Judge: Joseph Lipner, Case: 21STCV12151, Date: 2023-08-24 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 21STCV12151 Hearing Date: January 30, 2024 Dept: 72
SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
DEPARTMENT 72
TENTATIVE
RULING
|
LA-KEEYA MONIQUE LOMAN et al., Plaintiffs, v. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO., INC. et al., Defendants. |
Case No:
21STCV12151 Hearing Date: January 30, 2024 Calendar Number: 3 |
Plaintiffs La-Keeya Monique Loman and Robert Earl Loman Jr.
move to compel Defendant American Honda Motor Co. (“Honda”) to comply with the
Court’s October 11, 2022 discovery order (the “October 11 Order”).
The Court grants Plaintiffs’ motion as follows. Honda shall produce the following documents
within 30 days of this order.
·
Honda shall conduct searches of its Tech
Line/Field Report systems and warranty database based on Defect Code 03214 and
produce the resulting documents from those databases.
·
Honda shall produce the 13,069 emails it
originally retrieved. Honda may redact them solely and only for privilege and
work product, and such redactions must be supported by a privilege log. Any
emails produced pursuant to this order shall be subject to the terms of the
August 19, 2022 protective order.
·
Honda shall produce the entirety of the Subject
Vehicle’s repair history, including an unredacted call log (or a specific
privilege log supporting any attorney-client privilege or work product
protection) and confirm in writing that it has done so.
The Court denies Plaintiff’s request that Honda search its
dealer contacts and warranty databases “based on Plaintiffs’ Entire Defect
Definition.” That definition in
Plaintiff’s request for production is so complex and convoluted that the Court
cannot determine what it is that Plaintiff is asking Honda to search for.
In its August 24, 2023 minute order on Plaintiff’s request
for discovery sanctions, the Court noted that there has been an undue amount of
discovery issues in this case and an undue number of discovery motions
scheduled. The present dispute continues that storied tradition.
Plaintiffs filed this action against American Honda Motor
Co. (“Honda”) under the Song-Beverly Act on March 30, 2021, alleging that Honda
sold them a defective vehicle. After the defects arose, Plaintiffs presented
the vehicle to Penske, a Honda-authorized repair facility, for repair, but
Penske was unable to resolve the defects.
On October 11, 2022, more than one year ago, the Court issued
the October 11 Order, instructing Honda to provide Code-compliant, verified
further responses, without objection, to Plaintiff’s Request for Production
(“RFP”), Set One, Nos. 17-20, 24-26, 55, and 56 and produce responsive
documents.
On January 31, 2023, the Court denied Honda’s motion for a
protective order on the discovery in the October 11 Order (the “January 31
Order”). Following the hearing for that motion, Honda contended that there were
over 13,069 emails that may be responsive to requests 18-20, 24, and 25. The
Court determined that such an assertion, occurring not only after responses
were originally due, but after the hearing itself, was untimely, and therefore
did not merit a protective order.
On March 2, 2023, the Court granted in part Plaintiff’s
motion to compel compliance with the October 11 Order (the “March 2 Order”).
The Court found that Honda was still not in compliance as to RFP Nos. 17, 18,
19, 20, 24, and 25, and ordered further responses without objection. As to RFP
No. 17, the Court found that Honda’s statement that it had no responsive
documents was permissible, but that Honda must additionally “specify whether
the inability to comply is because the particular item or category has never
existed, has been destroyed, has been lost, misplaced, or stolen, or has never
been, or is no longer, in the possession, custody, or control of the responding
party.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.230.)
On February 16, 2023, March 1, 2023, and March 10, 2023,
Honda produced a rough total of 75 emails in response to RFP Nos. 18-20, 24,
and 25.
On August 24, 2023, the Court denied Plaintiff’s motion for
sanctions in connection with the discovery at issue here, denying the request
for sanctions and instructing the parties to meet and confer as to the
outstanding discovery disputes (the “August 24 Order”). The order stated that:
The
parties are ordered to meet and confer about outstanding search issues. The
meet and confer shall take place within the next thirty days, will be in person
or by video conference and will last a minimum of two hours or until agreement
is reached. The lawyers representing Honda must know how the searches were
conducted and how the databases can be searched. After the meet and confer, the
parties shall file a joint stipulation stating what issues have been resolved
and what issues remain.
