Alch

Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, William L. Cole, Kevin E. Gaut and Seth E. Pierce for Real Parties in Interest Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P., et al., The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC, et al., DreamWorks SKG TV LLC and Fox Entertainment Group, Inc., et al.

Christensen, Glaser, Fink, Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro, Patricia L. Glaser, Mark L. Block and Scott E. Gizer for Real Party in Interest The Endeavor Agency, LLC.

Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, Paul Grossman, William S. Waldo and Michele A. Freedenthal for Real Parties in Interest The Walt Disney Company, ABC, Inc., Walt Disney Pictures and Television, Touchstone Television Productions, LLC, Miramax Film Corp., and Buena Vista Television.

Proskauer Rose, Anthony J. Oncidi and Robert H. Horn for Real Party in Interest William Morris Agency, LLC.

Morgan Lewis & Bockius, George A. Stohner, Amy B. Pinske and Anne M. Brafford for Real Parties in Interest CBS Corporation, CBS Broadcasting Inc., UPN, Aaron Spelling Productions, Inc., Spelling Entertainment Group, Spelling Entertainment LLC, Spelling Television Inc., Big Ticket Television Inc., and Big Ticket Productions Inc.

Munger, Tolles & Olson, Glenn D. Pomerantz, Katherine…

SUMMARY

Television writers filed class action lawsuits against studios, networks, production companies and talent agencies, asserting an industrywide pattern and practice of age discrimination. The writers served subpoenas on third parties, including the Writers Guild of America, seeking data on Writers Guild members from which they could prepare a statistical analysis to support their claims of age discrimination. A privacy notice was sent to 47,000 Writers Guild members, advising them of their right to object to disclosure of personal information on privacy grounds. Some 7,700 individuals filed objections. The writers moved to overrule the objections. The trial court sustained the objections in their entirety. The writers sought a *1417 writ directing the trial court to vacate its order and allow access to certain of the requested information, arguing the information was critical to proving their claims and privacy concerns were minimal. We grant the writ petition.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

This is the latest, but not the last, chapter in a story that began in the year 2000, when a number of television writers filed a class action lawsuit in federal court…

I respectfully dissent.

The current petition for writ of mandate is limited to the discoverability of the nonparty objectors’ private information. The objectors are, as the trial court noted, “7,700 [out of 47,000 notified who] ... do not ask for, or want, any part of this lawsuit. They merely want to be left alone.”

It is not disputed that the objectors have a legally protected privacy interest in the categories of information sought. Moreover, the invasion into private information sought here is from persons who are not plaintiffs in the lawsuit which must be given appropriate consideration. In this context, the California Supreme Court has noted that nonlitigants should be afforded more protection than litigants from discovery of private information. (Britt v. Superior Court (1978) 20 Cal.3d 844, 858-859 [ 143 Cal.Rptr. 695 , 574 P.2d 766 ] (Britt).) In Britt , the California Supreme Court determined that a discovery order requiring extensive disclosure about persons’ activities in political associations was overbroad. The court indicated that insofar as the challenged order “directly impinge[d] on the constitutional rights of numerous individuals who have taken no action…