Judge: Douglas W. Stern, Case: 21STCV29430, Date: 2022-08-22 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 21STCV29430    Hearing Date: August 22, 2022    Dept: 52

Tentative Ruling:

Defendant Codemax Medical Billing’s Motion for Terminating Sanctions for Plaintiff’s Failure to Comply with Court Order, and Monetary Sanctions

Defendant Codemax Medical Billing moves for terminating and monetary sanctions against plaintiff William W. Martin, Ph.D., Licensed Clinical Psychologist, a California corporation, for misuse of the discovery process.

Discovery sanctions should be imposed incrementally, “starting with monetary sanctions and ending with the ultimate sanction of termination.”  (Lopez v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York, Inc. (2016) 246 Cal.App.4th 566, 604.)  “[A] terminating sanction should generally not be imposed until the court has attempted less severe alternatives and found them to be unsuccessful and/or the record clearly shows lesser sanctions would be ineffective.”  (Ibid.)  Appropriate sanctions are those “such as are suitable and necessary to enable the party seeking discovery to obtain the objects of the discovery he seeks, but [not] which are designed not to accomplish the objects of discovery but to impose punishment.”  (Laguna Auto Body v. Farmers Ins. Exchange (1991) 231 Cal.App.3d 481, 488.)

On March 17, 2022, the court granted defendant’s motion to compel discovery responses and ordered plaintiff to serve verified responses without objections to form interrogatories—general, set one, special interrogatories, set one, and requests for production, set one, within 20 days.  The court also ordered plaintiff to pay defendant $2,185 in sanctions within 20 days.

Plaintiff violated the court’s order.  Plaintiff served only unverified responses (Papazian Decl., ¶ 3, Ex. B), which are “tantamount to no responses at all.”  (Appleton v. Superior Court (1988) 206 Cal.App.3d 632, 636.)  Plaintiff also did not pay the monetary sanctions.  (Papazian Decl., ¶ 3.)

Granting terminating sanctions for violating this single court order would be excessive.  Terminating sanctions are not necessary to enable defendant to obtain the discovery it seeks.  Defendant did not move for issue or evidence sanctions and instead jumped straight to terminating sanctions.  The court has no basis for finding that sanctions short of termination would be ineffective.

The court finds further monetary sanctions are appropriate.  Defendant moves for $3,035 in sanctions for the $60 filing fee, four hours of attorney fees at $425 hourly to draft the motion, and three hours at $425 hourly for replying to the opposition and appearing at the hearing.  Plaintiff did not file an opposition, and defendant did not file a reply.  The court finds that defendant reasonably incurred four hours of fees at $425 hourly, plus the $60 filing fee, for a total of $1,760.

Disposition

The motion is denied as to terminating sanctions. 

The motion is granted in part as to monetary sanctions. 

Plaintiff William W. Martin, Ph.D., Licensed Clinical Psychologist, a California corporation, is ordered to pay defendant Codemax Medical Billing $1,760 in monetary sanctions within 20 days.