A Montgomery County judge said a former Wells Fargo bank manager should be compelled to hand over her tax returns in a breach of contract action she filed arising out of a Family and Medical Leave Act settlement she entered into with the bank.

Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas Judge Thomas P. Rogers penned the opinion urging the state Superior Court to quash Vaishali P. Riley's appeal of the court's order directing Riley to produce her tax returns.

Wells Fargo settled the FMLA case for $33,500. As part of the agreement, Riley executed a W-9 form listing her address as Sugarland, Texas, Rogers said.

She was sent a check and a payment stub that identified her address as Yardley, Pennsylvania, instead of Sugarland. According to Rogers, Riley's lawyer notified Wells Fargo of the perceived errors but the bank refused to make any changes to the IRS paperwork.

Riley filed a claim in magisterial district court and was awarded an additional $22,500, including court costs and attorney fees. She then sued again for breach of contract, which gave rise to the dispute over her tax returns.

“At the heart of this matter is a fundamental disagreement as to whether the proceeds of Ms. Riley's 2014 settlement are subject to federal and Pennsylvania taxation,” Rogers said.

According to Rogers, Wells Fargo sought in discovery Riley's income tax returns for the tax years 2013 through 2015. Riley disputed the request, questioning its relevancy to the case, and Wells Fargo filed a motion to compel.

Rogers granted the motion and ordered Riley to produce the documents. However, she appealed, arguing that the tax returns are not relevant to her breach of contract alleging Wells Fargo put fraudulent information on tax documents.

But Riley said his order granting Wells Fargo's motion to compel is not appealable as a collateral order.

“The appropriate question here is whether the court's order granting Wells Fargo's motion to compel discovery requests for Ms. Riley's tax returns for the years 2013 through 2015 is separable and collateral to the main causes of action, breach of the 2014 settlement agreement and tax fraud,” Rogers said.

“Specifically,” he continued, “terms of the settlement agreement required Wells Fargo to deduct all applicable withholding taxes and payroll deductions from the payment for claims for lost wages. Upon review, the undersigned concludes that there is a common thread connecting Ms. Riley's 2013 through 2015 tax returns to the subject matter of claims she has brought against Wells Fargo.”

Norristown tax lawyer Alan B. Kane represents Riley in the suit.

“Obviously we filed the appeal and don't believe it should be quashed,” Kane said. “We think it's ripe for the Superior Court to review the issues. Looking at his order over a year after the appeal being filed, it was really lacking in specificity as to how those tax returns had any relevance to this particular case; particularly because Ms. Riley supplied Wells Fargo with a W-9 as required by law, so Wells Fargo had all the information they needed to properly prepare the W-2.”

Paul Lancaster Adams of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, who represents Wells Fargo, did not respond to a request for comment.

(Copies of the 11-page opinion in Riley v. Wells Fargo, PICS No. 18-0315, are available at http://at.law.com/PICS.)