Judge: John J. Kralik, Case: 20BBCV00105, Date: 2022-08-19 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 20BBCV00105 Hearing Date: August 19, 2022 Dept: NCB
North
Central District
|
randall caldron, Plaintiff, v. james marquardt, et al., Defendants. |
Case
No.: 20BBCV00105 Hearing Date: August 19, 2022 [TENTATIVE]
order RE: motion to compel discovery responses; requests for sanctions |
On July 8, 2022,
Defendant Orange Grove Collision Center, Inc. (“Defendant”) filed a motion to
compel initial responses from Plaintiff Randall Caldron (“Plaintiff”) for Request
for Production of Documents (“RPD”), set one.
On April 28,
2022, Defendant served on Plaintiff the RPD requests. On May 26, 2022, Plaintiff served unverified
responses and some documents. Defense
counsel sent a meet-and-confer letter to Plaintiff’s counsel requesting verified
responses and the production of documents, to which Plaintiff’s counsel agreed
to provide responses by June 26, 2022. As
of the filing of the motions, Defendant states that it has not received
responses from Plaintiff.
On August 2,
2022, Plaintiff filed an opposition brief.
On August 3, 2022, Plaintiff filed an amended opposition brief, which
the Court will consider the operative opposition brief. Plaintiff argues that on May 9, 2022, it
served responses to the RPD, but that Plaintiff’s counsel had misspelled
Plaintiff’s name as “Cladron.” (Uku
Decl., ¶2.) After meeting and conferring,
Plaintiff then inadvertently served the wrong responses to the RPD on Defendant
on July 8, 2022 and Plaintiff became aware of the issue and re-served responses
on July 20, 2022. (Id., ¶3; Ex. A.) Plaintiff argues that the delay and mix-up in
serving amended verified responses was due to Plaintiff being ill. (Id., ¶13; Pl.’s Decl., ¶¶4-5.)
On August 15,
2022, Defendant argues that after receiving unverified responses on May 26,
2022, it received identical, unverified amended responses dated June 28,
2022. Defendant argues that in total,
it received 70 pages of documents on May 26, 2022, 247 pages of documents on
July 20, 2022, and then 15 pages of documents again on July 20, 2022. Defendant argues that it finally received a
verification on July 29, 2022, but that Plaintiff has failed to comply with CCP
§ 2031.280’s requirement to identify specific request numbers in relation to
the documents produced.
In light of the
verified responses provided by Plaintiff, the motion to compel Plaintiff’s responses
to the RPD is denied as moot. While
Defendant argues that the documents produced are not responsive to the RPDs as
requested and the responses do not comply with CCP § 2031.280’s requirement,
Plaintiff ultimately provided verified responses. Thus, to the extent Defendant seeks further
and/or code-compliant responses, it should file a motion to compel further
responses.
Defendant
requests sanctions against Plaintiff and his attorney in the amount of $974.50.
The request is granted to compensate
Defendant and counsel for the delay in providing the responses (particularly in
light of the upcoming trial on September 26, 2022) and for the time spent in
filing this motion. Plaintiff and his counsel of record, jointly and severally, are ordered to
pay monetary sanctions in the amount of $974.50 to
Defendant, by and through counsel, within 20 days of notice of this order.
Defendant
shall
provide notice of this order.