Judge: Alison Mackenzie, Case: 21STCV00657, Date: 2024-01-05 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 21STCV00657 Hearing Date: January 5, 2024 Dept: 55
NATURE OF PROCEEDINGS:
Motion of Plaintiff/Cross-Defendant
Major League Trucking, Inc. to Strike Defendant Marvin Flores’ Answer and
Cross-Complaint, or Alternatively, for Evidence and Issue Sanctions; Request for Sanctions in the Amount of
$2,535.00.
The unopposed motion is
granted as follows: the Court grants the request for evidence sanctions and
monetary sanctions in the amount of $2,535.00.
Plaintiff Major League
Trucking, Inc. (“Major League”) filed a Complaint alleging that Defendants/Cross-Complainants
wrongfully took two trailer chasses, and a shipping container of goods and
office equipment, and wrote a check with insufficient funds. Defendants/Cross-Complainants’ Cross-Complaint
alleges that Major League and other cross-defendants agreed to pay
Cross-Complainants for storing items at Cross-Complainants’ property but they
have failed to pay any of the rent owed.
Major League now moves
for terminating, issue, or evidence sanctions, and $2,535.00 in monetary
sanctions, against Defendant/Cross-Complainant MARVIN FLORES, on bases
including the following: 1) In August 2023, Major League obtained orders
compelling MARVIN FLORES to provide initial
responses to discovery and to pay sanctions within 30 days; and 2) Flores
failed to do either and has not participated in any meaningful way in this
case. Flores, a self-represented litigant,
has not filed an opposition to the motion.
Where a party willfully disobeys a discovery order,
courts have discretion to impose terminating, issue, evidence, or monetary
sanctions. E.g., CCP
§§2023.010(g), 2023.030. “A trial court has broad discretion to impose
discovery sanctions, but two facts are generally prerequisite to the imposition
of nonmonetary sanctions….: (1) absent unusual circumstances, there must be a
failure to comply with a court order, and (2) the failure must be
willful.” Biles v. Exxon Mobil Corp.
(2004) 124 Cal. App. 4th 1315, 1327. But
see Reedy v. Bussell (2007) 148 Cal. App.4th 1272, 1291
("willfulness is no longer a requirement for the imposition of discovery
sanctions."). “If the party seeking
a monetary sanction meets its burden of proof, the burden shifts to the
opposing party attempting to avoid a monetary sanction to show that it acted
with ‘substantial justification.’ ” Doe
v. U.S. Swimming, Inc. (2011) 200 Cal.App.4th 1424, 1435.
Flores disregarded this Court’s prior orders to provide
discovery responses and to pay sanctions, and he has failed to even oppose this
motion. The failure to file a proper and timely opposition in trial court
creates a waiver of the issues on any appeal.
Bell v. Am. Title Ins. Co. (1991) 226 Cal. App. 3d 1589, 1602. A
judge in a civil case is not "'obligated to seek out theories [a party]
might have advanced, or to articulate … that which … [a party] has left
unspoken.'" Mesecher v.
Major League seeks terminating sanctions, or alternatively,
issue or evidence sanctions. The Court concludes that the appropriate sanction
for Flores’s continued and willful failure to provide discovery responses is to
preclude such evidence at trial. Juarez v Boy Scouts of Am., Inc. (2000)
81 Cal.App.4th 377, 389; see also CCP § 2023.030(c). Flores thus is precluded
from introducing evidence at trial related to the information called for in the
discovery requests he refused to provide. In addition, the Court exercises its
discretion to impose monetary sanctions against Flores in the amount of $2,535.00,
pursuant to CCP § 2023.030(a).