Hetland v. LendingTree, LLC

Background

C. Johannes Hetland sued LendingTree, LLC in an employment dispute. He alleges that LendingTree terminated him in retaliation for complaining that it had not provided him with performance-based restricted stock units. His claims include breach of contract and certain wage-and-hour violations.

The order addresses a joint discovery-dispute letter concerning LendingTree’s subpoena to eHealth, Hetland’s subsequent employer. The court reviewed the parties’ written submissions and found that oral argument was unnecessary.

Privacy and relevance analysis

The court stated that employment-file privacy objections require balancing the requesting party’s need for information against the individual’s privacy rights under federal or state law. Except for one issue, the court found that the requested documents implicated Hetland’s state-law privacy interests.

For Categories 3, 4, and 6, LendingTree sought documents concerning Hetland’s performance evaluations or disciplinary actions at eHealth. The court denied those requests because Hetland’s performance at eHealth was not at issue. The court also rejected LendingTree’s argument that this information would show whether LendingTree’s stated reasons for terminating Hetland were pretextual, explaining that the request would amount to propensity evidence. The court noted that Hetland was not seeking damages for the period after he began working at eHealth and that LendingTree had not identified a reason to believe eHealth terminated him, much less terminated him for conduct similar to the conduct LendingTree said led to his termination.

For Categories 7 and 8, the court declined to compel production of the additional documents. The court found them insufficiently relevant to overcome their private nature. Hetland had agreed to produce eHealth’s offer letter and agreements or contracts, which gave LendingTree information for comparing the two employment offers. The court found LendingTree’s other reasons for seeking more documents too weak to require production.

Ruling

For Category 5, the court granted the motion to compel, but only as to documents sufficient to show Hetland’s actual start and end dates at eHealth. If the new-hire documents already agreed to be produced confirmed the start date, no additional start-date documents were required. The court concluded that the end-date information was not private. The order disposed of Docket No. 24. Judge Jacquelyn Corley signed the order.