Judge: David A. Rosen, Case: 22GDCV01097, Date: 2023-09-01 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 22GDCV01097 Hearing Date: September 1, 2023 Dept: E
Hearing Date: 09/01/2023 – 2:00pm
Case No: 22GDCV01097
Trial Date: 08/12/2024
Case Name: ANDREA YANNONE, an individual; v. KIA AMERICA, INC., a California
Corporation; and DOES 1-10 inclusive
Plaintiff,
Andrea Yannone moves for an order to strike Defendant Kia America, Inc.’s
objections and compel further responses to Plaintiff’s Request for Production
of Documents, Set One, numbers 3-14, and 16-37.
Plaintiff
brings this Motion pursuant to California Code of Civil Procedure §§ 2031.310,
and 2031.320, on the grounds that Defendant waived its objections and failed to
provide adequate responses to Plaintiff’s RFPs, which seek documents relevant
to their Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act (“SBA”) causes of action.
The
Court’s tentative is to deny the motion, for the reasons set out below.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff
filed a Complaint on 12/23/2022 alleging three causes of action for: (1)
Violation of Song-Beverly Act – Breach of Express Warranty, (2) Violation of
Song-Beverly Act – Breach of Implied Warranty, and (3) Violation of the
Song-Beverly Act Section 1793.2.
The
instant action surrounds allegations pertaining to a 2018 Kia Soul that
Plaintiff purchased on July 7, 2018. Plaintiff alleges that the Subject Vehicle
was delivered to Plaintiff with serious defects and nonconformities to warranty
and developed other serious defects and nonconformities to warranty including,
but not limited to, transmission, emission, suspension, structural, electrical,
and engine system defects.
ANALYSIS
Plaintiff’s counsel,
Kohanoff, alleges he met and conferred in ¶26 of his declaration and referred
the Court to Exhibit 7. Opposition argues that Plaintiff did not meet and
confer; however, the Court does not find Defendant’s arguments on this issue
prevailing as grounds to deny the motion.
LEGAL STANDARD – COMPEL FURTHER – REQUESTS
FOR PRODUCTION
The Section
specifically provides that “[d]iscovery may relate to the claim or defense of
the party seeking discovery or of any other party to the action,” and that
discovery “may be obtained of the identity and location of persons having
knowledge of any discoverable matter, as well as of the existence, description,
nature, custody, condition and location of any document, electronically stored
information, tangible thing, or land or other property.”
CCP § 2031.310(a)
provides that a party demanding a document inspection may move for an order
compelling further responses to the demand if the demanding party deems that:
(1) A statement of
compliance with the demand is incomplete.
(2) A representation of inability to comply is
inadequate, incomplete, or evasive.
(3) An objection in the response is without
merit or too general.
Under CCP § 2031.310 (b)(1), “The motion shall set forth
specific facts showing good cause justifying the discovery sought by the
demand.”
ANALYSIS
Under CCP § 2031.310 (b)(1), “The motion shall set forth
specific facts showing good cause justifying the discovery sought by the
demand.”
“In the more specific context of a demand for production of
a tangible thing, the party who asks the trial court to compel production must
show “good cause” for the request—but unless there is a legitimate privilege
issue or claim of attorney work product, that burden is met simply by a
fact-specific showing of relevance.” (TBG Ins. Services Corp. v. Superior
Court (2002) 96 Cal.App.4th 443, 448.)
Here, Plaintiff makes no attempt to demonstrate a
fact-specific showing of relevance as to each RFP at issue in this motion.
Plaintiff submitted a 192-page separate statement. In this
separate statement, Plaintiff copy-pasted many of the exact arguments in his
Statement of Insufficiencies for each RFP despite each RFP requesting different
things. Further, much of the information in the Statement of Insufficiencies
for each RFP simply contains law on discovery and the Song-Beverly Act,
generally.
Despite each RFP requesting different things or several
different things, not once does Plaintiff attempt to explain a fact-specific
showing of relevance for each RFP at issue.
