Fishon v. Peloton Interactive, Inc.

Background

The plaintiffs moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c) for a protective order limiting Peloton’s written discovery and deposition questions concerning plaintiff Ishmael Alvarado’s criminal history. They sought to limit inquiries about crimes for which more than ten years had passed since his conviction or release from confinement. The plaintiffs agreed to provide criminal-history information under a protective order. They also objected to discovery into Alvarado’s financial history that was not limited by time.

Peloton had requested all documents and communications concerning Alvarado’s prior criminal convictions. Alvarado agreed to produce nonprivileged documents reflecting convictions from the past ten years. He also answered that the only criminal matter in which he had been involved during that period concerned a second-degree unlawful-surveillance charge, for which he was convicted and sentenced to five years of probation. Peloton represented that Alvarado had a thirty-year criminal history that appeared to include at least eight convictions, including rape, assault on a female, breaking and entering, unlawful surveillance, and other charges related to sexual misconduct. The opinion states that at least one conviction, for attempted burglary, appeared related to unauthorized entry into a women’s locker room.

Court’s analysis

Rule 26(c) allows a court, for good cause, to protect a party or other person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense. The court explained that Alvarado’s criminal history could be relevant to whether he was an adequate class representative. Under Rule 23(a)(4), adequacy concerns whether the named plaintiff can fairly and adequately protect absent class members’ interests. The court stated that a criminal conviction does not automatically prevent someone from serving as a class representative. Instead, concerns about a representative’s credibility must be relevant to the claims and sufficiently connected to issues that could become the focus of cross-examination or create unique defenses at trial.

Ruling

The court granted in part and denied in part the plaintiffs’ motion. It required Alvarado to answer document requests concerning his criminal history, convictions, and criminal proceedings without a date limitation. That information had to be produced under a protective order that generally limited disclosure to people involved in the litigation. If Peloton sought to present the information to the court, it would have to file it under seal in the first instance.

The court did not permit Peloton to question Alvarado at a deposition about convictions or criminal proceedings outside the ten-year period because Peloton had not demonstrated a need for that questioning. The court denied the plaintiffs’ request for a protective order concerning financial-history requests because the plaintiffs had not identified anything objectionable about those requests apart from the criminal-history and criminal-proceeding requests. Judge Lewis J. Liman directed the Clerk of Court to close the motion and noted that the plaintiffs could separately seek to seal documents previously filed by Peloton, including documents related to this dispute.