TENTATIVE RULING

Plaintiff Yeying Zhou’s Motion to Compel Defendant Hessam Arashfar to Provide Further Responses to Plaintiff’s First Set of Requests for Production is GRANTED as to Request No. 12 and DENIED as moot as to Request No. 32. Defendant Hessam Arashfar shall provide documents responsive to Request No. 12 within thirty (30) days of entry of this order.

Plaintiff Yeying Zhou’s Request for Monetary Sanctions is GRANTED in the reduced amount of $1,860, payable by Defendant Hessam Arashfar and defense counsel to Plaintiff Yeying Zhou and Plaintiff’s counsel within thirty (30) days of entry of this order.

Plaintiff Yeying Zhou to give notice. 

REASONING

Plaintiff Yeying Zhou (“Plaintiff”) moves the Court for an order compelling Defendant Hessam Arashfar (“Defendant”) to provide further responses and documents to Plaintiff’s Requests for Production of Documents, Set One, Request Nos. 12 and 32. Defendant opposes the motion on the grounds that the amended response to Request No. 12 was code-compliant, and there is no good cause to compel production of further records, and as to Request No. 32, Defendant represents he has supplied Plaintiff with the signed authorization for Defendant’s cellular phone records.

On receipt of responses to requests for production of documents, the demanding party may move for further responses if the responding party’s “statement of compliance with the demand is incomplete,” “[a] representation of inability to comply is inadequate, incomplete, or evasive,” or “[a]n objection in the response is without merit or too general.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310, subd. (a)); see also Best Products, Inc. v. Superior Court (2004) 119 Cal.App.4th 1181, 1189-1190 [motion to compel proper to challenge “boilerplate” responses].)

“Unless notice of this motion is given within 45 days of the service of the verified response, or any supplemental verified response, or on or before any specific later date to which the demanding party and the responding party have agreed in writing, the demanding party waives any right to compel a further response to the demand.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310, subd. (c).) This timeliness requirement is mandatory, and in some sense may even be considered a matter of jurisdiction, and the Court therefore “[has] no power to make an order compelling further answers where the propounding party failed to serve this motion within the statutory time.” (Prof’l Career Colls., Magna Inst., Inc. v. Superior Court (1989) 207 Cal.App.3d 490, 493; see also Vidal Sassoon, Inc. v. Superior Court (1983) 147 Cal.App.3d 681 [same].)   

A motion to compel further responses must be accompanied by a meet and confer declaration under Code of Civil Procedure section 2016.040. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310, subd. (b)(2).) A meet and confer declaration must “state facts showing a reasonable and good faith attempt at an informal resolution of each issue presented by the motion.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2016.040.) California Rules of Court, rule 3.1345(a) requires that any motion to compel further responses to discovery contain a separate statement with the text of each request, the response, and a statement of factual and legal reasons for compelling further.

In Request No. 12, Plaintiff requests Defendant’s mobile phone bill, invoice, or receipt listing the times of all mobile phone texts and calls made or received on October 24, 2021, for one hour before, during, and one hour after the subject crash. Defendant responded that such documents were protected by the attorney work product and attorney-client privilege doctrines, he had a right to privacy in such documents, and he had no responsive documents, but such documents may be held by AT&T. The Court finds that production of such documents by Defendant is proper, as the request is limited in time and scope, and these documents will assist Plaintiff in proving her claim for punitive damages if it can be determined that Plaintiff was using his phone at the time of the subject accident. Whether the documents can be obtained from AT&T is inapposite, as Plaintiff is entitled to obtain these documents from Defendant himself, a party to this action.

In Request No. 32, Plaintiff seeks a signed authorization for Defendant’s mobile carrier to provide Plaintiff with Defendant’s cell phone records for October 24, 2021, for one hour before, during, and one hour after the subject crash. Defendant represents that he provided a signed authorization on February 14, 2024, and the failure to provide an authorization earlier was the result of a technical issue. (Opp’n, Borgeson Decl. ¶ 1.) Thus, this request is now moot.

Accordingly, Plaintiff Yeying Zhou’s Motion to Compel Defendant Hessam Arashfar to Provide Further Responses to Plaintiff’s First Set of Requests for Production is GRANTED as to Request No. 12 and DENIED as moot as to Request No. 32. Defendant Hessam Arashfar shall provide documents responsive to Request No. 12 within thirty (30) days of entry of this order.

Code of Civil Procedure section 2031.310, subdivision (h), provides that “[t]he court shall impose a monetary sanction . . . against any party, person, or attorney who unsuccessfully makes or opposes a motion to compel further response” to requests for production of documents “unless it finds that the one subject to the sanction acted with substantial justification or that other circumstances make the imposition of the sanction unjust.” The Court finds that monetary sanctions are proper here, as Defendant unreasonably refused to provide responsive documents and delayed in providing a necessary authorization, but the Court reduces the award to $1,860, which represents three hours reviewing responses, meeting and conferring, preparing an Informal Discovery Conference Statement, and attending the Informal Discovery Conference; two hours spent preparing the subject motion; and one hour spent appearing at the hearing on this motion, for a total of six at the rate of $300 per hour, as this motion and this case are not especially complex; and one $60 filing fee. Such sanctions are payable by Defendant Hessam Arashfar and defense counsel to Plaintiff Yeying Zhou and Plaintiff’s counsel within thirty (30) days of entry of this order.