Additionally, Plaintiff’s arguments that Defendant did not
provide code-compliant responses is unavailing because it is still Plaintiff’s
burden to show good cause for the discovery sought.
Not only does Plaintiff’s separate statement fail at showing
good cause for each request sought, Plaintiff’s motion itself also fails at
showing good cause.
The motion itself does much of what the separate statement
does – it cites law generally related to the Song-Beverly Act and discovery
without attempting to make a fact-specific showing of relevance to each RFP at
issue.
While Plaintiff’s motion does in fact make a slightly more
coherent attempt to demonstrate relevance, Plaintiff’s motion is still not
sufficient in meeting Plaintiff’s burden.
Plaintiff attempts to broadly categorize certain requests. In
relevant part, Plaintiff argued:
Regarding
Defendant’s responses to requests for production of documents, Plaintiff
explained the importance of document production requested and that good cause
exists for the production. Plaintiff explained that Plaintiff’s requests for
document numbers 1 through 15 seek documents relating to Plaintiff’s own
vehicle, including Plaintiff’s purchase, Plaintiff’s repair history, request
for repurchase, Defendant’s response to Plaintiff’s repurchase request, and
communications between Plaintiff and Defendant and/or anyone on behalf of
Defendant. Plaintiff also seeks various reports taken of the Subject Vehicle,
including trouble codes, scan reports, Engine Control Unit reports, Diagnostic
Trouble Code (“DTC”) reports, Power Control Module reports, and Body Control
Module reports. Moreover, Plaintiff’s requests for documents numbers 16 through
31 seek documents relating to Defendant’s policies and procedures regarding the
Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, including actions (or inaction) taken regarding
the Subject Vehicle. The documents sought include research and investigation
regarding Plaintiff’s vehicle, all communications between Defendant and its
agents or authorized repair facility regarding the Subject Vehicle,
communications with dealerships regarding the Subject Vehicle, policies,
procedures, or other guidelines for repurchasing or replacing vehicles under
the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act. These documents are highly relevant to
support whether Defendant failed to abide by its duties under the law and
whether its denial of Plaintiff’s prelitigation buy-back request was willful.
Lastly, Plaintiff’s requests for production of documents number 32 through 37 seek
documents relating to internal investigations and analysis into the cause of
the problems complained of by Plaintiff regarding the Subject Vehicle,
including all DOCUMENTS reviewed, written reports or other DOCUMENTS created
summarizing or otherwise reporting the results of such investigations, any oral
reports that were made summarizing or otherwise reporting the results of such
investigations, and memorandum or emails drafted regarding Plaintiff’s request
and/or Defendant’s investigation and response. (Id. ¶¶ 25, 26, Ex. 7.)
(Pl.
Mot. p. 5-6.)
These arguments in Plaintiff’s motion are insufficient for
several reasons.
First, even if the Court were to assume that Plaintiff’s
categorizations actually fell into those three distinct categories, Plaintiff’s
motion still doesn’t explain how each individual RFP and what it seeks is
relevant. Therefore, the Court is left with taking Plaintiff’s word that each
request falls into each broad categorization of relevance without seeing what
the RFP itself requests. Not to mention, Plaintiff makes no attempt to argue
how each broad categorization is relevant to the extensive case law cited by
Plaintiff, thus the Court is left to guess how each categorization is legally
relevant to the citations in the motion.
Second, if Plaintiff were to attempt to argue at the hearing
that these three broad categorizations in the motion itself are sufficient to
demonstrate a fact-specific showing of relevancy, this argument would also face
problems because these broadly mentioned categories and arguments are not also
asserted in the separate statement. (See Cal. Rules of Court, Rule
3.1345(c)(3); “…The separate statement must include-for each discovery request
(e.g., each interrogatory, request for admission, deposition question, or
inspection demand) to which a further response, answer, or production is
requested-the following: A
statement of the factual and legal reasons for compelling further responses,
answers, or production as to each matter in dispute…”) Thus, despite not
mentioning the three broad categorizations in the separate statement, this deficiency
still belies the most important issue that the Court previously noted:
Plaintiff’s motion and separate statement both do not even attempt to
demonstrate a fact-specific showing of relevancy for each distinct request.
