Opinion
No. C 12-5524 JST (MEJ)
04-10-2013
CHRISTOPHER OTEY Plaintiff, v. CROWDFLOWER, INC., et al., Defendants.
DISCOVERY ORDER
RE: DKT. NO. 77
In this putative class action under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §201 et seq. ("FLSA") and Oregon's minimum wage laws, Plaintiff Christopher Otey alleges that Defendants CrowdFlower and two of its executives, Lukas Biewald and Chris Van Pelt, failed and continue to fail to pay minimum wages to those that performed crowd-sourced work in the United States online in response to any online request by CrowdFlower for crowd-sourced work, or any online notification by CrowdFlower that crowd-sourced work was available. First Amended Complaint ("FAC") ¶¶ 2, 3, Dkt. No. 27. Before the Court is the parties' joint discovery dispute letter, filed April 3, 2013. Dkt. No. 77. The letter concerns Defendants' interrogatories and requests for production of documents directed toward Plaintiff's personal and business financial information relative to the sources of his earned income. The requests seek information and documents that Defendants claim are related to Plaintiff's self-employment and/or operation of any home-based independent business, including tax returns, bank records, credit card statements, and telephone and internet service records. Jt. Ltr. at 1, 3. Defendants argue that information evidencing Plaintiff's operation of a home-based business would tend to demonstrate the amount of time spent on other ventures, whether other work represented his primary source of income, and the degree of control or lack thereof over him by CrowdFlower. Id. at 1. Since Plaintiff alleges that CrowdFlower was his employer, Defendants contend that records of self-employment or independent contractor arrangements are relevant, and the probative value outweighs any privacy interest in them. Id. Defendants further argue that Plaintiff waived any privacy interest in such records by placing his finances directly at issue. Id.
According to Defendants, CrowdFlower's business model can best be described as "the creation and maintenance of an online market place of human intelligence tasks for the benefit of itself and its customers." Jt. Case Mgmnt. Stmnt. at 2, Dkt. No. 62. "For an agreed price, CrowdFlower's customers provide projects to CrowdFlower in the form of data sets which must be mined by human intelligence to extract or categorize the information sought by the customer (e.g., tagging photos, categorizing a product, identifying inappropriate content, taking a survey, conducting a web search, confirming a business location, etc.)." Id. "CrowdFlower typically breaks down the project into discrete tasks which are then displayed and offered to persons ("Contributors") as units (i.e., small groupings of tasks) through the intermediation and platform integration of Contributor Channels." Id.
In response, Plaintiff argues that Defendants' requests constitute an unwarranted intrusion into his private and irrelevant affairs, that he has not opened the door to such overly-broad and intrusive discovery, and that they are improper and intended to harass and annoy. Id. at 3. Plaintiff contends that income from other jobs, and unearned sources of income, bear no relevance to determining whether Defendants are liable for unpaid minimum wages and are beyond the scope of discovery. Id. Plaintiff further argues that the information and documents requested are private and not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Id.
Upon review of the parties' arguments, the Court finds that other employment or receipt of other income is irrelevant to the question of whether Plaintiff was Defendants' employee or whether he was an independent contractor. See, e.g., Nesselrodte v. Diva's, LLC, 2012 WL 2061523, at *2 (N.D. W.Va. June 7, 2012) (denying efforts to discover evidence of other sources of income because "other employment or receipt of other income is irrelevant to the question of whether plaintiffs were employees . . . or whether they were independent contractors [because] case turns only on this employment relationship [and] Defendant's discovery requests seeking this information are denied because they are not likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence"); Young F. Ke v. Fourth Ave., 2009 WL 1058627, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 20, 2009) (denying request for evidence of other sources of income and job expenses in misclassification claim because "the plaintiffs' status as employees under the FLSA is not dependent on whether they had other employment, so that argument provides no support for the requested discovery," and concluding that "the burden of this discovery far outweighs its likely benefit"). Likewise, this case turns only on the alleged employment relationship between Plaintiff and CrowdFlower. Accordingly, Defendants' discovery requests seeking information about other employment are DENIED because they are not likely to lead to the discovery of relevant evidence.
As to Defendants' discovery requests regarding income and costs related to work performing internet-based projects through CrowdFlower's website, the Court finds that such requests are reasonably related to Plaintiff's claims. However, it appears that Defendants' requests include information subject to privacy concerns, including tax returns and related documents, bank and credit card statements, and expenses for telephone and internet service. And, as the parties did not provide copies of the relevant requests, it is not clear whether the information sought is obtainable through less intrusive means, including targeted interrogatories, requests for admissions, and depositions, rather than production of the actual billing records and tax returns. Accordingly, the Court GRANTS Defendants' requests for this information, but ORDERS Defendants to propound revised discovery requests that are focused on less obtrusive means of obtaining the information. For example, rather than obtain tax returns, Defendant can obtain by focused interrogatories Plaintiff's identification and explanation of all sources of income and expenses related to CrowdFlower projects. Indeed, Defendant can propound an interrogatory that directly asks what Plaintiff's total earnings were from CrowdFlower projects for each year in question as reported in Plaintiff's tax returns. This strikes the correct balance because it eliminates the need to delve into any accompanying personal information that is patently irrelevant to the case. It also benefits Defendants because Plaintiff would then be estopped from claiming higher income than the amount stated in response to the interrogatory. See Maldonado v. St. Croix Discount, Inc., 77 F.R.D. 501, 503 (D. V.I. 1978) (court denied defendant's motion to compel tax returns of plaintiff who provided W-2 forms, but ruled that plaintiff would be estopped from claiming any greater amounts of past income).
Defendants shall ensure that any requests permitted herein are limited in scope to the time period during which Plaintiff claims to have performed projects from CrowdFlower's website.
IT IS SO ORDERED
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Maria-Elena James
United States Magistrate Judge