Judge: Gregory Keosian, Case: 20STCV07826, Date: 2023-03-27 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 20STCV07826    Hearing Date: March 27, 2023    Dept: 61

Cross-Complainants CIP Jardinette Holding, LLC, CIP Jardinette LLC, Ratel Hollywood LP, and Ratel Investments LP’s Motions to Compel Further Responses from Cross-Defendants ReadyCap Commercial, LLC and RCMF 2018-FL Marathon Street, LLC is GRANTED in part. Cross-Defendants’ redactions of responsive documents to preserve the privacy of third-parties’ financial records shall be limited to the redaction of information that identifies the party, such as names and addresses, and other personal identifying information.

I.                   MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER

Although styled a motion to compel further responses, the motions filed by Cross-Complainants CIP Jardinette Holding, LLC, CIP Jardinette LLC, Ratel Hollywood LP, and Ratel Investments LP (Cross-Complainants) actually concern Cross-Defendants RCMF 2018-FL2 and Readycap Commercial, LLC (Cross-Defendants) failure to make a complete document production, owing to redactions that Cross-Complainants claim are unnecessary and overbroad. The motions thus fall under the ambit of Code of Civil Procedure § 2031.320.

That section provides as follows: “If a party filing a response to a demand for inspection, copying, testing, or sampling under Sections 2031.210, 2031.220, 2031.230, 2031.240, and 2031.280 thereafter fails to permit the inspection, copying, testing, or sampling in accordance with that party's statement of compliance, the demanding party may move for an order compelling compliance.” (Code Civ. Proc. § 2031.320, subd. (a).)

Cross-Complainants cite several instances of block-redaction in Cross-Defendants’ document production, including omissions of chunks of texts from paragraphs apparently referring to the loan at issue in this case, or otherwise the redactions of whole paragraphs and pages from reports containing otherwise pertinent information. (Caforio Decl. Exhs. C, D.) Certain email chains have had whole messages removed (Caforio Decl. Exh. E, I–O.), and Cross-Complainants argue that Cross-Defendants have also redacted spreadsheets by typing into and darkening the actual entries on the spreadsheets themselves, thereby improperly editing their metadata. (Motion at pp. 4–5.)

Cross-Defendants in opposition argue that the redactions were made to protect the privacy of Cross-Defendants’ other borrowers, as the redacted information concerned loans other than the one at issue in this case. (Opposition at pp. 4–6, 8–9.)

“In determining whether disclosure is required [against a privacy objection], the court must indulge in a ‘careful balancing’ of the right of a civil litigant to discover relevant facts, on the one hand, and the right of the third parties to maintain reasonable privacy regarding their sensitive personal affairs, on the other. The court must consider the purpose of the information sought, the effect that disclosure will have on the affected persons and parties, the nature of the objections urged by the party resisting disclosure and availability of alternative, less intrusive means for obtaining the requested information. Based on an application of these factors, the more sensitive the nature of the personal information that is sought to be discovered, the more substantial the showing of the need for the discovery that will be required before disclosure will be permitted.” (Hooser v. Superior Court (2000) 84 Cal.App.4th 997, 1004, internal citations omitted.)

Cross-Defendants may legitimately seek to preserve the privacy of their borrowers. A person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in their own financial records. (See International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, Local 21, AFL-CIO v. Superior Court (2007) 42 Cal.4th 319, 330.) A limited redaction of information that may be used to identify third-parties is thus appropriate in this case. (See Valley Bank of Nevada v. Superior Court (1975) 15 Cal.3d 652, 658 [listing means of protecting bank customers’ privacy, including “deletion of the customer's name”].)

In some of the instances of redaction presented in Cross-Complainants’ motion, Cross-Defendants have withheld from disclosure no more information than is appropriate to guard such interests. But in other instances, Cross-Defendants do not narrowly target their redactions to such information, but broadly blank-out entire emails and passages of documents — which otherwise contain information pertaining to the present case — on the grounds that such passages are non-responsive. Such broad redactions are unnecessary, given the availability of more narrowly targeted redactions for information that might identify third parties. Conversely, overbroad redaction creates the appearance that potentially relevant information is potentially being withheld, while more targeted redaction gives the parties more confidence in the completeness of the production.  Moreover, this court’s entry of a stipulated protective order on September 20, 2020, further enables the litigants to guard the privacy interests of third parties. Thus the risk of intrusion upon privacy interests from more narrowly targeted redactions is low.

Cross-Defendants in opposition argue that the motion should be denied because it lacks a separate statement, and was brought outside the 45-day period for motions to compel further responses. (Opposition at p. 10.) But while the present motions are styled motions to compel further, they do not actually concern the inadequacies of any statements of compliance or objections, as such a motion would address. (See Code Civ. Proc. § 2031.310, subd. (a)(1)–(3).) The motions rather concern a deficiency in Cross-Defendants’ actual production, which is properly addressed under Code of Civil Procedure § 2031.320. As the documents at issue were produced pursuant to statements of compliance offered in response to requests for production (Beehler Decl. Exhs. 4–6), Cross-Complainants may avail themselves of this section, not subject either to the timing requirements of Code of Civil Procedure § 2031.310, or the separate statement requirement of CRC Rule 3.1345, which applies only to motions “involving the content of a discovery request or the responses to such a request.” (CRC Rule 3.1345, subd. (a).)

Accordingly, Cross-Complainants’ motion is GRANTED in part. Cross-Defendants’ redactions of responsive documents to preserve the privacy of third-parties’ financial records shall be limited to the redaction of information that identifies the party, such as names and addresses, and any other personal identifying information.