California Court of Appeal

In a class action suit against studios, networks, production companies, and talent agencies asserting an industry-wide pattern and practice of age discrimination, writ petition by television writers to allow access to certain data on Writers Guild members is granted where trial court acted beyond its discretion when it sustained all objections of third parties to the disclosure of subpoenaed information on privacy grounds.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/14/2008
• Published 08/14/2008

Judges

• COOPER, P.J.

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Sprenger & Lang, Paul C. Sprenger, Michael D. Lieder, and Steven M. Sprenger;  Schwartz, Steinsapir, Dohrmann & Sommers, Dolly M. Gee and Henry M. Willis, Los Angeles;  Kator, Parks & Weiser, Maia Caplan, David Weiser and Jeremy D. Wright;  AARP Foundation Litigation, Thomas W. Osborne, Daniel B. Kohrman and Barbara Jones;  Robert S. Gerstein and Daniel Wolf, for Petitioners., Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, William L. Cole, Kevin E. Gaut and Seth E. Pierce, Los Angeles, 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, Los Angeles, for Real Party in Interest The Endeavor Agency, LLC., Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, Paul Grossman, William S. Waldo, Los Angeles, 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, Los Angeles, for Real Party in Interest William Morris Agency, LLC., Morgan Lewis & Bockius, George A. Stohner, Amy B. Pinske, Los Angeles, and Anne M. Brafford, Irvine, for Real Parties in Interest CBS Corporation (f/k/a Viacom, Inc.);   CBS Broadcasting Inc.;   UPN;  Aaron Spelling Productions, Inc.;   Spelling Entertainment Group LLC (f/k/a Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc.);   Spelling Entertainment LLC (f/k/a Spelling Entertainment Inc.);   Spelling Television Inc.;   Big Ticket Television Inc.;   and Big Ticket Productions Inc., Brad Seligman, Berkely, Jocelyn D. Larkin and Alvaro D. Soria of The Impact Fund, for The Impact Fund, Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, Equal Rights Advocates, and Public Advocates, Inc., as Amici Curiae in support of Petitioners., Munger, Tolles & Olson, Glenn D. Pomerantz, Katherine M. Forster and Lika C. Miyake, Los Angeles, for NBC Universal, Inc. (f/k/a National Broadcasting Co., Inc.), NBC Studios, Inc.;   Universal Studios, Inc.;   Universal Television Group, LLC;  Universal Television Entertainment, LLC;  Universal Television Enterprises, LLLP;  and Universal Studios Network Programming f/k/a Brillstein Grey Entertainment, as Amici Curiae in support of Real Parties in Interest., Lavely & Singer, John H. Lavely, Jr., Martin D. Singer and Charles J. Harder, Los Angeles, for nonparty objectors Richard Wolf, Darren Star, David Crane, Marta Kauffman, Kevin Bright, Greg Daniels, Glenn Gordon Caron, Wes Craven, Susan Harris, Paul J. Witt, Tony Thomas, Bruce Helford and Michael J. Fox.


• For Appellees:
  
• No appearance for respondent Superior Court.