Judge: Joseph Lipner, Case: 22STCV27883, Date: 2023-08-31 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22STCV27883    Hearing Date: August 31, 2023    Dept: 72

TENTATIVE RULING

The Court Grants the request to compel further responses to Special Interrogatories, Set Two, 11, 12, 13, and 14. Defendant A-One Security Services, Inc. shall serve further, code-compliant responses, without objections, to those interrogatories within 30 days of this ruling.

The Court Grants in part the request to compel further responses to No. 10.  Defendant A-One Security Services, Inc. shall serve further, code-complaint responses as specified in this order.

The Court denies the request to compel further responses to Nos. 6, 9, and 15.

The Court denies the request for sanctions.

BACKGROUND

On August 26, 2022, Plaintiff Emmanuel Nwufor (“Plaintiff”) filed this employment law action against Defendants A-One Security Services, Inc. (“A-One”), Universal Protection Service Services, LP dba Allied Universal Security Services (“Allied”), and Does 1 through 50, inclusive.

The Complaint asserts the following causes of action: (1) discrimination in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”); (2) violation of the California Equal Pay Act; (3) failure to take all reasonable steps necessary to prevent discrimination in violation of FEHA; (4) failure to provide reasonable accommodation; (5) failure to engage in the interactive process; (6) constructive wrongful termination; (7) financial elder abuse; (8) waiting time penalties; (9) failure to pay overtime; (10) failure to provide rest days; (11) failure to provide meal periods; (12) failure to provide rest breaks; (13) failure to pay all wages earned for all hours worked; (14) failure to reimburse business expenses; (15) failure to timely provide payroll records; (16) failure to timely provide personnel records; (17) failure to timely provide personnel file (this cause of action is listed on the caption page of the Complaint, but is missing from the body of the Complaint); (18) intentional infliction of emotional distress; (19) negligent infliction of emotional distress; (20) unfair and unlawful business practices; (21) declaratory relief.

Plaintiff moves to compel Defendant A-One’s further responses to his Special Interrogatories, Set Two. A-One opposes the motion.

ANALYSIS

“On receipt of a response to interrogatories, the propounding party may move for an order compelling a further response if the propounding party deems that any of the following apply: ¶ (1) An answer to a particular interrogatory is evasive or incomplete. ¶ (2) An exercise of the option to produce documents under Section 2030.230 is unwarranted or the required specification of those documents is inadequate. ¶ (3) An objection to an interrogatory is without merit or too general.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.300, subd. (a).) 

A.    Timeliness

Motions to compel further responses to interrogatories must be brought within 45 days of service of a verified response, supplemental verified response, or on a date to which the propounding and responding parties have agreed to in writing; otherwise, the propounding party waives the right to compel further responses. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.300, subd. (c).)

Here, Plaintiff’s counsel testifies that the parties agreed to extend the deadline to file the instant motion to August 18, 2023. (Declaration of Daniel Kalinowski, filed August 4, 2023 (“Kalinowski Decl.”), ¶ 10; Exhibit 8 [email confirming the parties’ extension of the motion to compel deadline].)

Accordingly, the Court finds the motion timely, as it was filed on August 4, 2023, on the agreed deadline by the parties.

B.    Meet and Confer

The instant motion must be accompanied by a meet and confer declaration. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.300, subd. (b)(1).)

            The Court finds Plaintiff met and conferred with A-One prior to filing this motion. (Kalinowski Decl., ¶¶ 6-10.) To the extent A-One is arguing that the Court should deny the motion because the process was insufficient, the Court refuses to do so.

C.    Separate Statement

The Court also finds that Plaintiff has satisfied the separate statement requirement. (See Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.1345(a)(2) [requiring motions to compel further responses to requests for interrogatories be accompanied by a separate statement]; Plaintiff’s Separate Statement filed August 4, 2023 [providing the interrogatories at issue, A-One’s responses, and Plaintiff’s reasons for moving to compel further responses].)

D.    Discussion

Plaintiff now moves to compel Defendant A-One’s further responses to his Special Interrogatories, Set Two (“SROGS”), Nos. 6, 9, 10,             11, 12, 13, 14, and 15.

The following rules apply with regard to responses to interrogatories.

“(a) Each answer in a response to interrogatories shall be as complete and straightforward as the information reasonably available to the responding party permits.

(b) If an interrogatory cannot be answered completely, it shall be answered to the extent possible.

