Judge: Jon R. Takasugi, Case: 23STCV22258, Date: 2025-02-25 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23STCV22258    Hearing Date: February 25, 2025    Dept: 17

Superior Court of California

County of Los Angeles

DEPARTMENT 17

TENTATIVE RULING

Plaintiff’s motion to quash is GRANTED IN PART, DENIED IN PART. Plaintiff’s motion to quash is denied as to all requests except those related to billing records are quashed.

            On 9/15/2023, Plaintiff Janelle Arambula (Plaintiff) filed suit against Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (Defendant). On 2/5/2024, Plaintiff filed a first amended complaint (FAC), alleging: (1) discrimination; (2) harassment; (3) retaliation; (4) failure to prevent; (5) failure to provide reasonable accommodation; (6) failure to engage in good faith interactive process; (7) retaliation; and (8) retaliation.

            On 1/25/2025, Plaintiff moved to quash Defendant’s subpoena on Plaintiff’s medical and psychological providers.

Discussion

            Plaintiff seeks to quash Defendants’ subpoena to Kathleen Thurmond, L.C.S.W, SoCal Imaging Tina Davis, Darrell Howard Burstein, M.D., Frischer Medical Group Medical Records, James P. Hall, D.O. Ph.D., and Comprehensive Orthopedic Care Center, on the grounds that the subpoenas are overbroad.

            After review, the Court disagrees.

Plaintiff contends that Defendants’ requests seek records from Plaintiff’s medical providers, her therapist, and psychiatrist, without limitations to time and scope.

            However, a review of the requests clearly indicate that certain requests have temporal scopes. For example, Defendant issued a deposition subpoena to SoCal Imaging, seeking records “…from 12/1/2021 to, and including, the present.” In other subpoenas, Defendant sought records from 1/1/2022 to present, and in another it sought records dating back to 2014.

            Thus, on their face, Defendant’s subpoenas do not seek “the entirety of Plaintiff’s medical and psychological records for her whole life.” (Motion, 8: 5-6.)

            While the Court agrees with Plaintiff that a claim of emotional distress does not allow the defendant employer to engage in a “fishing expedition” seeking all other potential stressors in a plaintiff’s life, Defendants are entitled to explore alternative sources of distress. As the California Supreme Court explained in Vinson v Superior (1987) Court, 43 Cal.3d 833, 842, medical records revealing alternative causes of stress other than those alleged by a plaintiff are relevant to mental distress claims. (Because plaintiff alleged a “causal link between her mental distress and defendants’ conduct, plaintiff implicitly claims . . . it was not caused by a preexisting mental condition, thereby raising the question of alternative sources of distress.”).

            Here, Plaintiff does not propose alternative temporal limitations, or substantively respond to the selected time frames of each subpoena to show that they are overbroad or seek irrelevant documents. Rather, Plaintiff argues that they should be quashed “in their entirety.”  As such, the Court cannot identify any limiting principle by which to limit the types of treatment records or the subject of the treatment records at this time. However, the Court does find that requests related to billing records are insufficiently relevant.

            Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff’s motion to quash is granted in part, denied in part. Plaintiff’s motion to quash is denied as to all requests except those related to billing records are quashed. Given this conclusion, the Court declines to award sanctions at this time.

It is so ordered.

Dated:  February    , 2025

   Hon. Jon R. Takasugi
   Judge of the Superior Court

Parties who intend to submit on this tentative must send an email to the court at smcdept17@lacourt.org by 4 p.m. the day prior as directed by the instructions provided on the court website at www.lacourt.org.  If a party submits on the tentative, the party’s email must include the case number and must identify the party submitting on the tentative.  If all parties to a motion submit, the court will adopt this tentative as the final order.  If the department does not receive an email indicating the parties are submitting on the tentative and there are no appearances at the hearing, the motion may be placed off calendar.  For more information, please contact the court clerk at (213) 633-0517.