Judge: Mark H. Epstein, Case: 20SMCV00596, Date: 2022-10-26 Tentative Ruling

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Case Number: 20SMCV00596    Hearing Date: October 26, 2022    Dept: R

To the extent Mr. Virk is seeking an order to compel defendant to do that which defendant promised to do, the Court does not think that there is a 45-day clock problem.  As to timeliness, the Court cannot recall whether it had issued an order superseding the Code of Civil Procedure regarding electronic service.  The Court will discuss that with the parties. 

Turning to the merits, it appears that after making its boilerplate objections, defendants stated that they would produce certain documents at a mutually agreed upon time and place.  According to plaintiff, defendant has yet to do so.  If that is the case, then defendant is in the wrong.  Plainly plaintiff has been seeking these documents and if it is correct that defendant has still not produced them, then it is hard to see what the reason is (and defendant has not offered one).  Further, if defendant is going to send documents to plaintiff, it hardly seems that the parties need to agree upon a “mutual time and place.”  Defendant just needs to put the documents in a package (or perhaps electronic form, or better still, both) and send them over (and thereafter confirm receipt).  This is really not rocket science.  There is no need to mutually agree upon a time or place for that. 

Given that defendant is complaining about Mr. Virk’s discovery responses to the point of seeking terminating sanctions, it hardly serves defendant well to refuse to produce even the documents that were promised.  

That said, if notice was improper, and given that defendant has objected, the Court will put the matter over (as well as defendant’s motion otherwise scheduled for tomorrow) to cure that problem. 

Assuming we can go forward today, the Court is inclined to order that the documents be produced within 24 hours of this hearing (meaning 11:00 am Wednesday) along with a verified statement that all the promised documents have in fact been produced.  Defendant will pay sanctions in the amount of $60, reflecting the filing fee.  Plaintiff is not entitled to additional discovery sanctions in terms of fees because plaintiff has no counsel and thus attorneys’ fees cannot be awarded.