Judge: John C. Gastelum, Case: 22-01258623, Date: 2023-08-09 Tentative Ruling

(1) Motion to Compel Answers to Special Irogs (2) Motion to Compel Production

Tentative Ruling:  (1-2) Plaintiffs Concord Care Homes, LLC and Brenda Reinfried (“Plaintiffs”) move to compel Defendant Bernadino Philip Sunglao (“Defendant”) to serve responses to Plaintiffs’ Demand for Production of Records, Set Three, and Special Interrogatories, Set Four and imposing monetary sanctions for Defendant’s willful and intentional failure to respond.

Code of Civil Procedure sections 2030.290 and 2031.300 state that if a party to whom interrogatories or a demand for inspection “fails to serve a timely response to it,” the party waives any and all objections and the propounding party may move for an order compelling responses to the interrogatory or demand.  (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 2030.290(a)-(b), 2031.300(a)-(b).)

Plaintiffs served Defendant with their Demand for Production of Records, Set Three, and Special Interrogatories, Set Four by mail on January 27, 2023.  (Declarations of Garrett Skelly, Exs. 1.)  Defendant has served no responses.  (Id. ¶ 3.)

Because Defendant has failed to serve any responses to Plaintiffs’ Demand for Production of Records, Set Three, and Special Interrogatories, Set Four, the Motion to Compel responses is GRANTED.  Defendant is ORDERED to serve responses to the written discovery and produce responsive documents within 20 days.

Plaintiffs request issue and terminating sanctions as well but fails to specify what kind of issue sanction is sought.  Because Plaintiffs fail to specifically identify the issue sanction sought and because this is the first instance of Defendant’s misuse of the discovery process, the request for issue and terminating sanctions is DENIED.

Plaintiffs’ request for monetary sanctions is also DENIED.  The Skelly Declaration fails to set forth the facts supporting the amount of monetary sanctions requested, as required by Code of Civil Procedure section 2023.040. 

Plaintiffs to give notice.