(c) If the responding party does not have personal knowledge sufficient to respond fully to an interrogatory, that party shall so state, but shall make a reasonable and good faith effort to obtain the information by inquiry to other natural persons or organizations, except where the information is equally available to the propounding party.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.220.)

“If an objection is made to an interrogatory or to a part of an interrogatory, the specific ground for the objection shall be set forth clearly in the response.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.240, subd. (b).)

The Court will not compel further responses to SROG No. 6.  A-One has provided a list of employees, referenced in the response, and stated that they are all security guards.  It is not clear what other information it lacks. 

The Court will not compel further responses to SROG No. 9.  Plaintiff has not sufficiently shown on this record why it is appropriate to require A-One to categorize in a written discovery response each and every one of its employees by race.  The problems with the interrogatory are compounded by A-One’s reasonable point that it does not know the full answer.  Requiring it to conduct an investigation raises privacy and personnel concerns.  Moreover, there are other discovery procedures such as depositions that are less invasive and more accurate that Plaintiff can attempt to use.

Accordingly, the request to compel further responses to SROG Nos. 6, 9, and 10 is DENIED.

  The Court will compel a response to SROG No. 10 in part.  A-One offered to “provide the general hourly rates of pay provided to security guard employees during Plaintiff’s employment.”  The Court orders A-One to do so in response to this interrogatory.

SROG No. 11 asked A-One to identify all Allied personnel who assigned work to Plaintiff during his employment as a security guard at the San Diego Detention Center. (Plaintiff’s Separate Statement, filed on August 4, 2023 (“PSS”), p. 9:17-18.)

A-One objected to SROG No. 11, arguing that it was compound, impermissibly seeks multiple responses, is not complete in and of itself, vague, ambiguous, overly broad as to scope, time-period and/or the nature of information sought, lacks foundation, calls for speculation, assumes facts not in evidence, and impermissibly seeks disclosure of private information protected by the California and/or United States constitutions. (PSS, pp. 9:20-10:1.)

            The Court overrules A-One’s objections to SROG No. 11, finding them meritless.

The Court also finds A-One’s alternative response to the interrogatory insufficient. A-One stated that without waiving the objections, its response to the interrogatory is as follows: “Unknown.” (PSS, p. 10:2-3.) A-One should have at least informed Plaintiff whether the defendant made a reasonable and good faith effort to obtain the information. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.220, subd. (c).)

Accordingly, the request to compel further responses to SROG No. 11 is GRANTED.

The Court finds it proper to grant the request to compel further responses to SROG Nos. 12, 13, and 14 for the same reason the Court has granted the request to compel further response to SROG No. 11. SROG Nos. 12, 13, and 14 asked A-One to identify (a) all Allied personnel who supervised Plaintiff, (b) all Allied personnel who conducted training sessions with Plaintiff, and (c) all Allied personnel who conducted uniform checks with Plaintiff, respectively, during his employment as a security guard at the San Diego Detention Center. (PSS, pp. 11:18-17:8.) The Court finds A-One’s objections to those interrogatories (which are the same as the objections to SROG No. 11 above) meritless and the defendant’s alternative response (i.e., “Unknown”) insufficient.

Accordingly, the request to compel further responses to SROG Nos. 12, 13, and 14 is GRANTED.

The last interrogatory at issue, SROG No. 15, asked A-One to identify all persons involved in the entering of the “subcontract agreement.” (PSS, p. 17:10.) The agreement “refers to the September 28, 2020 Event Services Subcontract Agreement entered into and executed by [A-One] and [Defendant Allied].” (Kalinowski Decl., Exhibit 2 – a copy of the SROGs, p. 4:21-22.)

The Court agrees with A-One that SROG No. 15 is vague or overly broad because it does not specify what it means by all persons “involved” in entering of the subcontract agreement.

Plaintiff specifies in his Separate Statement that he seeks the persons who were “involved with the formation and signing of the subcontract agreement” (PSS, p. 18:5-7), but that limitation was not provided in the interrogatory.

Moreover, as A-One argues, to the extent Plaintiff is seeking who signed or formed the subcontract agreement, that information should be on the face of the contract.

Accordingly, the request to compel further responses to SROG No. 15 is DENIED.

E.    Sanctions

“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 a further response to interrogatories, 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., § 2030.300, subd. (d).)

Because the motion was partly granted and partly denied, the Court denies the sanctions request.