Pitts v. Airlines
- Thomas Hixson
- 3:24-cv-06936
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Joseph Pitts v. Southwest Airlines, Co., Judge Hixson ordered Pitts to produce specified discovery but declined to enforce RFP 74.
Joseph Pitts, who was ordered to produce specified documents, printouts, and fully executed witness declarations; Southwest Airlines, Co., which sought that discovery.
What happened
Joseph Pitts and Southwest Airlines, Co. had a dispute about several requests for documents. Southwest argued that Pitts responded late to its second set of requests, and the court generally treated his objections as waived, except for protections involving attorney-client privilege, attorney work product, and privacy.
The court ordered Pitts to produce documents responsive to RFPs 73 and 75, and to produce printouts rather than screenshots for RFPs 78, 88, and 92. It also ordered production for RFPs 90, 93, 94, and 96. The court declined to enforce RFP 74 because its time period largely came before Pitts’s employment with Southwest and it lacked a subject-matter limit.
Judge Thomas S. Hixson also ordered Pitts to produce fully signed witness declarations, but said counsel’s written statements and interview summaries were protected work product and did not have to be produced.
The detailed version
- Pitts v. Airlines · No. 3:24-cv-06936
- Thomas Hixson
- Oct. 29, 2025
Background
The parties submitted a discovery dispute concerning several requests for production, or RFPs. Southwest reported that Pitts served responses to its second set of RFPs after the deadline. The court found that the RFPs were dated May 30, 2025, and the responses were dated July 14, 2025, and noted that Pitts did not deny responding late.
The court therefore generally treated Pitts’s objections to the second set as waived. It made exceptions for documents protected by attorney-client privilege, attorney work product, or privacy.
RFPs Set Two
Southwest sought an order compelling production for RFPs 73, 74, and 75. The court granted Southwest’s motion to compel as to RFPs 73 and 75 and ordered Pitts to produce responsive documents in his possession, custody, or control. The court explained that “control” includes the legal right to obtain documents, even if Pitts does not currently possess them.
The court stated that it would not enforce RFP 74. It found that the RFP’s time period largely preceded Pitts’s employment with Southwest and that the request had no subject-matter limitation.
RFPs Set Three
For RFPs 78, 88, and 92, Southwest objected that Pitts had produced screenshots instead of documents. The court agreed that this was improper and ordered Pitts to produce printouts of the documents.
For RFP 90, the court found that Pitts did not appear to oppose the motion to compel and ordered him to produce responsive documents. Although Pitts did not discuss RFPs 93, 94, and 96 in the joint letter brief, his responses stated that he would produce responsive documents. The court accordingly ordered production responsive to those requests.
Witness Statements
The court distinguished between fully executed declarations and statements prepared by counsel. If the witness statements were fully executed declarations, Pitts was ordered to produce them because a signed declaration is a statement of facts by the witness, rather than counsel’s opinion. If the materials were instead statements written by counsel or summaries of interviews prepared by Pitts’s counsel, the court treated them as attorney work product and stated that they did not have to be produced.
Disposition
Judge Thomas S. Hixson granted Southwest’s motion to compel as to RFPs 73 and 75, declined to enforce RFP 74, and ordered production concerning RFPs 78, 88, 90, 92, 93, 94, and 96, subject to the court’s distinction between signed witness declarations and counsel’s work-product materials.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.