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  January 5, 2009
  Source:  WorkInjury.com
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CA/2:   When Does Privacy Protect Employee Disclosure in Class Action Discovery?

In this published opinion, the owners of Joe's Crab Shack were sued in a class action case for violating meal and break labor laws for salaried employees. During discovery, counsel for the plaintiffs filed interrogatories requesting contact information for all salaried employees.

The company objected to providing such information based on the employees' right to privacy.

The suit claimed that employees were wrongfully misclassified so as to avoid the need to provide such breaks.

The appellate court based its opinion on the employees' expectation of privacy.

It ruled that, while under certain circumstances the employees' rights to privacy might indeed outweigh a party's right to have private information disclosed, in this situation it would be hard to imagine such employees would expect privacy since disclosing their contact information could help them join a lawsuit that would benefit them!

"[W]e must determine whether the person claiming the privacy right has a 'legally protected privacy interest'; whether the person has a '"reasonable expectation of privacy under the particular circumstances, including the customs, practices, and physical settings surrounding particular activities'; and whether the invasion of privacy is serious rather than trivial.

"While contact information generally is considered private, this 'does not mean that the individuals would not want it disclosed under these circumstances.' (citation) While employees would not likely want their contact information broadly disseminated, this does not mean they would want it withheld 'from plaintiffs seeking relief for violations of employment laws in the workplace that they shared.'

"Rather, employees similarly situated to petitioners 'may reasonably be supposed to want their information disclosed to counsel whose communications in the course of investigating the claims asserted in [petitioners'] lawsuit may alert them to similar claims they may be able to assert.'"

The case is Crab Addison v. Superior Court.

To read the full opinion,

      PLEASE CLICK HERE.