*1 Plaintiff Ignacio Ixta, Jr. was convicted of attempted murder as a result of the December 3, 2009 shooting of Miguel Cortez. Mr. Ixta was incarcerated for more than a decade. Eventually, he was released from prison, and the Ventura County District Attorneys' Office (“VCDA”) dismissed his case. In April 2022, Mr. Ixta and his two minor children filed a federal civil rights complaint alleging claims against numerous defendants, including the County of Ventura and VCDA. The complaint alleged that the Oxnard police officers suppressed exculpatory Brady evidence which led to Ixta's wrongful conviction. Plaintiffs also alleges that the County and VCDA have deficient internal procedures which caused the prosecution's failure to disclose Brady evidence to Mr. Ixta's defense counsel in the underlying criminal proceedings. On February 21, 2023, the District Judge granted in part motions to dismiss the First Amended Complaint, although certain claims (including Monell claims against the County of Ventura and VCDA) survived dismissal. (ECF No. 124.) Leave to amend was also granted as to certain Defendants.

Plaintiffs have moved to compel Defendants to produce documents responsive to Plaintiffs' document requests. In particular, Plaintiffs seek production of documents contained in the investigative and prosecutorial files concerning his criminal prosecution for the shooting of Miguel Cortez. Defendants have objected to Plaintiffs' requests on numerous grounds and have withheld documents based on their assertion of the official information and deliberative process privileges, as well as the attorney work product doctrine. The Court held two hearings regarding the disputed issues. After the first hearing on December 21, 2022, the Court denied Plaintiffs' initial motion without prejudice and ordered Plaintiffs to refile a more focused motion if the issues could not be resolved after additional meet and confer efforts by the parties. (ECF No. 108.) Plaintiffs filed a second motion on January 17, 2023 (ECF No. 116). In response, Defendants identified and briefed four categories of documents that they have withheld based on privileges and work product. (ECF No. 117.) A second hearing was held on February 16, 2023, at the end of which the Court orally granted the motion to compel in part and ordered a production of the required documents by March 2, 2023. As set out below, the present written order provides a more detailed explanation of the bases for the Court's February 16, 2023 oral ruling.

1. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) provides that a party may obtain discovery “regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case[.]” Factors to consider include “the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties' relative access to relevant information, the parties' resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.” Id. Discovery need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable. Id. However, a court “must limit the frequency or extent of discovery otherwise allowed by [the Federal] rules” if “(i) the discovery sought is unreasonably cumulative or duplicative, or can be obtained from some other source that is more convenient, less burdensome, or less expensive; (ii) the party seeking discovery has had ample opportunity to obtain the information by discovery in the action; or (iii) the proposed discovery is outside the scope permitted by Rule 26(b)(1).” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(C). In response to requests for production, a party has an obligation under Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 to produce non-objectionable, response documents within the party's possession custody or control. Further, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure must be “construed, administered, and employed by the court and the parties to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 1.

*2 2. Plaintiffs argue that Defendants waived their objections to the first set of requests for production because Defendants did not serve written responses or objections to those requests until approximately three weeks after the due date. A finding of waiver would yield a harsh result, and Plaintiffs did not serve their discovery according to the complete service list as had been agreed in the parties' Rule 26 joint report. While this does not excuse Defendants' failure to timely respond, it provides a sufficient explanation (when combined with the Defendants' prompt attempt to rectify their error) for the Court to conclude that waiver should not be found in these circumstances. See, e.g., S.P. v. County of San Bernardino, 2020 WL 4335375, at *3 (C.D. Cal. May 13, 2020).

3. “The work-product doctrine protects ‘from discovery documents and tangible things prepared by a party or his representative in anticipation of litigation.’ ” United States v. Richey, 632 F.3d 559, 567 (9th Cir. 2011). It is designed to protect “trial preparations materials that reveal an attorney's strategy, intended lines of proof, evaluation of strengths and weaknesses, and inferences drawn from interviews.” Rutter Grp. Prac. Guide Fed. Civ. Pro. Before Trial, Ch. 11(III)-B, § 11:825 (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3); Hickman v. Taylor, 329 US 495, 511 (1947)). Its purpose is to prevent attorneys from obtaining an unfair advantage “on wits borrowed from the adversary.” Hickman, 329 U.S. at 516 (Jackson, J., concurring); see also Holmgren v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 976 F.2d 573, 576 (9th Cir. 1992) (“The primary purpose of the work product rule is to ‘prevent exploitation of a party's efforts in preparing for litigation.’ ”) (citing Admiral Ins. Co. v. United States District Court, 881 F.2d 1486, 1494 (9th Cir. 1989)). The initial burden rests on the party asserting a privilege (including work product protection) to show how the material withheld fits within that privilege. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5); United States v. Chevron Texaco Corp., 241 F. Supp. 2d 1065, 1069 (N.D. Cal. 2002) (citations omitted).

