Judge: Gregory Keosian, Case: 20STCV45, Date: 2023-11-08 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 20STCV45    Hearing Date: November 8, 2023    Dept: 61

Defendant City of Los Angeles’s Motion for Protective Order is GRANTED.

Defendant to give notice.

I.                PROTECTIVE ORDER

“When an inspection, copying, testing, or sampling of documents, tangible things, places, or electronically stored information has been demanded, the party to whom the demand has been directed, and any other party or affected person, may promptly move for a protective order.” (Code Civ. Proc. § 2031.060, subd. (a).) The party moving for the order must make a showing of good cause to spare them from “unwarranted annoyance, embarrassment, or oppression, or undue burden and expense.” (Code Civ. Proc. § 2031.060, subd. (b); see also §§ 2030.290; 2033.080.)

Defendant City of Los Angeles (Defendant) seeks a protective order excusing it from responding to Requests for Admission, Set Three (No. 174–262), Requests for Production, Set Four (No. 190 –269); Special Interrogatories, Set Three (No. 86–166); and Form Interrogatories, Set Three, which correspond to the 89 new requests for admission, served by Plaintiff Charles Pierson (Plaintiff). (Motion at p. 2.) Defendant contends it has responded to several prior sets of discovery from Plaintiff, without either party’s prior resort to the court for a discovery motion, and that this new discovery, served on August 30, 2023, are unreasonably duplicative, cumulative, and burdensome. (Nguyen Decl. ¶¶ 4–8; Motion at pp. 4–8.)

Plaintiff in opposition argues that the motion for a protective order is untimely. (Opposition at pp. 4–5.) He also argues that Defendant failed to meet and confer prior to filing the motion. (Opposition at p. 5.) He also argues that the discovery at issue is supported by good cause, and that Defendant has not met its burden to show good cause for the protective order sought. (Opposition at pp. 6–13.)

The motion is not untimely, and was preceded by adequate meet-and-confer efforts. A motion for protective order must be made “promptly.” (See, e.g., Code Civ. Proc. § 2030.090, subd. (a).) Here, the motion was filed on October 4, 2023, before the agreed upon deadline for Defendant’s service of responses to the discovery at issue. (Cwiklo Decl. Exhs. F–I.) The motion was also adequately preceded by meet-and-confer efforts, as Defendant thrice requested that Plaintiff withdraw the discovery at issue, and proposed an IDC. (Nguyen Decl. Exh. 6.)

Good cause supports the present motion. Plaintiff’s discovery requests are facially cumulative, harassing, and more an exercise in wasteful prolixity than necessary discovery. The first six requests for admission in the new discovery serve as an instructive sample of the whole:

No. 174: Admit Mark Fernandez was a Bureau of Sanitation, Wastewater Collection Supervisor in 2019.

No. 175: Admit Mark Fernandez was a Bureau of Sanitation, Wastewater Collection Manager I in 2019.

No. 176: Admit Mark Fernandez was a Bureau of Sanitation, Wastewater Collection Manager II in 2019.

No. 177: Admit Mark Fernandez was promoted to the position of Bureau of Sanitation, Wastewater Collection Supervisor in 2019.

No. 178: Admit Mark Fernandez was promoted to the position of Bureau of Sanitation, Wastewater Collection Manager I in 2019.

No. 179: Admit Mark Fernandez was promoted to the position of Bureau of Sanitation, Wastewater Collection Manager II in 2019.

(Nguyen Decl. Exh. 1.) The pattern of Plaintiff’s discovery is to present the same query to the responding party multiple times, with each instance modestly altering the wording or the detail, resulting in a discovery burden that is several times greater than if the discovery had been reasonably framed. Defendant is asked to admit that it had openings available in a given position in a given year, and in the next request is asked to admit that it had multiple openings in that same position in the same year. (Nguyen Decl. Exh. A.) Rather than seek documents or information from a specific range of years, Plaintiff propounds identical requests directed toward identical material, segregated by the particular year. (Nguyen Decl. Exh. C, D.)  This multiplicative effect is heightened with respect to the requests for admission, which were propounded in conjunction with Form Interrogatories seeking separately the facts, witnesses, and documents supporting any of Defendant’s non-admissions. (Nguyen Decl. Exh. B.) And this is not the first round of discovery; the case has been pending since November 2020, and each set of discovery at issue is at least the third such set in a series.

Contra Plaintiff’s argument in opposition, the burden is on him to justify “the number” of the special interrogatories and requests for admission that he seeks here to propound, as they exceed the number of those ordinarily permitted by statute. (Code Civ. Proc. §§ 2030.040, subd. (b); 2033.040, subd. (b.) Plaintiff’s counsel served this discovery with affidavits of necessity, but Defendant notes this declaration was a pasted version of the prior eight-page affidavit of necessity that Plaintiff served with his prior sets of discovery, which consisted of a mere recitation of the allegations in the Complaint. (Nguyen Decl. Exhs. 1–4.) Plaintiff’s attempt to justify the discovery at issue here is to point to separate statements attached as exhibits to the declaration of his counsel, which consist of little more than attestations that the discovery is related to the subject matter of the litigation. Plaintiff presents no justification, however, of “the number” of discovery requests at issue, why yet another round of such discovery is necessary after several prior iterations, or why it must presently be propounded in such a burdensome, cumulative form.

Defendant has shown good cause for the present motion, and it is therefore GRANTED.