Judge: Gary I. Micon, Case: 23CHCV02263, Date: 2024-09-12 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23CHCV02263    Hearing Date: September 12, 2024    Dept: F43

Angelique Burrough vs. Costco Wholesale Corporation, et al.

Trial Date: 4-1-25

MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER DISCOVERY RESPONSES

MOVING PARTY: Plaintiff Angelique Burrough

RESPONDING PARTY: Defendant Costco Wholesale Corporation

RELIEF REQUESTED

Further Responses to Defendant’s Answers to Plaintiff’s Requests for Production, as well as sanctions

RULING: Parties are ordered to conduct a meaningful meet and confer.

SUMMARY OF ACTION AND ANALYSIS

On July 31, 2023, Plaintiff Angelique Burrough (Plaintiff) filed this personal injury case against Defendant Costco Wholesale Corporation (Defendant).

Plaintiff claims that she propounded discovery on Defendant on September 1, 2023, including requests for production. Defendant did not serve responses to Plaintiff’s requests until June 5, 2024. On June 20, 2024, Plaintiff sent Defendant a meet and confer email requesting further Code-compliant responses. On July 2 and 3, 2024, Plaintiff claims that Defendant responded to Plaintiff’s meet and confer letter and the parties had further discussions via email but were unable to come to a resolution. Plaintiff has moved for further responses to all 55 requests for production.

There appears to be a dispute between the parties over the efforts of the parties to meet and confer. Defendant argues in its opposition that the meet and confer letter sent by Plaintiff on July 2 lumped all the answers to the 55 requests together and did not identify the specific issues with each answer. Defendant claims that its counsel asked Plaintiff’s counsel multiple times to identify each request at issue individually to facilitate the meet and confer process, but Plaintiff’s counsel refused to do so and failed to address any of Defendant’s concerns during the meet and confer process. It does not appear that any telephonic meet and confer occurred; the parties only communicated via email.

The Court has reviewed the documents related to this motion and will not decide the motion on the merits at this time due to the insufficiency of the meet and confer process. The Court orders the parties to meet and confer directly, not by email or letter. Additionally, the parties are ordered to file a joint statement of remaining issues by a date to be set by the Court. The joint statement should briefly describe the matters in dispute, followed by Plaintiffs’ arguments, then Defendant’s arguments.

ORDER

1. The parties are ordered to conduct a meaningful meet and confer.

2. The parties shall submit a joint statement of the remaining issues as described above. The format should be as follows: the parties should recite the specific discovery request at issue, followed by the moving party’s statement of why it should be compelled, followed by the opposing party’s statement of why it should not be compelled. To the extent that an argument is repeated for a subsequent request, the party shall simply refer to the section where the argument was previously made.

3. The dates for the status report and continued hearings will be set at the hearing on this motion.

4. Moving party to provide notice.