Garcia v. ISS Facility Services, Inc.
- Richard Seeborg
- 3:19-cv-07807
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In Garcia v. ISS Facility Services, Magistrate Judge Illman partly granted and partly denied Garcia’s discovery requests in a wage-and-hour class action.
Claudia Garcia, ISS Facility Services, Inc., the other defendants, and absent proposed class members whose contact information may be disclosed if they do not object.
What happened
Garcia v. ISS Facility Services, Inc. involves Garcia’s requests for discovery in a proposed class action and representative action alleging wage-and-hour violations under California law. The requests covered information about ISS’s defenses, employees, and potential class members.
The court denied as moot requests for information that ISS agreed to provide. It granted the request for documents supporting ISS’s affirmative defenses and granted the request for potential class members’ contact information, subject to a notice procedure allowing those people to object. The court denied the remaining requests without prejudice because Garcia had not yet shown that the broad discovery was relevant and likely to help establish that the case could proceed as a class action.
Magistrate Judge Illman ruled that Garcia’s discovery requests were granted in part and denied in part. The parties were ordered to promptly meet and confer about the notice procedure for releasing contact information to Garcia’s counsel.
The detailed version
- Garcia v. ISS Facility Services, Inc. · No. 3:19-cv-07807
- Richard Seeborg
- July 13, 2023
Background
This was a pre-certification proposed class action under California’s wage-and-hour laws and a representative action under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004. Garcia filed a jointly submitted letter brief describing 14 categories of discovery she sought from ISS and the other defendants. The court decided the dispute without oral argument.
Legal standard
A party seeking to compel discovery must show that the requested information is relevant and satisfies the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26, including proportionality. Proportionality requires weighing the likely benefit of the discovery against its burden and expense. In a proposed class action, a plaintiff seeking pre-certification class discovery must make an initial showing that the requirements for a class action may be satisfied or that the requested discovery is likely to support the class allegations.
Rulings on the discovery requests
The defendants agreed to supplement their responses to several requests, including Interrogatory Nos. 1, 4–5, 7, 22, and 23, and Request for Production No. 32. The court therefore denied as moot Garcia’s request to compel those items.
The court granted Garcia’s request to compel any outstanding documents responsive to Request for Production No. 41. That request sought relevant, nonprivileged documents supporting the defendants’ 40 affirmative defenses. The defendants had not addressed this request in their portion of the letter brief.
The court concluded that Garcia had not adequately justified most of the remaining broad, statewide discovery requests. The court stated that some discovery was warranted to give Garcia a fair opportunity to determine whether she could make the initial showing needed for class certification, but that she had not yet demonstrated an entitlement to all of the information sought. The remainder of Garcia’s requests to compel were denied without prejudice.
Potential class members’ contact information
The court separately addressed Garcia’s request for the identity and contact information of absent proposed class members. It held that disclosure was permitted subject to the opt-out procedures described in Belaire-West Landscape, Inc. v. Superior Court. Those procedures require notice giving the affected people an opportunity to object to disclosure. The court ordered the parties to promptly meet and confer about implementing and sending the notices so Garcia could receive the information for people who did not object.
Disposition
Magistrate Judge Robert M. Illman stated that Garcia’s requests to compel were granted in part and denied in part. The request concerning affirmative-defense documents was granted; the request for potential class members’ contact information was granted subject to the opt-out procedures; certain requests were denied as moot; and the remaining requests were denied without prejudice.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.