In
the meet and confer efforts following the August 24 Order, Honda told Plaintiff
that, of the 13,069 emails that were potentially responsive to RFP Nos. 18-20,
24, and 25, approximately 13,000 of those emails were filtered from Honda’s
production because they did not expressly refer to the Quality Information
Sheet numbers “HNA19010702” or “HNA20011503” (the “QIS Numbers”).
The Court held an Informal Discovery Conference (the “IDC”)
on November 8, 2023.
Plaintiff filed this motion on December 1, 2023. Honda filed
an opposition and Plaintiff filed a reply.
Unless otherwise limited by order of the court in accordance
with this title, any party may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not
privileged, that is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending
action or to the determination of any motion made in that action, if the matter
either is itself admissible in evidence or appears reasonably calculated to
lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. (Code Civ. Proc. § 2017.010.) Discovery
may relate to the claim or defense of the party seeking discovery or of any
other party to the action. (Code Civ. Proc. § 2017.010.)
“Relevant evidence is defined in Evidence Code section 210
as evidence ‘having any tendency in reason to prove or disprove any disputed
fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action.’ The test of
relevance is whether the evidence tends logically, naturally, and by reasonable
inference to establish material facts. The trial court has broad discretion in
determining the relevance of evidence, but lacks discretion to admit irrelevant
evidence.” (Donlen v. Ford Motor Co. (2013)
217 Cal.App.4th 138, 148 [internal quotations and citations omitted].)
“A statement that the party to whom a demand for inspection,
copying, testing, or sampling has been directed will comply with the particular
demand shall state that the production, inspection, copying, testing, or
sampling, and related activity demanded, will be allowed either in whole or in
part, and that all documents or things in the demanded category that are in the
possession, custody, or control of that party and to which no objection is
being made will be included in the production.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.220.)
“A representation of inability to comply with the particular
demand for inspection, copying, testing, or sampling shall affirm that a
diligent search and a reasonable inquiry has been made in an effort to comply
with that demand. This statement shall also specify whether the inability to
comply is because the particular item or category has never existed, has been
destroyed, has been lost, misplaced, or stolen, or has never been, or is no
longer, in the possession, custody, or control of the responding party. The
statement shall set forth the name and address of any natural person or
organization known or believed by that party to have possession, custody, or
control of that item or category of item.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.230.)
“(a)
On receipt of a response to a demand for inspection, copying, testing, or
sampling, the demanding party may move for an order compelling further response
to the demand if the demanding party deems that any of the following apply:
(1) A statement of compliance with the
demand is incomplete.
(2)
A representation of inability to comply is inadequate, incomplete, or evasive.
(3) An objection in the response is
without merit or too general.
(b) A motion
under subdivision (a) shall comply with each of the following:
(1)
The motion shall set forth specific facts showing good cause justifying the
discovery sought by the demand.
(2)
The motion shall be accompanied by a meet and confer declaration under Section
2016.040.
(3)
In lieu of a separate statement required under the California Rules of Court,
the court may allow the moving party to submit a concise outline of the
discovery request and each response in dispute.
(c)
Unless notice of this motion is given within 45 days of the service of the
verified response, or any supplemental verified response, or on or before any
specific later date to which the demanding party and the responding party have
agreed in writing, the demanding party waives any right to compel a further
response to the demand.
…
(h) Except as provided in subdivision (j), the court shall impose a monetary
sanction under Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 2023.010) against any party,
person, or attorney who unsuccessfully makes or opposes a motion to compel
further response to a demand, unless it finds that the one subject to the
sanction acted with substantial justification or that other circumstances make
the imposition of the sanction unjust.”
(Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310.)
The
burden is on the moving party to show both relevance to the subject matter and
specific facts justifying discovery. (Glenfed Develop. Corp. v. Superior
Court (1997) 53 Cal.App.4th 1113, 1117.)
Once good cause is established by the moving party, the burden then
shifts to the responding party to justify any objections made to document
disclosure. (Hartbrodt v. Burke (1996) 42 Cal.App.4th 168, 172-174.)
First,
as a general matter, this is not a motion for reconsideration of the October 11
Order. The Court does not see a need to relitigate the substance of that order,
nor does it believe that doing so would create good incentives for the parties
with regards to judicial economy. Thus, the Court will only evaluate whether
Honda complied with the October 11 Order and the March 2, 2023 minute order on
Plaintiff’s first motion to compel compliance with the October 11 Order.
