced, but it had to produce any other documents within the order’s scope.