Contract analysis

I. Introduction and Context As discussed during our March 14 conference call — in which you and Sandra Higuera of Veltrano Employment Law Group PC participated on behalf of Plaintiffs, and Renata Vasquez and the undersigned participated on behalf of AMA — the parties have been unable to reach agreement regarding the scope of Plaintiffs' RFP Nos. 38 through 42. Each of these requests, as currently drafted, seeks "all

II. Description of the Overbroad Requests Before turning to AMA's proposed limitations, it is useful to briefly describe the scope of each of the five RFPs at issue. RFP No. 38 requests "[a]ll DOCUMENTS and COMMUNICATIONS relating to AMA's timekeeping policies and practices, including but not limited to the implementation, operation, configuration, and modification of the NovaPay Solutions 'TimeTrack Pro' electronic

III. Proportionality Framework AMA's proposed limitations are grounded in the proportionality requirements of California law. Code of Civil Procedure section 2017.020 provides that a court shall limit the scope of discovery if it determines that "the burden, expense, or intrusiveness of that discovery clearly outweighs the likelihood that the information sought will lead to the discovery of admissible evidence." The

IV. Proposed Limitation 1 — Custodian Limitation AMA proposes that the production of email and other electronic communications responsive to RFP Nos. 38 through 42 be limited to documents from the mailboxes and files of the seven custodians identified in the parties' ESI Protocol Stipulation dated January 13, 2023. Those custodians are:

1. Lorraine Okafor, Senior Vice President, Human Resources — As AMA's most senior HR executive, Ms. Okafor has oversight responsibility for all human resources functions across AMA's California operations, including the development and implementation of meal and rest break policies, employee complaint investigations, and compliance with California wage-and-hour law.

2. Gregory Tanaka, Vice President, Legal & Compliance — Mr. Tanaka serves as AMA's in-house counsel responsible for labor and employment compliance matters, including the evaluation and revision of timekeeping policies and the legal review of the TimeTrack Pro auto-deduction configuration.

3. Marcus Yee, Director of Client Data Services, NovaPay Solutions Inc. — Mr. Yee is a third-party custodian at NovaPay Solutions Inc., the vendor that developed, implemented, and maintains the TimeTrack Pro electronic timekeeping system used by AMA. Mr. Yee was the primary NovaPay contact responsible for configuring the auto-deduction functionality at issue in this litigation.

4. Jonathan Mercer, President — Mr. Mercer is AMA's President and the most senior operational executive with knowledge of company-wide timekeeping and scheduling directives.

5. Celine Arroyo, Director of Production Operations — Ms. Arroyo oversees day-to-day production operations across AMA's California facilities, including crew scheduling, call sheet generation, and production workflow management.

6. Dwayne Prescott, Vice President of Unscripted Programming — Mr. Prescott is responsible for programming decisions that directly affect production schedules, shooting timetables, and crew deployment across AMA's unscripted television show units.

7. Karen Fong, Payroll Manager — Ms. Fong manages AMA's payroll operations for all California-based employees, including wage calculations, overtime computations, and the issuance of wage statements. These seven custodians were identified through a collaborative process during the negotiation of the ESI Protocol Stipulation, and both parties agreed at that time that these individuals collectively represent the key de

V. Proposed Limitation 2 — Time Limitation AMA proposes limiting the production of electronically stored information responsive to RFP Nos. 38 through 42 to documents dated on or after January 1, 2019 — the date on which AMA completed its transition from manual paper timesheets to the NovaPay Solutions "TimeTrack Pro" electronic timekeeping system across all seven California facilities. The TimeTrack Pro system, and

VI. Proposed Limitation 3 — Search Term Limitation AMA proposes that email and other electronic communications collected from the seven agreed-upon custodians be identified and produced using agreed-upon search terms, consistent with the framework established in the ESI Protocol Stipulation. The use of search terms is a widely accepted, proportional methodology for identifying responsive electronically stored informa

VII. Structured Data Production (Non-Email Documents) Separately from the email and communication production described in Sections IV through VI above, AMA confirms its willingness to produce the following categories of structured data and non-email documents responsive to RFP Nos. 38 through 42 without the application of the search term limitation. These categories represent the core documentary evidence relevant to

VIII. Privilege AMA will withhold from production any documents protected by the attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine. Documents withheld on the basis of privilege will be identified on a privilege log that describes the date, author, recipients, and general subject matter of each withheld document in sufficient detail to permit Plaintiffs to evaluate the privilege claim, consistent with Code of Civ

IX. Production Volume and E-discovery Vendor AMA's overall document production in this matter is being managed through its e-discovery vendor, Marlowe Asset Management Litigation Technology Inc., located at 600 Anton Boulevard, Suite 900, Costa Mesa, California 92626. Marlowe Asset Management is responsible for the collection, processing, hosting, review platform administration, and production of electronically store

X. Request for Response and Continued Meet-and-Confer AMA respectfully requests that Plaintiffs' counsel respond to this letter within ten (10) days — that is, by March 27, 2023 — indicating whether Plaintiffs agree to the proposed limitations set forth herein, or, if Plaintiffs disagree with any aspect of the proposed limitations, identifying with specificity the areas of disagreement and any counterproposals Plaint