ORDER
Currеntly pending before the Court is a motion by Defendant, First Wireless Group, Inc. (“First Wireless” or “Defendant”), pursuant to Rule 72 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The motion seeks to sеt aside a portion of Judge Arlene R. Lindsay’s Order, dated June 15, 2004 (“June Order”), which denied the Defendant pre-trial access to the immigration status and tax returns of the aggrieved pаrties (“Charging Parties”).
Rule 72 provides in pertinent part that
[a] magistrate judge to whom a pretrial matter not dispositive of a claim or defense of a party is referred to hear and determine shall prоmptly conduct such proceedings as are required and when appropriate enter into record a written order setting forth the disposition of the matter. Within 10 days after being served with a copy of the magistrate judge’s order, a party may serve and file objections to the order; a party may not thereafter assign as error а defect in the magistrate judge’s order to which objection was not timely made. The district judge to whom the case is assigned shall consider such objections and shall modify or set aside any portion of the magistrate judge’s order found to be clearly erroneous or contrary to law.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a). Pursuant to Rule 72(a), this Court may set aside a portion оf Magistrate Judge Lindsay’s June Order concerning a non-dispositive matter only if the order is “clearly erroneous or contrary to law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a). An order is “clearly erroneous only when the reviewing eourt[, based] on the entire evidence^] is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed,” and an order is “contrary to law whеn it fails to apply or misapplies relevant statutes, case law or rules of procedure.” Weiss v. La Suisse,
Here, Magistrate Judge Lindsay granted Plaintiff Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (“EEOC” or “Plaintiff”) application for a protective order against discovery of the Charging Parties’ immigration status аnd tax returns. Magistrate Judge Lindsay properly relied on Rivera v. Nibco,
The Defendant objects to the June Order, asserting that (1) it is entitled to the discovery of all relevant non-privileged information pursuant to Rule 26(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and (2) that information regarding the Charging Parties’ immigration status is relevant and essential to Defendant’s defense pursuant to Rule 608(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidencе. With regard to the second claim, the Defendant asserts that evidence of the Charging Parties’ immigration status is relevant to their credibility and to their claim for damages.
After hаving reviewed the parties’ arguments and the relevant law, this Court finds that nothing in the June Order can be construed as clearly erroneous or contrary to the law. Magistrate Judge Lindsay properly held that although tax returns are not privileged, in order to obtain disclosure the Defendant must satisfy the two-pronged test described by the Southern District of New York in S.E.C. v. Cymaticolor Corp.,
With regard to the Defendant’s claim that Rule 608(b) оf the Federal Rules of Evidence allowed disclosure of information relevant to the Charging Parties’ credibility, Judge Lindsay properly held (1) that Rule 608(b) generally bars introduction оf extrinsic evidence to impeach a witness’s credibility; and (2) that admissibility of such information at trial is not a standard governing discovery. Therefore, Defendant’s argument based on Rule 608(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence was properly dismissed by the Judge Lindsay.
Furthermore, Judge Lindsay properly followed the law discussed in Rivera. In Rivera, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that “[ajfter a showing of good cause, the district court may issue any protective order ‘which justice requires’ to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or under burden or expense, including any order prohibiting the requested discovery altogether, limiting the scope of the discovery, or fixing the terms of disclosure.” Rivera,
Finally, the Defendant argues that Judge Lindsay’s June Order was imprоperly based on the in terrorem effect that discovery into the immigration status would have on the Charging Parties. The Defendant submits that “it is not for the Courts to
Regrettably, many employers turn a blind eye to immigration status during the hiring process; their aim is to assemble a workforce that is bоth cheap to employ and that minimizes their risk of being reported for violations of statutory rights. Therefore, employers have a perverse incentive to ignore immigration laws at the time of hiring but insist upon their enforcement when their employees complain.
Id. at 1072. This is exactly what the Defendant, in the instant ease, seems to have done. There is no evidence in the record which shows that the Defendant had inquired into the Charging Parties’ immigration status at the time of hiring and no evidence pointing to Defendant’s lаck of knowledge with respect to the Charging Parties’ alleged illegal immigration status. Therefore, it was proper for Judge Lindsay to preclude the Defendant from discоvery of the Charging Parties’ immigration status because the Defendant cannot “ignore immigration laws at the time of hiring but insist upon their enforcement when [its] employees complain.” Id.
The reasoning of the June Order is neither clearly erroneous nor contrary to law. This Court finds that Magistrate Judge Lindsay has not abused her discretion.
CONCLUSION
This Court finds that it was within the Magistrate Judge’s discretion to order the Plaintiffs protection order. As such, the Rule 72 application to modify part of Magistrate Judge Lindsay’s decision is hereby DENIED.
SO ORDERED.
Notes
. In this case, the Charging Parties are former Hispanic employees of First Wireless who the EEOC claims were paid less than similarly-situated Asian employees and who allegedly were retaliated against when they complained of the treatment.