Los Angeles, Calif. (December 19, 2019) -
Beginning in 2020, two new California statutes, signed into law by
Governor Gavin Newsom earlier this year, will place an increased
discovery cost and burden on employers and their attorneys. Senate
Bill 370 (SB 370) establishes a major new requirement
for documents produced in response to discovery requests, and
Senate Bill 17 (SB 17) is California's first step toward
implementing a system that parallels the required initial
disclosure procedure currently used in federal litigation.
SB 370
The more consequential of the two bills is SB 370, which states,
"[a]ny documents or category of documents produced in response
to a demand for inspection, copying, testing, or sampling shall be
identified with the specific request number to which the documents
respond." Prior to SB 370, the producing party had discretion
to produce documents as maintained in the normal course of
business, or to organize and label them to correspond with
