Judge: Lee S. Arian, Case: 22ATCV38711, Date: 2025-06-05 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22ATCV38711    Hearing Date: June 5, 2025    Dept: 27

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES - CENTRAL DISTRICT

This motion to compel further responses concerns Plaintiff’s Requests for Admission, Set One, served on Defendant on October 3, 2023. After meeting and conferring, Plaintiff granted Defendant an extension to respond by December 18, 2023. Defendant served responses consisting solely of objections by the extended deadline.

Following December 18, 2023, Plaintiff alleges that the parties continued to meet and confer. On March 25, 2024, Plaintiff filed a Motion to Deem Matters Admitted. The Court denied that motion, finding that Defendant timely served objection-only responses, which do not require verification.

Defendant now moves to compel further responses. Trial is set for June 17, 2025, and the hearing on this motion is scheduled for June 5, 2025.

Plaintiff first argues that the motion is timely, although the responses were served on December 18, 2023. Plaintiff relies on Golf & Tennis Pro Shop, Inc. v. Superior Court (2022) 84 Cal.App.5th 127, where the Court of Appeal addressed when the 45-day deadline under Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.300(c) begins to run for filing a motion to compel further responses to interrogatories. The central issue in that case was whether the 45-day period began to run upon service of responses that included both objections and unverified substantive answers. The Court held that when responses contain both objections and substantive content, the 45-day deadline does not begin to run until verified responses are served. This interpretation was grounded in the statutory language of section 2030.300(c), which expressly states that the deadline runs from service of a “verified response.” The Court also harmonized this with section 2030.250(a), which provides that responses must be verified unless they contain “only objections.” The Court reasoned that the use of the qualifying term “only” indicates that verification is required when any substantive response is included; the only exception is when the response consists solely of objections.

Plaintiff’s contention that there is no deadline to file a motion to compel further responses to objection-only responses is not supported by Golf & Tennis Pro Shop, Inc. v. Superior Court (2022) 84 Cal.App.5th 127. In fact, the Court explicitly acknowledged the issue and declined to adopt the view that objection-only responses are exempt from any deadline. The Court stated: “We can leave for another day the possibility of an ‘absurd result,’ as the trial court put it, if there is no time limit on a motion to compel involving objections. Here, the response was mixed facts and objections. That is all we have before us, and there was indeed a time limit on both motions.” (Id. at p. 136.) Thus, the Court did not endorse the notion that objection-only responses are immune from the 45-day deadline; it merely reserved the question because it was not squarely before the Court.

All of the foregoing said, the Court need not rule on whether the motion is timely under the 45-day rule.  It is clearly untimely under CCP § 2024.020, which states that "except as otherwise provided in this section, any party shall be entitled as a matter of right … to have motions concerning discovery heard on or before the 15th day before the date initially set for the trial of the action. A continuance or postponement of the trial date does not operate to reopen discovery proceedings." When the hearing for a discovery motion is held after the discovery motion hearing cut-off date, the Court cannot grant a motion to compel without first deciding on a motion to reopen discovery. (Pelton-Shepherd Industries, Inc. v. Delta Packaging Products, Inc. (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 1568, 1588.)  

“The purpose of imposing a time limit on discovery is to expedite and facilitate trial preparation and to prevent delay. Without a cutoff date, the parties could tie up each other and the trial court in discovery and discovery disputes right up to the eve of trial or beyond. Furthermore, to be effective the cutoff date must be firm or some litigants will manipulate the proceedings to avoid the cut-off date” (Beverly Hosp. v. Superior Court (1993) 19 Cal.App.4th 1289, 1295.)¿ 

Here, the hearing is set for June 5, 2025, which is beyond the discovery motion cut-off date. Although Plaintiff recently filed an ex parte application to continue trial, it was denied. Defendant offers no explanation for why it waited until less than two weeks before trial to set a hearing on a motion to compel further responses, particularly where Plaintiff alleges the parties had been meeting and conferring since December 2023 and Plaintiff had ample time to file the present motion after the Court denied Plaintiff’s original motion to deem matters admitted in June 2024.

Accordingly, the motion is denied.

Parties who intend to submit on this tentative must send an email to the Court at SSCDEPT27@lacourt.org indicating intention to submit on the tentative as directed by the instructions provided on the court’s website at www.lacourt.org.  Please be advised that if you submit on the tentative and elect not to appear at the hearing, the opposing party may nevertheless appear at the hearing and argue the matter.  Unless you receive a submission from all other parties in the matter, you should assume that others might appear at the hearing to argue.  If the Court does not receive emails from the parties indicating submission on this tentative ruling and there are no appearances at the hearing, the Court may, at its discretion, adopt the tentative as the final order or place the motion off calendar.