Crunch Fitness building Crunch Fitness.

An appellate court has found that the state's Department of Fair Employment and Housing must hand over an email its lawyers received from a transgender woman who complained when a San Diego-area Crunch Fitness gym denied her access to its women's locker room.

In a ruling clarifying just who lawyers at the California agency charged with enforcing the state's anti-discrimination laws regarding housing and employment represent, the Fourth District Court of Appeal on Friday found that Christynne Wood, a transgender woman who claims she faced discrimination in the men's locker room after the El Cajon Crunch Fitness gym refused her request to use facilities that conformed with her gender identity, couldn't claim privilege over her pre-litigation email to lawyers at the DFEH even though they ultimately filed suit against the gym.

"DFEH lawyers have an attorney-client relationship with the State of California," wrote Justice Patricia Guerrero. "Wood has not shown DFEH lawyers formed an attorney-client relationship with her," she continued.

DFEH sued the gym in April 2018 in San Diego Superior Court and Wood and her lawyers joined the case as an intervenor the following month. The fight over the email, which is already on its second stop at the Fourth District, ensued. Crunch initially convinced the trial court to compel production of the email by arguing that DFEH acts on behalf of the state similar to a criminal prosecutor and cannot compromise its impartiality by representing a specific individual. The Fourth District summarily denied a writ petition in the case, but the California Supreme Court took the case up last year and instructed the lower appellate court to issue an order to show cause why the relief sought in Wood's petition should not be granted.

In Friday's order, the Fourth District noted that Wood and her lawyers, a team from the ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties, Nixon Peabody, and ACLU Foundation of Southern California, had raised some federal court decisions finding attorney-client privilege in communications between complaining parties and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency who handles employment discrimination matters. But Guerrero, in a 31-page opinion joined by Justices Richard Huffman and Terry O'Rourke, wrote that the federal common law surrounding privilege was more "flexible" than the boundaries of privilege set out by statute in California. The decision also noted that though DFEH's interest often aligns with those of plaintiffs such as Wood, the agency has consistently disclaimed any representation of individuals like other state enforcement agencies.

"Crime victims have a similar convergence of interests with prosecutors, and prosecutors routinely seek specific relief on behalf of victims in the form of restitution, but no attorney-client relationship exists between them." Guerrero wrote. "Similarly, local child support agencies seek and enforce specific relief—child and spousal support—on behalf of members of the public, but no attorney-client relationship exists there either," the judge continued.

Lawyers for Wood didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

Liedle, Larson & Vail's Tamara Vail, who represents the Crunch defendants, said in an email Monday that she and her clients "believe the Court of Appeal's ruling will ensure that the government's investigations into allegations of discrimination will remain fair and neutral, and more importantly, transparent for all involved."

"The government cannot pick sides as between parties involved in a complaint since doing so undermines any neutrality," she said. "When we have a sincerely unbiased and open exchange of information, the public as a whole will have faith in the processes employed by the government."

She said her clients believe the ruling will ensure that they and other parties in their situation get access to the information DEFH collects and relies on to file suit seeking significant injunctive relief and civil penalties.