Judge: Lee S. Arian, Case: 22STCV37215, Date: 2024-10-11 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22STCV37215    Hearing Date: October 11, 2024    Dept: 27

Hon. Lee S. Arian, Dept 27 

MOTIONS TO COMPEL SUPPLEMENTAL RESPONSES AND REQUESTS FOR SANCTIONS

Hearing Date: 10/11/24¿ 

CASE NO./NAME: 22STCV37215 JEFFREY VEGAS vs PROMENADE TOWERS LTD et al.

Moving Party: Defendant Promenade Towers 

Responding Party: Plaintiff¿ 

Notice: Sufficient¿ 

Ruling:

MOTIONS TO COMPEL SUPPLEMENTAL RESPONSES ARE MOOT;

REQUESTS FOR SANCTIONS ARE GRANTED

On July 19, 2024, Defendant Promenade Towers served supplemental discovery requests on Plaintiff regarding its first set of interrogatories and requests for production. After not receiving any responses, Defendant sent a letter to Plaintiff’s attorney on August 28, 2024, attempting to meet and confer but received no response. On August 30, 2024, Defendant called Plaintiff’s counsel to further meet and confer, but no one answered. As of September 6, 2024, the date this motion was filed, Defendant had not received any responses to the supplemental discovery requests, nor any communication from Plaintiff’s counsel.

Plaintiff filed an opposition, stating that supplemental responses were served on September 17, 2024. In its Reply, Defendant did not dispute that the supplemental responses had been served. Thus, the present motions are moot, but the issue of sanctions remains.

Plaintiff’s counsel explains that due to an administrative error, all emails related to the case were inadvertently misdirected into a "Follow-Up" folder created by her former assistant, Yuliana Vargas, who left the firm abruptly in early July 2024. This error caused counsel to be unaware of communications from Defendant’s counsel, including those concerning supplemental discovery requests. As a result, Plaintiff missed the response deadline of August 28, 2024. The error was discovered later while auditing the trial calendar, and once identified, counsel took immediate action, serving the supplemental responses.

The Court accepts Plaintiff’s counsel’s declaration regarding the administrative error, as no evidence has been provided to suggest otherwise. Nonetheless, sanctions are intended, in part, to compensate parties for having in having to incur attorney’s fees in filing such motions. Given the untimely response and the lack of communication, Defendant was forced to file the motion to obtain supplemental responses.

Accordingly, the Court grants sanctions. Defendant requests sanctions in the amount of $1,481 for each motion.  The Court reduces the requested sanctions because (1) the motions are largely duplicative and do not warrant the same amount of sanctions for each motion; and (2) Plaintiff's counsel promptly took corrective action after discovering the error. The Court awards sanctions for Defendant in the reasonable amount of $1,500 payable by Plaintiff’s counsel only (sanctions are imposed against counsel only because the failure to respond to the discovery requests resulted from an internal administrative error within counsel’s office, over which Plaintiff had no control) within 20 days of today.

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 without leave.