In Slayton v. Superior Ct. of Sutter County, (— Cal. Rptr.3d —, 2006 WL 3775826, Cal.App 3 Dist., Dec. 26, 2006), a California Court of Appeal addressed a trial court’s decision to not review a former sheriff deputy’s disciplinary records as to whether they may be relevant in a divorce proceeding that included a child custody dispute.
The court ruled that the trial court erred by declining to review the records thereby denying the deputy’s estranged wife a fair opportunity to litigate her case.
Facts
In 2005, Plaintiff sued her husband for divorce. She claimed she was a victim of domestic violence during their marriage, that her husband had been terminated from his job as a Sutter County sheriff’s deputy because of complaints against him involving his treatment of women, and that he had been arrested and convicted of stalking her following their separation.
As part of a custody dispute, she sought Defendant’s complete personnel file from the sheriff’s department, including information regarding his compensation, disciplinary history, complaints made against him, the department’s investigation of those complaints, and statements made about him by department personnel. Defendant and the sheriff’s department both opposed the request. The trial court declined to review the requested records and ruled that only records dealing with financial information must be disclosed, finding that Defendant’s privacy rights outweighed Plaintiff’s need for the information. Plaintiff appealed.
Decision
The court said that this case hinged on interpretation of Pitchess statutes, Evidence Code sections enacted after the decision in Pitchess v. Superior Court (1974) 11 Cal 3d 531, which govern the disclosure of employment records. The question is whether Plaintiff established good cause for the discovery, in which case the trial court should have then reviewed the records to determine whether they were relevant to the proceedings.
Her reason for seeking disclosure of the work records was that they may have contained information relevant to Defendant’s fitness for child custody, the court said. It noted and dismissed Sutter County’s argument that Plaintiff had not established how the work-related conduct in the Defendant’s personnel file might be relevant in a custody dispute. “The facts presented here do not support drawing such a fine distinction between [Defendant’s] professional and personal conduct,” the court concluded.
Considering the allegations against Defendant, which concerned citizen complaints against him involving women, “there is reason to believe his personnel records could include evidence of violence or brutality that could bolster petitioner’s claims of domestic violence or otherwise reflect on his fitness as a parent,” the court said, adding that such evidence would be relevant to determining custody of the couple’s children.
As such, the appellate court ruled that the trial court should have reviewed the records to make such a determination. The court vacated the trial court’s decision to deny disclosure of the records and ordered the trial court to review the records for relevance before ruling again on Plaintiff’s motion.
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