Judge: Glenn R. Salter, Case: 22-1239684, Date: 2023-07-27 Tentative Ruling

There are seven discovery motions on calendar.  Six have been brought by plaintiff and one by defendants.

The parties were ordered to meet and confer and provide the court with a Joint Statement enumerating the unresolved issues.  They have done so.

The Motions to Compel Deposition

At bottom, this is an unnecessary dispute over the timing of two key depositions.

Plaintiff filed a motion to compel the deposition of the Person Most Qualified of defendant Intense Lighting, LLC, within 14 days of the hearing date.

Defendants filed a motion to compel the “second” deposition of the plaintiff because she had been instructed not to answer five specific questions.

The defendant confirmed the deposition date of its Person Most Qualified but later it refused to produce that person for deposition until after plaintiff’s second deposition.  However, there is no authority for the proposition that plaintiff’s deposition must be completed first.

Meanwhile, during plaintiff’s deposition she was instructed not to answer five specific questions asking about her claims of discrimination and whether she had ever complained to anyone.  Counsel objected under Rifkind v. Superior Court (1994) 22 Cal.App.4th 1255 arguing these were improper contention questions.  However, the questions asked for facts (e.g., “Did you ever complain to anyone that you were not accommodated at the time that you were at Intense?”) and, as such, were proper.

There is, not surprisingly, a side issue:  Plaintiff complains that defendant’s motion was untimely because it had not been filed within 60 days after “completion of the record of the deposition.”  There is no authority addressing what constitutes completion of a deposition record.  Here, was it on March 31, 2023, when Veritext e-mailed a link to download the deposition transcript?  Or was it on April 28, 2023, when plaintiff’s counsel provided defendant with a signed copy of plaintiff’s deposition transcript?  The court finds it is the latter and that the motion was timely.

Based on the above, both motions are GRANTED and the competing requests for sanctions are DENIED.

Counsel shall be prepared to set deposition dates and times at the hearing.

Written Discovery Motions

The parties met and conferred as to the discovery motions and resolved many of the disputed issues.  However, the court understands that the following discovery remains in dispute.

1.    As to Employment Form Interrogatory No. 216.1, because it appears that defendants have no additional information to provide, the motion as to this request is DENIED.

2.    As to Form Interrogatories Nos. 12.1, 12.4, and 12.6, the court finds that defendants are misconstruing the term “Incident” and thus the motion as to these requests is GRANTED.

3.    As to Special Interrogatory No. 35 to defendant Intense Lighting, the court finds the response improper.  It does not call for Intense Lighting to provide any kind of summary, compilation, etc., and thus the motion is GRANTED.

 Defendants are ORDERED to serve further responses to the discovery responses as outlined above within 20 days.

Notice

The plaintiff shall give notice.