Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: data collection from personal computer for class action lawsuit

Who is doing the data collection? Is it your employer, the defendant, asking your cooperation in preparing its defense? Or, more likely, is it the plaintiffs' attorneys, demanding production of documents, etc. under the discovery statutes?

More likely, it's the latter. The civil discovery statutes give opposing parties substantial rights to discover evidence that is in the possession, custody or control of the other side. This includes the right to copy file drawers full of paper documents and to obtain the contents of electronic and optical data-storage media, hard drives, etc.

There are limts as to what is discoverable, but the rules that determine which material is subject to discovery and what is protected are very complex, and I might add, a very frequent subject of motions and orders in the course of a case finding its way from filing to trial.

Frankly, I don't know how your particular situation would be treated if push came to shove. My suggestion would be to discuss the issue with your corporation's defense counsel. If you seem to be uncooperative, either to your company's or the plaintiffs' counsel, I think the more likely you will become a target of suspicion, and everyone will be wanting the contents of your computer.

Further, I think bringing your own computer to work is a bad idea, not only because of what's happening now, but also because of the likelihood of disputes over ownership of data if you were to quit, or be fired.

One possible outcome is that the contents of your computer may be examined by a neutral third party such as a court-appointed referee or discovery master, whose tasks would include deciding whether all, some or none of your files were subject to discovery, and if so, which ones.

Your files are probably "not discoverable" to the extent that they are (a) privileged, as in attorney-client, doctor-patient, etc., (b) attorney work-product, (c) confidential matters protected from discovery under a constitutionally-recognized privacy right, e.g., your tax returns or trade secrets than must be kept from a competitor, or (d) clearly irrelevant to any possible issue in the case at hand.

Your personal files MIGHT qualify under (d), but no one will know until they have been examined.