Judge Lee W. Tsao, Case 22NWCV00355 2023-04-06 Tentative Ruling

Judge: Lee W. Tsao, Case: 22NWCV00355, Date: 2023-04-06 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22NWCV00355 Hearing Date: April 6, 2023 Dept: C

ALHAYYA v. EL RANCHO VISTA HEALTH CARE CENTER

CASE NO.: 22NWCV00355

HEARING: 04/06/23

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TENTATIVE ORDER

Plaintiff’s 9 Motions to Quash the Subpoenas for Production of Business Records is GRANTED.

Opposing Party to give Notice.

There are 9 substantively identical Motions at issue before the Court. Plaintiff moves to quash 9 subpoenas issued for production of business records.

With respect to all 9 subpoenas, Defendants seek:

1. All contracts between you and Tameem Alhayya, M.D.;

2. All documents reflecting the payment of money by you to Tameem Alhayya, M.D. at any time since August 1, 2019;

3. All documents reflecting the basis for calculation or accrual of any amount of money by you to Tameem Alhayya, M.D., at any time since August 1, 2019.

“If a subpoena requires the attendance of a witness or the production of books, documents, electronically stored information, or other things before a court, or at the trial of an issue therein, or at the taking of a deposition, the court, upon motion reasonably made by [a party], or upon the court’s own motion after giving counsel notice and an opportunity to be heard, may make an order quashing the subpoena entirely, modifying it, or directing compliance with it upon those terms or conditions as the court shall declare, including protective orders. In addition, the court may make any other order as may be appropriate to protect the person from unreasonable or oppressive demands, including unreasonable violation of the right of privacy of the person.” (CCP §1987.1.)

In opposition to the motion, Defendant indicates it operates a skilled nursing home in Pico Rivera. In 2019, Defendant contracted with Plaintiff to serve as a member of Defendant’s Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Board and provide certain consulting services to Defendant within the scope of the charge of that board. From August 2019 through approximately December 2021, Plaintiff submitted “Time and Activity” logs. In each of these logs, Plaintiff indicated that he had performed services pursuant to the Agreement, which he described simply as “Orders, CII, Signatures” for precisely one hour every Monday of the month. Defendant had been paying Plaintiff $2500 per month, but Defendant grew concerned that Plaintiff was not performing the services he had agreed to provide, or indeed any services at all. Defendant eventually discontinued making monthly payments to Plaintiff.

Defendant became aware that Plaintiff had agreements to work with a significant number of other nursing homes to provide similar services. By issuing the nine subpoenas at issue here, “Defendant anticipates that such evidence will demonstrate that Plaintiff has engaged in a pattern and practice of submitting false claims for services to a number of different facilities with which he entered into contracts similar to his contract with Defendant.” (Opp. p. 7.) For example, the records from the other nursing homes could show that “that Plaintiff claimed in writing to have provided a greater number of hours of services to Plaintiff and the subpoenaed entities, collectively, in a single day than he could claim to have performed.” (Opp. p. 6.)

While the records sought could show that Plaintiff has engaged in fraud, the mere possibility that this will occur is insufficient to justify issuance of the subpoenas in the first instance. Defendant fails to articulate specific facts justifying the discovery sought. There is nothing about the “Time and Activity logs,” in and of themselves, that suggest fraud.

The Court finds that Defendant has not established a compelling need for the contents of the subpoenas at issue herein, and that there is no other way of obtaining these documents/information. It appears as though Defendant is merely on a fishing expedition and, “[a]lthough appellate courts have frequently stated ‘fishing expeditions’ are permissible in discovery, there is a limit….in Greyhound Corp. v. Superior Court (1961) 56 Cal.2d 355…the court gave examples of improper ‘fishing’ which clearly apply here: [t]he method of ‘fishing’ may be, in a particular case, entirely improper (i.e. insufficient identification of the requested information to acquaint the other party with the nature of information desired, attempt to place the burden and cost of supplying information equally available to both solely upon the adversary, placing more burden upon the adversary than the value of the information warrants, etc.)….The concerns for avoiding undue burdens on the ‘adversary’ in the litigation expressed in Greyhound apply with even more weight to a nonparty.” (Calcor Space Facility, Inc. v. Superior Court (1997) 53 Cal.App.4th 216, 224-25.)

Moreover, Defendant’s requests are overbroad. Compliance with the subpoenas would allow Defendant to obtain privileged, confidential and irrelevant information. Defendant fails to set forth any factual basis to show that the requested documents/information are likely to lead to the discovery of relevant evidence. This is an action against Defendant for the nonpayment of services. The Court finds the subpoenas at issue are unnecessarily invasive of Plaintiff’s privacy rights.

The Motions to Quash are GRANTED.

Reasonable sanctions are awarded as follows: Defendant EL RANCHO VISTA HEALTH CARE CENTER and their counsel of record is ORDERED to pay Moving Party and their counsel of record reasonable sanctions in the total amount of $4,111.65.00. ($450/hr. x 9 hrs.) ($61.65 costs) no later than 30 days from the Court’s issuance of this Order. This date may be extended per agreement of the parties.