Samantha Arredondo v. County of San Bernardino

CourtDistrict Court, C.D. California
DecidedMay 22, 2024
Docket5:24-cv-00163
StatusUnknown

This text of Samantha Arredondo v. County of San Bernardino (Samantha Arredondo v. County of San Bernardino) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, C.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Samantha Arredondo v. County of San Bernardino, (C.D. Cal. 2024).

Opinion

1 || Eugene P. Ramirez (State Bar No. 134865) eugene. □□ So 2 || Lynn Carpenter (State Bar No. 310011) gin carpenter@manningkass.com 3 ayleig! Andersen (State Bar No. 306442) Kasei .andersen@manningkass.com 4|| MANNING & KASS ELLROD, RAMIREZ, TRESTER LLP 5||801 S. Figueroa St, 15th Floor, Los Angeles, California 90017-3012 6 || Telephone: GB) 624-6900 Facsimile: (213) 624-6999 7 Attorneys for Defendant, COUNTY OF 8 || SAN BERNARDINO 9 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 10 CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 11

SAMANTHA ARREDONDO, Case No. 5:24-cv-00163-KK-DTB 13 individually and as Successor in Interest to Samuel Arredondo, deceased, 14 STIPULATED PROTECTIVE Plaintiff, ORDER; [PROPOSED] ORDER 15 V. Z| 616 COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO, a FQ! municipal entity, and DOES 1-10, Action Filed: 01/23/24 Inclusive, 18 Defendants. 19 20 21 || TO THE HONORABLE COURT: 22 By and through their counsel of record in this action, SAMANTHA 23 || ARREDONDO ("Plaintiff"), and COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO ("Defendant") 24 ||— the parties — hereby stipulate for the purpose of jointly requesting that the honorable 25 || Court enter a protective order re confidential documents in this matter [and pursuant 26 || to Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2, 7, and 26, as well as U.S. Dist. Ct., S.D. Cal., Local Rules 7-1 27 ||and 52-4.1; and any applicable Orders of the Court] — as follows: 28 || ///

Li} 1. A. PURPOSES AND LIMITATIONS 2 Discovery in this action is likely to involve production of confidential, 3 || proprietary, or private information for which special protection from public disclosure 4 || and from use for any purpose other than prosecuting this litigation may be warranted. 5 || Accordingly, the parties hereby stipulate to and petition the Court to enter the 6 || following Stipulated Protective Order. The parties acknowledge that this Order does 7 ||not confer blanket protections on all disclosures or responses to discovery and that 8 || the protection it affords from public disclosure and use extends only to the limited 9 || information or items that are entitled to confidential treatment under the applicable 10 || legal principles. The parties further acknowledge, as set forth in Section 12.3, below, 11||that this Stipulated Protective Order does not entitle them to file confidential

12 || information under seal; Civil Local Rule 79-5 sets forth the procedures that must be 13 || followed and the standards that will be applied when a party seeks permission from 14 || the court to file material under seal. 15 B. GOOD CAUSE STATEMENT 16 Defendant contends that peace officers have a federal privilege of privacy in 3 —17||their personnel file records: a reasonable expectation of privacy therein that is 18 || underscored, specified, and arguably heightened by the Pitchess protective procedure 19 || of California law. See Sanchez v. Santa Ana Police Dept., 936 F.2d 1027, 1033-1034 20 || (9th Cir. 1990); Hallon v. City of Stockton, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14665, *2-3, 12- 21 || 13 (E.D. Cal. 2012) (concluding that “while “[f]ederal law applies to privilege based 22 ||discovery disputes involving federal claims,” the “state privilege law which is 23 consistent with its federal equivalent significantly assists in applying [federal] 24 || privilege law to discovery disputes’’); Soto v. City of Concord, 162 F.R.D. 603, 613 25 ||n. 4, 616 (N.D. Cal. 1995) (peace officers have constitutionally-based “privacy rights 26 || [that] are not inconsequential” in their police personnel records); cf: Cal. Penal Code 27||§§ 832.7, 832.8; Cal. Evid. Code §§ 1040-1047. Defendant further contends that 28 || uncontrolled disclosure of such personnel file information can threaten the safety of

1 || non-party witnesses, officers, and their families/associates. 2 Second, Defendant contends that municipalities and law enforcement agencie 3 ||have federal deliberative-executive process privilege, federal official informatio 4|| privilege, federal law enforcement privilege, and attorney-client privilege (and/c 5 ||attorney work product protection). Defendant further contends that personnel fil 6||records are restricted from disclosure by the public entity’s custodian of record 7 || pursuant to applicable California law and that uncontrolled release is likely to result i 8 ||needless intrusion of officer privacy; impairment in the collection of third-part 9||witness information and statements and related legitimate law enforcemer 10 || investigations/interests; and a chilling of open and honest discussion regarding and/c 11 || investigation into alleged misconduct that can erode a public entity’s ability to identif 12 || and/or implement any remedial measures that may be required. 13 In light of the nature of the claims and allegations in this case and the parties 14 || representations that discovery in this case will involve the production of □□□□□□□□□□□ 15 records, and in order to expedite the flow of information, to facilitate the promr 16 || resolution of disputes over confidentiality of discovery materials, to adequately protec 5 17 information the parties are entitled to keep confidential, to ensure that the parties ar 18 || permitted reasonable necessary uses of such material in connection with this action, t 19 || address their handling of such material at the end of the litigation, and to serve the end 20 || of justice, a protective order for such information is justified in this matter. The partie 21 ||shall not designate any information/documents as confidential without a good fait 22 || belief that such information/documents have been maintained in a confidential, nor 23 || public manner, and that there is good cause or a compelling reason why it should nc 24 || be part of the public record of this case. 25 |} 2. DEFINITIONS. 26 2.1 Action: The above-captioned federal lawsuit. 27 2.2 Challenging Party: a Party or Non-Party that challenges the designatio 28 || of information or items under this Order.

1 2.3. “CONFIDENTIAL” Information or Items: information (regardless c 2 || how it is generated, stored or maintained) or tangible things that qualify for protectio 3 || under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c), and as specified above in the Good Caus 4 || Statement. 5 2.4 Counsel: Outside Counsel of Record and House Counsel (as well as the: 6 || support staff). 7 2.5 Designating Party: a Party or Non-Party that designates information 8|litems that it produces in disclosures or in responses to discovery a 9 || “CONFIDENTIAL.” 10 2.6 Disclosure or Discovery Material: all items or information, regardless 11 || the medium or manner in which it is generated, stored, or maintained (including, amon

12 || other things, testimony, transcripts, and tangible things), that are produced or generate 13 |}in disclosures, responses to discovery, deposition testimony, document production: 14 || and exchange of electronically stored information (“ESI”) in the Action. 15 2.7 Expert: a person with specialized knowledge or experience in a matte 16 || pertinent to the litigation who has been retained by a Party or its counsel to serve as a 3 expert witness or as a consultant in this Action. 18 2.8 House Counsel: attorneys who are employees of a party to this Actiot || House Counsel does not include Outside Counsel of Record or any other outsid 20 || counsel. 21 2.9 Non-Party: any natural person, partnership, corporation, association, ¢ 22 || other legal entity not named as a Party to this action.

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Related

Sanchez v. City of Santa Ana
936 F.2d 1027 (Ninth Circuit, 1990)
Soto v. City of Concord
162 F.R.D. 603 (N.D. California, 1995)

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Bluebook (online)
Samantha Arredondo v. County of San Bernardino, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/samantha-arredondo-v-county-of-san-bernardino-cacd-2024.