Can a plaintiff obtain a protective order requiring the disclosure of personal information about defendants in a tort action with a prayer for punitive damages?

In Richards v. Superior Court, supra, 86 Cal.App.3d 265, 150 Cal.Rptr. 77, a tort action with a prayer for punitive damages, the trial court rejected a protective order that proposed to restrict financial information about defendants to examination by counsel for plaintiff and use only in preparation for trial of the subject lawsuit. The Richards court noted that defendants' financial conditions were pertinent only to the punitive damage issue and concluded that "... where a party is compelled in civil discovery to reveal financial information because the information is relevant to the subject matter of a claim for punitive damages, that party is, upon his motion, presumptively entitled to a protective order that the information need be revealed only to counsel for the discovering party or to counsel's representative, and that once so revealed, the information may be used only for the purposes of the lawsuit. The burden is upon the opposing party to establish a substantial reason why the order should be denied. That reason must be related to the lawsuit." (Id., at p. 272, 150 Cal.Rptr. 77.)