In the October 11 Order, the Court found that Honda’s
response was sufficient because it stated that it produced all responsive
documents except for those covered by attorney-client privilege or work
product.. Plaintiff moves to compel further responses now, arguing that the
responses are deficient for the same reason that the others are deficient. It
is not clear how the new revelations that the email search was filtered using
specific codes affects the Court’s prior ruling. However, Plaintiff argues that
Honda has now confirmed that it did not produce the entire repair history for
Plaintiff’s vehicle. This information is necessarily relevant and discoverable.
Honda will produce the repair history for the subject vehicle.
Plaintiff
argues that Honda must provide additional information from its Tech Line and
Field Report system. Honda’s initial responses included results based on block
searches of the terms “infotainment system malfunction,” “infotainment system
inoperable,” “rearview camera inoperable,” and “rearview camera malfunction.”
Plaintiff argued that these search terms would limit the results only to those
which contained this exact phrasing. The Court previously determined that
Plaintiff had not produced enough evidence in support of this assertion.
As discussed above, the Court ordered the parties to meet
and confer over the search process and that Honda’s counsel was to be aware of
the ways in which its databases could be searched for the meet and confer
process. However, Plaintiff has asserted that the database can be searched by
defect codes – which should be a more efficient and precise method. In
the September 19, 2023 deposition of Anthony Sindelar, Sindelar testified that
defect codes are a type of code used to identify the problem or its cause.
The availability of these defect codes for searching raises
implicit questions as to why Honda did not resort to this simpler method of
searching, and thus does create evidence in support of Plaintiff’s claim that
Honda may be excluding responsive information. Plaintiff requests that Honda
search only using a single defect code, which the Court deems reasonable. Honda
shall search using that defect code and produce the results.
The
Court ordered Honda to provide further responses to RFP Nos. 17-20, 24-26, 55,
and 56 without objection in the October 11 Order. The Court has already noted
in its January 31 and March 2 orders that Honda’s objections to RFP Nos. 18,
19, 24, and 25 based on burden were deemed untimely in the January 31 Order.
Thus, the Court does not reconsider Honda’s objections based on burden which it
argues in its opposition.
Plaintiff
argued in the motion for sanctions leading up to the August 24 Order that
Honda’s email search Honda should produce all 13,069 of the potentially
responsive emails. The Court concluded that there was no evidence that all of
those emails were responsive.
In
the meet and confer efforts following the August 24 Order, Honda told Plaintiff
that, of the 13,069 emails that were potentially responsive to RFP Nos. 18-20,
24, and 25, approximately 13,000 of those emails were filtered from Honda’s
production because they did not expressly refer to the Quality Information
Sheet numbers “HNA19010702” or “HNA20011503” (the “QIS Numbers”). In other
words, emails that did not contain those numbers were excluded, even if they
could have discussed the relevant defects.
Honda
argues that “[t]he 13,069 emails were the result of the use of overbroad search
terms intended to capture all potential emails that were then pared down with
the use of QIS numbers, issued at the start of an investigation, and intended
to be used to identify its internal investigation affiliated material.”
(Opposition at p. 7:13-16.)
The
Court would be sympathetic to Honda’s argument in a normal case where the issue
arose for the first time. But this is no
longer a normal case. This set of
documents was subject to no fewer than four previous court orders and a
conference with the Court: (1) the October
11, 2022 order granting the motion to compel; (2) the January 31, 2023 denying Honda’s
motion for protective order that related specifically to the asserted burden
posed by the 13,069 documents that may be responsive; (3) the March 2, 2023
order granting in part the motion to compel compliance; and (4) the August 24,
2023 motion for sanctions, which the Court denied but required Honda and
Plaintiff to engage in further meet and confer; and (5) the November 8, 2023 Informal Discovery
Conference.
This
dispute has now occupied significant resources of the prior judicial officer in
this department as well as the current judicial officer.
The
time is long past for Honda to come up with a reasonable way to narrow down the
13,069 documents. The Court is mindful
that this issue was litigated about these very documents approximately one year
ago, before the current judicial officer took over this department, and the
Court denied Honda’s motion for a protective order. The Court there noted that Honda was required
to have done this analysis before the very first motion to compel was
granted. Honda is still attempting to
litigate the same issue. It is time for
Honda to produce the documents. The
documents will all be subject to the strict protections of the parties’
protective order.
The Court is aware of no reason Honda should not have
produced all documents relating to the Subject Vehicle long ago. The Court orders Honda to do so now if it has
not done so previously.
The Court declines to appoint a discovery referee at this
time.