4. Work product materials may be disclosed if they are otherwise discoverable under Rule 26(b)(1) and “the party shows that it has substantial need for the materials to prepare its case and cannot, without undue hardship, obtain their substantial equivalent by other means.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3)(A). A party may show substantial need when, for example, “the witnesses are no longer available or can be reached only with difficulty.” Hickman, 329 U.S. at 511.

5. Defendants identify four categories of documents that they believe qualify for work product protection: (1) “VDCA E-mails and letters”; (2) “Confidential VCDA Internal Discussions, Notes and Agenda”; (3) “VCDA Trial and Habeas Materials”; and (4) “Internal VCDA Memoranda.” (ECF No. 117 at 5.)

6. A critical failure of Defendants' invocation of the work product doctrine is that neither the County nor the District Attorney's Office were parties in the underlying criminal proceedings. Rather, the plaintiff in the criminal proceedings was the State of California. While the VCDA filed and prosecuted the case, that does not render it a party or establish that it is one and the same as “the People.” See Doubleday v. Ruh, 149 F.R.D. 601, 605-606 (E.D. Cal. 1993) (the work product doctrine did not apply in civil rights action based upon allegedly unconstitutional criminal prosecution, the district Attorney of the County of Sacramento was not a party to a prior criminal case). Similarly, the County was not a party to the criminal litigation in which the work product was created. As the California Supreme Court has explained:

Shepherd v. Superior Court of Alameda County, 17 Cal.3d 107, 122 (1976), overruled on other grounds, People v. Holloway, 33 Cal.4th 96, 131 (2004).

7. As found in another case in this District under similar circumstances, “the prosecutorial file from the criminal proceedings against Plaintiff does not satisfy the requirements for work product protection.” Perrin v. Cnty. of Riverside, 2010 WL 11556698, at *3 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 12, 2010). That decision went on to state:

Perrin, 2010 WL 11556698, at *3.

8. Here, neither the County of Ventura nor the VCDA's Office were parties to the underlying criminal proceedings against Plaintiff Ixta. Thus, these defendants may not assert work product as a bar to production of prosecutorial files. See, e.g., Perrin, 2010 WL 11556698, at *3 (finding that defendants in the civil rights litigation could not bar production of the prosecutor's file from the criminal case on the basis of work product doctrine); Carrillo v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, 2012 WL 12884899, at *2 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 25, 2012) (finding defendants in civil rights action could not rely on work product protection for documents prepared in criminal proceedings and noting that “the district attorney's office reports to the state attorney general, who is not a party to this litigation”); Sommer v. United States, 2011 WL 4433631, at *5 (S.D. Cal. Sept. 22, 2011) (finding documents not protected by work product, explaining that the defendants in the civil action were not “a party in Plaintiff's criminal case and the relevant work product was prepared on behalf of the People of the State of California”); Doubleday, 149 F.R.D. at 606-607 (“the County of Sacramento is not a present party for whom work product was prepared in a previous litigation, and the work product of the criminal prosecutors is not protected in this subsequent litigation”).

9. Furthermore, with regard to documents created by the County's Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU), Defendants have not demonstrated that such documents were prepared in anticipation of litigation. The function of the CIU is to investigate cases to determine whether there has been a wrongful conviction.[1] See generally Jackson v. Nassau Cnty., 340 F.R.D. 539, 547-548 (E.D.N.Y. 2022) (documents prepared by a conviction integrity unit were not protected work product in subsequent civil rights action filed by exonerated plaintiff because they were “were not prepared in anticipation of any litigation; but only to investigate a claim of innocence”) (emphasis in original). There is no evidence that in performing its investigation, the CIU was charged with determining whether to re-prosecute Plaintiff.

