Judge: Kenneth J. Medel, Case: 37-2022-00045538-CU-BC-CTL, Date: 2023-12-08 Tentative Ruling

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA,

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HALL OF JUSTICE

TENTATIVE RULINGS - December 07, 2023

12/08/2023  09:30:00 AM  C-66 COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO

JUDICIAL OFFICER:Kenneth J Medel

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Civil - Unlimited  Breach of Contract/Warranty Discovery Hearing 37-2022-00045538-CU-BC-CTL DUHART VS MARVIN K BROWUN [IMAGED] CAUSAL DOCUMENT/DATE FILED: Motion to Compel Discovery, 06/28/2023

Plaintiff, TRAVIS DUHART's Motion to Compel Further Responses to Request for Production of Documents is GRANTED, in part, as set forth below.

This is a Lemon law case involving a single vehicle – a 2018 GMC Sierra. On February 22, 2023, Plaintiff served his First Set of Requests for Production containing 46 requests, 22 of which are at issue here.

GM served responses with objections April 21, 2023, and verifications on May 10, 2023. Plaintiff moves to compel further responses.

Meet and Confer Efforts Plaintiff had an obligation to meet and confer with GM to try to resolve this discovery dispute before he filed this motion. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2025.450.) He also had to show a reasonable, good faith effort to resolve the dispute to avoid motion practice. (Id.; see also Stewart v. Colonial Western Agency, Inc.

(2001) 87 Cal.App.4th 1006, 1016–1017.) Indeed, counsel must 'attempt to talk the matter over, compare his views, consult and deliberate.' (Townsend v. Superior Court. (EMC Mortg. Co.) (1998) 61 Cal.App.4th 1431, 1443.) After finding that many discovery motions can be avoided through a sufficient meet and confer, this Court is scrutinizing the meet and confer process closely. GM objects to plaintiff's meet and confer efforts.

After responses, Plaintiff sent GM a letter on May 25, 2023 (Thomas Decl. Ex. D; Yaraghchian Decl. ¶ 4) The letter is a tome demanding 'code compliant responses.' On June 06, 2023, GM responded to Plaintiff's letter. While responding point by point, it doubles down on objections. GM offered to produce additional documents pursuant to the entry of a protective order. (Id.) On June 07, 2023, Plaintiff sent a second letter virtually identical to its June 06th letter. (Thomas Decl.

Ex. F; Yaraghchian Decl. ¶ 6.) On June 14, 2023, GM responded to Plaintiff's June 07th letter. But GM agreed to a protective order and agreed to produce additional documents. On July 7, 2023, GM supplemented its document production and produced a high volume of additional responsive documents.

According to GM, there was no additional meet and confer after the production. On June 28, 2023, Plaintiff filed this motion to compel. The lack of additional efforts to resolve this dispute are problematic, given that some of the responses provided by GM appear to be responsive to the issues in the motion as set forth below.

Despite the apparent lack of meet and confer after the second production, this Court reaches the merits of the motion, but considers the issue in evaluation of sanctions.

REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION NO. 16: All of YOUR warranty claims policy and procedure manual(s) from 2018 to the present. DENIED REQUESTS 19-32 [customer engagement training materials] DENIED Calendar No.: Event ID:  TENTATIVE RULINGS

2991107  38 CASE NUMBER: CASE TITLE:  DUHART VS MARVIN K BROWUN [IMAGED]  37-2022-00045538-CU-BC-CTL Based on the Opposition, GM has already produced its Warranty Policy & Procedure Manual and the policies and procedures used to evaluate lemon law claims and repurchase requests along with its California Customer Engagement Center training materials in response to Request for Production Nos.

16 and 19-32.

Request for Production Nos. 37-41 [documents 'sufficient to identify' and 'sufficient to show' various codes for vehicles of the same year, make, and model as Plaintiff's Sierra] GRANTED GM objects based upon relevance – the codes are not relevant to whether plaintiff's vehicle complied with warranty or repaired after a reasonable number of attempts. Further GM argues that information is protected by trade secret.

According to plaintiff, based on other similar cases, the responses to this discovery in Plaintiff's RFPs 37-41 consist of two .pdf files of two pages each, and appear to be taken from the appendix to some sort of manual. 'In dozens of cases, Defendant has produced the same four pages and has always represented that this production is complete.' According to plaintiff, these codes are essential to generally interpreting the repair orders and internal GM documents produced in this litigation. Codes are those utilized by Defendant to keep track of warranty repairs, customer complaints to authorized repair facilities, the type of repairs to be attempted, the frequency of repairs, and other information by vehicle component such that Defendant is aware of the repairs its authorized repair facilities are performing.

Given that the codes are necessary to 'interpret' other documents, they seem significant to produce.

Further, plaintiff makes a compelling argument that the production does not appear to be overly burdensome.

The trade secret and privacy concerns are not sufficiently supported. The party requesting the confidentiality protection must demonstrate that the information sought actually contains confidential commercial information (i.e. information not otherwise known to others in the pertinent field or craft) and that the dissemination of such information would result in injury. (Nativi v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Co., (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 261, 318) Defendant's responses lack any facts to support its assertion that the documents are not discoverable because they are 'proprietary' information as required under California case law. Further, there was an agreed upon protective order agreed to in June, 2023 (based on the Opposition).

Requests 45-46 [customer complaints] DENIED GM indicates it has also already produced information regarding other customer complaints within GM's ESI database that are substantially similar to Plaintiff's complaint(s) concerning the alleged defects, for vehicles purchased in California of the same year, make and model as the Subject Vehicle in response to Request for Production Nos. 45 and 46. The Court further notes that the original meet and confer letters produced by plaintiff did not directly include these requests.

The Court DENIES sanctions. While the Court found that plaintiff has prevailed on the motion with respect to production of the relevant codes (Requests 37-41), the Court finds that plaintiff failed to reasonably attempt to resolve this dispute after the second production of documents by GM. Further, on the balance, plaintiff prevailed as only to a portion of the motion.

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