Judge issues protective order in Google discrimination case

A Santa Clara County judge has granted Alphabet Inc.-owned Google LLC's request to enter a protective order after the plaintiffs in an employment discrimination case included identifying information for employees at the company in court documents.

Google attorneys claim employees received threats after their information was included in the complaint in screenshots of internal message board posts.

The plaintiffs will have to check in with Google's attorneys before including personal data about the company's employees in any future filings.

One of the plaintiffs is James Damore, who was fired from Google after writing a blog post on an internal message board in August in which he theorized women are not biologically suited to careers as engineers. Damore alleged in the complaint that Google discriminates against white male conservatives and kept secret internal hiring quotas for female and minority candidates. Damore et al. v. Google LLC, 18CV321529 (Santa Clara Super. Ct., filed Jan. 8, 2018).

Superior Court Judge Brian C. Walsh wrote in an order Friday that Damore should take steps to protect the identities of Google employees going forward as long as they haven't been named as parties in the lawsuit. "California courts have long and consistently recognized employees' privacy interests in information that may be used to contact them in connection with pending litigation," he wrote.

"At issue here is not the mere disclosure of employee names and contact information to counsel for similarly-situated plaintiffs in a routine wage and hour case, but the publication of this information along with employees' internal comments on politically-charged subjects by adverse parties in a high-profile lawsuit," the judge added.

Walsh wrote that Damore seemed to be aware that Google employees would prefer to maintain their privacy because he voluntarily redacted the names of some co-workers, depending on the content of their posts on the message boards.

"The sensitivity of publishing employees' names and internal comments in connection with this case is confirmed by plaintiff's choice to redact the names of employees sympathetic to their cause," Walsh wrote.