Judge Jill Feeney, Case 20STCV02388 2023-01-11 Tentative Ruling

The parties are encouraged to meet and confer concerning this tentative ruling to determine if there is an agreement to submit.

Regardless of whether there is any such agreement, each party who wishes to submit must send an email to the Court at SSCdept30@LACourt.org indicating the party's intention to submit.

Include the word "SUBMITS" in all caps and the case number in the subject line of the email and in the body provide the date and time of the hearing, your name, your contact information, the party you represent, whether that party is a plaintiff, defendant, cross-complainant, cross-defendant, claimant, or non-party.

If a party submits but still intends to appear at the hearing, include the words "SUBMITS BUT WILL APPEAR" in the subject line of the email.

If the Court does not receive emails from the parties indicating submission on this tentative ruling and there are no appearances at the hearing, the Court may, at its discretion, adopt the tentative as the final order or place the motion off calendar.

Unless all the parties have submitted, the Court will hear argument from any party that appears at the hearing and wishes to argue. The Court may change its tentative as a result of the argument and adopt the changed tentative as the final order at the end of that hearing, even if all the parties are not present.

Be advised that after the Court has posted/issued a tentative ruling, the Court has the inherent authority to prohibit the withdrawal of said motion and may adopt the tentative ruling as the order of the Court.

-Motion to Compel Further Deposition Testimony and Documents from Non-Party GRS Funding and Request for Sanctions

The issue presented by both of these motions is the discoverability of information about the sale of Plaintiff’s medical lien by Docs Surgical Hospital to GRS Funding, a medical factoring business.

Relevance for purposes of discovery is a broader concept than what evidence will be admissible at trial. In the discovery context, information is relevant if it might assist a party in the evaluation of a case, the preparation for trial or the reaching of a settlement. (Haniff v. Superior Court (2017) 9 CA5th 191, 205.)

A plaintiff seeking to recover past medical expenses in a personal injury action is entitled to recover the lesser of (a) the reasonable value of the medical services provided or (b) the amount paid or incurred for the medical services. (Howell v. Hamilton Meats & Provisions. Inc. (2011) 52 Cal.4th 541, 556.)

In Moore v. Mercer (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th 424, 447)the Court of Appeal held that a trial court abused its discretion when it denied a similar motion to compel this type of information. (Id.) The Moore court concluded that “evidence surrounding the sale of bills and liens. . . does bear some probative value in determining the reasonable value of the services. And given the breadth of a party’s right to discovery any information that might assist him in evaluating or preparing his case, the court erred.” (Id.)

With respect to the motion regarding GRS Funding, GRS does not oppose the motion nor does it provide any declarations or other evidence indicating that the information sought constitutes a trade secret. Instead, Plaintiff asserts the existence of a trade secret with respect to this information. However, only “the owner of a trade secret has a privilege to refuse to disclose the secret . . .” (Evid. Code § 1060.)

With respect to the motion regarding Docs Surgical Hospital, the non-party entity does oppose the motion contending, among other things, that a trade secret is at issue here. The declaration of Dr. Siddique is attached in support of this contention.

This claim of the existence of a trade secret must be analyzed in the context of the parameters discussed at the IDC on this matter. At that time, the Court made it clear that it did not think that the scope of discovery about the factoring agreement sought by Defendant was appropriate. The Court indicated that the amount paid for the accounts receivable (subject to a protective order) would be the only information ordered to be produced.

Docs Surgical Hospital argues that this information should not be disclosed because Docs entered into a non-disclosure agreement with GRS and GRS would be harmed by this disclosure. This does not establish a trade secret belonging to Docs Surgical Hospital.

Docs does argue that the amount paid by a factoring company for a particular lien is a trade secret that derives independent economic value from not being generally known to the public or other person who can obtain economic value from its disclosure. Docs contends that other factoring companies and the counsel in this case could use the information to Doc’s economic detriment.

However, given that the only information to be disclosed is the payment for the accounts receivable as a whole without any details regarding how that number was reached or the agreement details or indeed any other information, Docs does not establish how this information alone constitutes a trade secret given its own acknowledgement (Siddique Decl. at paragraph 8) that “each patient billing is unique and different.”

Deposition questions and documents establishing the following items only must be answered/produced: (1) the date the lien was sold and (2) the amount paid for the lien by GRS.

Any documents produced may be redacted to the extent that they include additional information. Furthermore, the information (both deposition testimony and documents) will be produced pursuant to a protective order. The parties should stipulate to the terms of a protective order and file it with the court.