*4 10. Moreover, even if there were a valid basis for assertion of the work product doctrine over the documents at issue, the Court finds that a compelling need for the documents exists. Plaintiff Ixta's conviction was found to be wrongful. His claims are based upon alleged improper conduct and an alleged deficient county process that deprived him of information that would have avoided wrongful conviction and ten years incarceration. There is no reasonable alternative source for the Plaintiff to obtain full information that bears directly on the civil rights claims he is asserting here including, among other things, statements made by officers to the VCDA and the actions and determinations of the district attorney(s) prosecuting Mr. Ixta. See, e.g., Perrin, 2010 WL 11556698, at *3 (in civil rights action alleging wrongful prosecution, even if documents from prosecution file were found to constitute work product, they were discoverable based upon plaintiff's substantial need); Doubleday, 149 F.R.D. at 607-608 (finding substantial need overcame any work product protection in case involving “colorable allegations that the police officers involved here manipulated evidence and the district attorneys so that the plaintiff would be improperly prosecuted,” noting that “the best evidence of these improprieties would be the contemporaneous statements of the witnesses, especially those of the sheriff's officers involved” and that the district attorneys' mental impressions were at issue).

11. In assessing objections regarding confidential or personal information, the right to discover relevant information must be weighed against the right to privacy, and confidential information may be required to be disclosed after such weighing – particularly when confidentiality can still be maintained via court orders. See Ragge v. MCA/Universal Studios, 165 F.R.D. 601, 604-605 (C.D. Cal. 1995); Rubin v. Regents of University of California, 114 F.R.D. 1, 3 (N.D. Cal. 1986).

12. Objections to the production of law enforcement and criminal prosecution records on grounds of official information privilege, officer privacy rights, and deliberative process privilege are typically addressed under the test for qualified privileges as set out in Kelly v. City of San Jose, 114 F.R.D. 653, 660 (N.D. Cal. 1987). See, e.g., Miniter v. City of Los Angeles, 2011 WL 13134766, at *1-2 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 19, 2011). That test “balances competing societal interests: the interests of law enforcement, the privacy interests of police officers or citizens who provide information to or file complaints against police officers, the interests of civil rights plaintiffs, the policies that inform the national civil rights laws, and the needs of the judicial process.” Parrish v. Solis, 2014 WL 2466101, at *4 (N.D. Cal. May 31, 2014).[2]

13. The Court has applied these principles to the disputed issues in the parties' briefing, assessed the relevancy and proportionality of the requested documents, and balanced competing societal interests. As a result, the Court finds that – where Plaintiffs' document requests are narrowed in scope to categories relevant and proportional to the claims and defenses in this case and where a protective order exists to protect confidential information produced in discovery – Defendants' qualified privileges and privacy rights are outweighed by the legitimate discovery interests of Plaintiffs, the policy of the national civil rights laws, and the need for an efficient, fair and transparent judicial process. See Parrish, 2014 WL 2466101, at *4. In line with this conclusion, the parties' specific document request disputes are resolved as follows:

(a) From the documents withheld on grounds of qualified privileged and work product, Defendants shall produce all responsive documents in their possession, custody or control that relate to the allegations of Defendants' wrongdoing that survived the motion to dismiss the First Amended Complaint.

(b) These documents may be produced pursuant to the Protective Order entered in this case (ECF No. 46) and shall be used by Plaintiffs only in connection with this case.

(c) Defendants have raised potential privacy and security concerns relating to third party individuals who may be referenced in the documents. To the extent such third-party privacy/security concerns exist, Defendants' counsel shall confer with Plaintiffs' counsel about producing documents with particular names redacted, and also producing an attorneys'-eyes-only version without the redactions to Plaintiffs' counsel. If this issue cannot be resolved for particular documents, it may be raised with the Court for in camera review. The redaction process shall not be used unreasonably or for purposes of delay. Sanctions may be imposed for unreasonable redaction requests.

*5 (d) The production of documents required by this order shall be completed by March 2, 2023, and any redaction issues shall be resolved by this date.

(e) On or before March 2, 2023, Defendants' counsel shall also provide a declaration to Plaintiffs that (i) describes the searches performed by Defendants to locate documents responsive to Plaintiffs' document requests and (ii) confirms all responsive documents required by this order have been produced.

14. The Court denies Plaintiffs' request for an award of their attorneys' fees in connection with the motion to compel. Given the complexity of the issues raised in the briefing and the arguments raised by both sides, the Court finds that it would not be in the interests of justice to award fees in this instance. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37 (a)(5)(A)(iii).

IT IS SO ORDERED.