The Riverside County Sheriff's Department fired Deputy Kristy Drinkwater for falsifying her payroll forms. The parties chose arbitrator Jan Stiglitz to hear the termination appeal.

At the hearing, Drinkwater intended to present a disparate treatment defense, contending that others in the Department had committed similar misconduct but were not fired.  Accordingly, she sought discovery of the personnel records of eleven department members who allegedly committed misconduct similar to that which she had been charged, but received little or no discipline.  After the arbitrator ordered that Drinkwater receive the requested records, the Department sought a writ of administrative mandate alleging that the hearing officer had no authority to require production of those requested records

In 1978, after the California Supreme Court ruled that a criminal defendant could discover prior complaints about an officer's use of excessive force, the California Legislature enacted several laws to restrict access to peace officer personnel records. 

Penal Code sections 832.7 and 832.8 established the confidentiality of peace officer personnel records, and required that a party seeking personnel records first file a Pitchess motion - named after the 1978 Supreme Court case - before receiving access to confidential personnel file information.

The Pitchess motion procedures were codified in Evidence Code section 1043, which requires that a party "file a written motion with the appropriate court or administrative body" setting out the relevance of the records to the subject matter of the pending litigation.  If good cause and relevance are shown, then under Evidence Code section 1045, "the court" shall examine the records and determine what, if anything, should be disclosed, and under what conditions. 

The Supreme Court held that by expressly allowing Pitchess motions to be filed with an appropriate administrative body under Evidence Code section 1043, the Legislature contemplated that the administrative hearing officers would have the authority to rule on those motions effectively.  As a result, such motions are permitted, and the orders issued by administrative hearing officers are both authorized and enforceable.

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