In Valley Bank of Nevada v. Superior Court (1975) 15 Cal.3d 652, 125 Cal. Rptr. 553, 542 P.2d 977, the defendant sought discovery of bank records from plaintiff bank. The Supreme Court held the records were discoverable, but "before confidential customer information may be disclosed in the course of civil discovery proceedings, the bank must take reasonable steps to notify its customer of the pendency and nature of the proceedings and to afford the customer a fair opportunity to assert his interests by objecting to disclosure, by seeking an appropriate protective order, or by instituting other legal proceedings to limit the scope or nature of the matters sought to be discovered." ( Id. at p. 658.) The trial court has "the same discretion which it generally exercises in passing upon other claims of confidentiality." (Ibid.) In Valley Bank of Nevada v. Superior Court, the defendant in a civil action noticed the deposition of a bank officer with a request for records pertaining to certain bank customers. After finding the requested information to be relevant to the defendant's defense, the court "indulged in a careful balancing of the right of civil litigants to discover relevant facts, on the one hand, with the right of bank customers to maintain reasonable privacy regarding their financial affairs, on the other." ( Id. at p. 657.) The court struck this "balance between the competing considerations" by requiring the bank to notify its customers of the nature of the discovery request and giving them "a fair opportunity" to assert their privacy interest prior to disclosing customer's bank records. ( Id. at p. 658.)