Judge Daniel M. Crowley, Case Number: 23STCV21957, Date: 2024-09-24 Tentative Ruling

All parties are urged to meet and confer with all parties concerning this tentative ruling to see if they can reach an agreed-upon resolution of their matter.  If you are able to reach an agreement, please notify the courtroom staff in advance of the hearing if you wish to submit on the tentative ruling rather than argue the motion by notifying the court by e-mailing the court at: SMCDEPT71@lacourt.org. Do not click on the email address, either copy and paste it or type it into your email. Include the word "SUBMITS" in all caps and the Case Number in the Subject line. In the body of the email, please provide the date and time of the hearing, your name, your contact information, the party you represent, and whether that party is a plaintiff, defendant, cross-complainant, cross-defendant, claimant, intervenor, or non-party, etc.

            Please be advised that if you submit on the tentative and elect not to appear at the hearing, the opposing party may still appear at the hearing and argue the matter, and the court could change its tentative based upon the argument.  Unless you receive a submission from all other parties in the matter, you should assume that others might appear at the hearing to argue. If you submit, but still intend to appear, include the words "SUBMITS, BUT WILL APPEAR" in the Subject line.

            If you elect to argue your matter, you are urged to do so remotely, via Court-Connect. If the moving party fails to appear and/or submit to the Court’s tentative ruling, the Court will take the matter off calendar.

            Note that once the Court has issued a tentative, the Court has the inherent authority not to allow the withdrawal of a motion and to adopt the tentative ruling as the order of the court.

If you submitted a courtesy copy of your papers containing media (such as a DVD or thumb drive), unless you request the return of the media in your papers, the court will destroy it following the hearing of your matter.

On February 28, 2024, the parties participated in an Informal Discovery Conference on the instant motion. After discussion, this Court deemed the issues resolved. (2/28/24 Minute Order IDC.)

On September 25, 2023, Plaintiff propounded its RFP on Defendant. (Decl. of Bedwan ¶13, Exh. 2.) On November 8, 2023, per a mutually agreed-upon extension, Defendant electronically served its unverified responses to the RFP, which were not code-compliant, nor were they accompanied by any document production. (Decl. of Bedwan ¶14, Exh. 3.) Defendant served verifications on December 20, 2023. (Decl. of Bedwan ¶15, Exh. 4.)

On February 28, 2024, Counsels for the parties attended an Informal Discovery Conference (“IDC”) in this Court. (Decl. of Bedwan ¶22.) During the discussion, Defendant agreed to provide code-compliant supplemental responses to Requests 16-21 of Plaintiff’s RFP. (2/29/24 Notice of IDC Outcome.)

On April 25, 2024, Plaintiff emailed Defendant to inquire about the supplemental responses and document production discussed at the IDC. (Decl. of Bedwan ¶23, Exh. 12.) On April 25, 2024, Defendant responded to Plaintiff’s email stating that it had incorrectly calendared the date for production and that Plaintiff could expect the supplemental responses and documentation by the next week at the latest. (Decl. of Bedwan ¶24, Exh. 13.)

After still not receiving the at-issue responses and documents, Plaintiff followed up with Defendant via email on May 16, 2024, inviting Defendant to discuss the matter via telephone. (Decl. of Bedwan ¶25, Exh. 14.) On May 16, 2024, Counsels for the parties met and conferred telephonically and agreed that Plaintiff’s deadline to file the present Motion would be on June 25, 2024. (Decl. of Bedwan ¶26, Exh. 15.) To date, Defendant has not produced a supplemental response or document in response to Plaintiff’s RFP. (Decl. of Bedwan ¶27.)

Plaintiff filed the instant motion on June 26, 2024. Defendant filed its opposition on September 11, 2024. Plaintiff filed her reply on September 16, 2024.

A “party may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action . . . if the matter either is itself admissible in evidence or appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” (C.C.P. §2017.010.) “[A] civil litigant’s right to discovery is broad” and the “statutes governing discovery must be construed liberally in favor of disclosure.” (Williams v. Superior Court (2017) 3 Cal.5th 531, 541.)

“[E]vidence is ‘relevant’ if it might reasonably assist a party in evaluating its case, preparing for trial, or facilitating a settlement.” (Moore v. Mercer (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th 424, 447). A party is entitled to discover “any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action.” (C.C.P. §2017.010.) The phrase “subject matter” is broader than relevancy to the issues (which determines admissibility of evidence at trial). (Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. v. Superior Court (1992) 7 Cal.App.4th 1384, 1392.) Courts have uniformly held that, for discovery purposes, information should be regarded as “relevant” to the subject matter if it might reasonably assist a party in evaluating the case, preparing for trial, or facilitating settlement. (Stewart v. Colonial Western Agency, Inc. (2001) 87 Cal.App.4th 1006, 1013.)

RFP Nos. 16-23 seek basic documents relating to Defendant’s internal investigation and analysis of the defects plaguing Plaintiff’s vehicle and establishing that Defendant previously knew of such Defects but nevertheless failed to repurchase the vehicle. This information is relevant and should not be onerous for Defendant to provide. Further, Defendant agreed to provide supplemental responses to Plaintiff at the IDC and has failed to follow through.

Defendant’s objection to Plaintiff’s discovery requests on the basis they are overbroad in terms of time, scope, and defined defects is unavailing. Plaintiff has narrowly tailored the requests to documents concerning only air conditioning defects in vehicles of the same year, make, and model as Plaintiff’s vehicle. Furthermore, the defect definition was carefully constructed based upon Plaintiff’s documented complaints and repairs, as well as from Defendant’s own language taken from its own Technical Service Bulletins (“TSB”).

Defendant’s Opposition sets forth unsupported assertions about the burden of compliance. However, Defendant’s discussion of the alleged burden does not contain a single citation to any evidentiary material. Any claim of undue burden by the responding party must be substantiated by evidence. (See Coriell v. Superior Court (1974) 39 Cal.App.3d 487, 492-493 [holding that answering an interrogatory would require “considerable effort” and that “‘many hundreds of man hours’ and ‘approximately nine months’ [would] be required to supply answers” was conclusory and not factual in nature—accordingly, the trial court erred in relieving the responding party from providing further responses].)

Here, Defendant offers no factual support regarding the alleged costs of document production. (Comstock v. Humphries (2015) 786 F.3d 701, 709 [“[A]rguments in briefs are not evidence.”].) Defendant’s Opposition and the Declaration of Samantha Koopersmith are silent as to the specific nature of the burden such as time, labor, and monetary costs or prejudice incurred. Defendant’s objection on the basis of burden is unavailing.

Defendant’s objection to production on the basis of trade secrets and confidentiality are both unavailing. Should Defendant determine that the information sought in the RFPs is private, proprietary, and/or confidential, it should move for a protective order rather than lodging such an objection. (See C.C.P. §2031.060(b).)

Accordingly, Defendant is ordered to provide substantive, responsive answers without boilerplate objections to RFP Nos. 16-23 within 10 days.

Plaintiff’s motion to compel further responses to RFP Nos. 16-23 from Defendant is granted. Defendant is ordered to produce Code-compliant responses without boilerplate objections within 10 days.

Hon. Daniel M. Crowley

Judge of the Superior Court