Judge: Mark A. Young, Case: 20SMCV00819, Date: 2022-10-19 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 20SMCV00819 Hearing Date: October 19, 2022 Dept: M
CASE NAME: Yang, et al., v. Venice Business Partners, et al.
CASE NO.: 20SMCV00819
MOTION: Motion to Compel Initial Discovery Responses
HEARING DATE: 10/19/2022
Legal Standard
Where there has been no timely response to a Code of Civil Procedure section 2031.010 inspection demand, the demanding party must seek an order compelling a response. (CCP § 2031.300.) Failure to timely respond waives all objections, including privilege and work product. Thus, unless the party to whom the demand was directed obtains relief from waiver, he or she cannot raise objections to the documents demanded. There is no deadline for a motion to compel responses. Likewise, for failure to respond, the moving party need not attempt to resolve the matter outside court before filing the motion. Where the motion seeks only a response to the inspection demand, no showing of "good cause" is required.
If a party to whom interrogatories are directed fails to serve a timely response, the propounding party may move for an order compelling responses and for a monetary sanction. (CCP § 2030.290(b).) The statute contains no time limit for a motion to compel where no responses have been served. All that need be shown in the moving papers is that a set of interrogatories was properly served on the opposing party, that the time to respond has expired, and that no response of any kind has been served. (Leach v. Superior Court (1980) 111 Cal. App. 3d 902, 905-906.)
Pursuant to Section 2033.280(b), a party may move for an order that the genuineness of any documents and the truth of any matters specified in the requests be deemed admitted, as well as for a monetary sanction under Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 2023.010). “Failure to timely respond to RFA does not result in automatic admissions. Rather, the propounder of the RFA must ‘move for an order that the genuineness of any documents and the truth of any matters specified in the requests be deemed admitted, as well as for a monetary sanction’ under § 2023.010 et seq.” (CCP, § 2033.280(b).) The court “shall” grant the motion to deem RFA admitted, “unless it finds that the party to whom the requests for admission have been directed has served, before the hearing on the motion, a proposed response to the requests for admission that is in substantial compliance with Section 2033.220.” (CCP, § 2033.280(c).)
Analysis
On July 28, 2022, and July 29, 2022, Yang propounded his third set of written discovery on VBPI, consisting of 76 Special Interrogatories (bringing the total propounded on VBPI to 166), 32 Requests for Admission (bringing the total propounded on VBPI to 154), 29 Requests for Production, and a third set of Form Interrogatories.
On September 29, 2022, VBPI provided substantial responses to all 288 requests served by Yang. (Bitzer Decl., ¶ 10, Ex. D.) Given that VBPI provided compliant responses, the motions are substantively moot.
Except as to the requests for admissions, monetary sanctions are mandatory unless the imposition of sanctions would be unjust or the party subject to the sanctions acted with substantial justification. (CCP §§ 2030.290(c).) As to the requests for admissions, monetary sanctions are mandatory without exception. (CCP § 2033.280(c).)
VBPI agrees that they did not timely serve their responses. VBPI reached out to Yang’s counsel on August 29, 2022, prior to the deadline to serve responses to the third set of written discovery, requesting a 30-day extension to respond. (Id., ¶¶ 7-8.) An extension was not granted. VBPI insists that this extension request was made in good faith and not for the purposes of delay, but due to the voluminous requests. While Yang was under no obligation to grant the extension, the Court agrees that an extension would have been reasonable given the amount of discovery at hand.
Furthermore, the Court finds that the amount of monetary sanctions requested is unreasonable. Yang requests total sanctions of $8,194.00 across the three motions. (See Garber Decl., ¶¶ 6.) It appears that the hours claimed by counsel are duplicative. The Court also therefore finds the requested fees excessive and unreasonably high. Accordingly, Yang’s request for sanctions is GRANTED in the reduced total amount of $1,937.50, inclusive of costs, against VBPI and its counsel of record, Weinberg Gonser LLP, jointly and severally. Sanctions to be paid to Yang’s counsel within 30 days.