Ultimately, in both Plaintiff’s separate statement and
motion itself, Plaintiff makes no attempt to make a fact-specific showing of
relevancy as to each request at issue. Plaintiff copy-pastes nearly identical
information for each RFP pertaining to the Song-Beverly Act generally and
discovery and leaves the Court to guess and make assumptions as to how each RFP
is legally relevant.
As an example, as to RFP No. 6, which seeks “All photographs
and videotapes of the SUBJECT VEHICLE,” Defendant responded as follows:
After a diligent search and
reasonable inquiry, KA has no responsive photographs or videotapes in its
possession, custody, or control, as no such documents are believed to
exist. Discovery is ongoing and
continuing and has just commenced. KA
reserves the right to supplement this response.
(Separate
Statement ISO of Pl’s Mot. To Compel Further Responses at 19.)
With regard to this response, the
Movant inserts five pages of utterly unresponsive and apparently irrelevant
reason for the responses insufficiency, including arguments about
·
“Defendant’s ‘Vague and Ambiguous’
and ‘Unintelligible’ Objections are Boilerplate and Without Merit,”
·
“Defendant’s ‘Not Reasonably
Calculated to Lead to the Discovery of Admissible Evidence’ Objection is
Boilerplate and Lacks Merit,”
·
“Defendant’s ‘Unduly Burdensome’
Objection is Boilerplate and Without Merit,”
·
“Defendant’s ‘Attorney-Client
Privilege’ and ‘Work Product Doctrine’ Objections are Boilerplate and Without
Merit.”
(Id.
At 20-24.)
The problem with these cut-and-pasted responses? KA made
none of these objections in its response.
It simply stated that it had found no responsive documents. The Plaintiff’s approach on RFP No. 6 is
entirely symptomatic of the approach it takes in its 192-page separate
statement, which is bloated with irrelevant cut-and-pasted text, as in the
response to RFP No. 6.
This needless and irrelevant repetition is so stark that the
Court, unfortunately, has grave doubts as to whether counsel read this filing
before signing it. If counsel did in
fact carefully review this filing before filing it with the Court, what could
possibly be the justification for filing with the Court, as an officer of the
Court, such irrelevant and incomprehensible responses as the one outline
above? Counsel for Plaintiff will be
expected to address these questions at the hearing.
In any event, it is not the Court’s job to attempt to
decipher how Plaintiff’s counsel thinks each RFP is relevant or to sift through
more than a hundred pages of largely irrelevant boilerplate: Plaintiff has the
burden to demonstrate good cause on this motion under CCP § 2031.310 (b)(1),
and Plaintiff has failed to demonstrate good cause. The requirement of a
Separate Statement is meant to help clarify the issues in dispute—not obfuscate
them in an avalanche of boilerplate.
Plaintiff’s motion is DENIED.
SANCTIONS
Except as provided in
subdivision (j), the court shall impose a monetary sanction under Chapter 7
(commencing with Section 2023.010) against any party, person, or attorney who
unsuccessfully makes or opposes a motion to compel further response to a
demand, unless it finds that the one subject to the sanction acted with
substantial justification or that other circumstances make the imposition of
the sanction unjust. (CCP §2031.310(h).)
“The court may award
sanctions under the Discovery Act in favor of a party who files a motion to
compel discovery, even though no opposition to the motion was filed, or
opposition to the motion was withdrawn, or the requested discovery was provided
to the moving party after the motion was filed.” (Cal. Rules of Court, Rule
3.1348(a).)
Neither Plaintiff nor
Defendant requested sanctions. The Court may on its own motion impose
sanctions. Counsel for Plaintiff will be
expected to explain why sanctions should not be imposed for the time and
resources that were expended on this motion.