Watson v. National Gypsum Company

Background

Justin Watson sued National Gypsum Company, National Gypsum Services Company, and Gold Bond Building Products LLC. The opinion states that Watson worked for the defendants as a maintenance mechanic apprentice for more than four years until his termination on or about March 4, 2022. He asserted a claim under California Labor Code section 6310, which protects employees from retaliation for reporting unsafe working conditions, and a wrongful-termination claim based on public policy.

Fact discovery closed on August 15, 2025. The court addressed discovery disputes raised in Docket Entries 28 and 31 after directing the parties to meet and confer. The court decided the disputes without oral argument.

Discovery standards

The court explained that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) permits discovery of nonprivileged information relevant to a claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case. Proportionality requires consideration of factors including the importance of the issues, the amount at stake, the parties’ access to information and resources, the importance of the requested discovery, and the burden or expense compared with its likely benefit. The party seeking discovery bears the burden of showing relevance, while the resisting party must specifically explain its objections.

30(b)(6) deposition of Gold Bond Products LLC

The court stated that the parties’ meet-and-confer efforts had resolved the issues concerning the corporate deposition. A Rule 30(b)(6) deposition is a deposition in which an organization designates a representative to testify about specified topics. Based on the record, the court found that no dispute remained and held that the matter was moot. It denied without prejudice as moot the motion concerning the deposition.

Subpoena for medical records

Watson said the parties had agreed that his counsel would receive subpoenaed medical records from Kaiser first, so counsel could review and redact records as needed. The defendants represented that defense counsel had asked the subpoena service to provide the records to Watson’s counsel under that agreement when the records were ready.

The court ordered the parties to file a status report by December 3, 2025, stating whether the records had been produced or whether they had agreed on a date or plan for production. Based on the parties’ agreement that any production would follow the first-look procedure, the court denied as moot the motion concerning the medical-records subpoena. The court also described additional steps the parties would need to take if Kaiser had not produced the records by December 3, including providing Kaiser’s counsel with the order and filing information about the subpoena and the production plan.

Other fact-discovery requests

Watson sought four categories of additional discovery: (1) last known contact information for former Gold Bond employee and witness Carla Pham; (2) scheduling documents; (3) information about safety complaints Watson allegedly made to Gold Bond; and (4) information and documents concerning the points allegedly accrued toward his termination, including points related to time lost because of COVID and late clock-ins allegedly caused by an obstruction at the facility’s front entrance.

The defendants did not dispute the relevance of these categories for discovery purposes but argued that Watson raised the disputes too late. The court found that Watson knew the defendants’ positions by July 10, 2025, had more than a month before the August 15 discovery cutoff to seek relief, and did not show sufficient diligence. The court also noted that Watson had deposed several employees on some of the topics and had not shown why broad requests for all documents outweighed the burden of searching for, processing, and producing them.

The court found the requests for scheduling documents, safety-complaint information, and termination-point information not proportional to the needs of the case. It denied Watson’s requests for additional discovery in categories 2 through 4.

The court treated the request for Pham’s contact information differently. It found that providing one person’s last known contact information would impose little burden and was proportional to the needs of the case. The court ordered the defendant to serve a supplemental initial disclosure or supplemental interrogatory response providing Pham’s last known contact information by December 5, 2025. Because the defendants raised privacy concerns, the information had to be designated and treated as confidential under the court’s model protective order until a finalized protective order governed.

Disposition

Judge Peter H. Kang concluded by denying in part and granting in part the discovery motions and stated that the order resolved Docket Entries 28 and 31.