Judge: Lee S. Arian, Case: 22STCV16004, Date: 2024-08-08 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22STCV16004    Hearing Date: August 8, 2024    Dept: 27

Hon. Lee S. Arian, Dept 27

MOTIONS TO COMPEL RESPONSES AND REQUESTS FOR SANCTIONS

Hearing Date: 8/8/24 

CASE NO./NAME: 21STCV27032; 22STCV16004 SHIRLEY BARNES vs SAIFUL DAN-MANA, et al.

Moving Party: Defendant SPEEDWAY LLC 

Responding Party: Plaintiff 

Notice: Sufficient 

Ruling: MOTIONS TO COMPEL RESPONSES ARE MOOT;

    REQUESTS FOR SANCTIONS ARE GRANTED 

On July 24, 2023, Defendant Speedway served its Form Interrogatories Set One, Request for Admissions Set One, Special Interrogatories Set One, and Request for Production of Documents Set One on Plaintiff. On August 25, 2023, Plaintiff served her discovery responses to the initial set of discovery responses but without verification. Defendant followed up with Plaintiff on the missing verification numerous times via emails and letters from April 2024 to June 2024 and agreed to hold off on filing a motion if Plaintiff can provide the verifications by June 5, 2024. However, as of July 3, 2024, when the present motions were filed, Plaintiff has not provided the verifications at issue.

On July 24, Plaintiff’s counsel filed a declaration stating that on July 8, 2024, Plaintiff provided the verifications at issue. The motions to compel are now moot as Plaintiff has served the verifications. Only the issue of sanctions remains.

Sanctions are imposed in part to compensate Defendant for having to bring the motion to seek compliance, and Plaintiff only provided the verifications after the motions were filed. The Court notes that the initial responses were served on August 25, 2023; despite numerous emails and letters requesting the verifications, they were not provided for almost a year. However, five days after the motion was filed, Plaintiff provided the verifications. The Court finds that Plaintiff did not act with substantial justification. Therefore, the Court grants sanctions but, in consideration of the simplicity of the issues, reduces the sanctions to $2,000 for all three motions against Plaintiff and her counsel, jointly and severally, payable to Defendant within 30 days.

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE: 

If a party intends to submit on this tentative ruling,¿the party must send an email to the court at¿sscdept27@lacourt.org¿with the Subject line “SUBMIT” followed by the case number.¿The body of the email must include the hearing date and time, counsel’s contact information, and the identity of the party submitting.

Unless¿all¿parties submit by email to this tentative ruling, the parties should arrange to appear remotely (encouraged) or in person for oral argument.¿You should assume that others may appear at the hearing to argue.

If the parties neither submit nor appear at hearing, the Court may take the motion off calendar or adopt the tentative ruling as the order of the Court.¿ After the Court has issued a tentative ruling, the Court may prohibit the withdrawal of the subject motion.