Judge: Mark H. Epstein, Case: 24SMCV00510, Date: 2025-05-27 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 24SMCV00510    Hearing Date: May 27, 2025    Dept: I

This is a personal injury case.  Plaintiff alleges an injury caused by defendant’s dog.  Plaintiff served a set of discovery earlier in the case.  After that, plaintiff served another set of discovery.  At issue is defendant’s motion for a protective order with regard to that discovery, which costs of 131 special interrogatories and 369 requests for admission (and form interrogatory 17.1)—and that is in addition to the initial set.  Defendant contends that this is just excessive to the point of being harassment and unduly burdensome.  Plaintiff, for its part, served the required declaration and claims that the discovery is “tailored” to the case.  At issue here are the RFA’s and interrogatories.  The court’s thinking is the same for both.

The court must agree with the defense here.  The Legislature has determined that in most cases 35 requests for admission and 35 special interrogatories are enough.  If more are needed, the propounding party must declare under oath that the number of interrogatories or RFAs is justified because of the complexity or quantity of the issues in the case, the burden of conducting a deposition, or the value of the request to the responding party.  The court just does not see that here.  The number of RFA’s (and interrogatories) is excessive given this rather straightforward case.  True, the court understands that the 35 SI or RFA limit is honored in the breach, but this is an enormous amount of discovery.  And the burden gets heavier when one considers 17.1.

The court sees no justification for this.  If the RFA’s were truly being used for their intended purpose—to get admission of facts not really disputed—the court would have less of a problem.  But that is not what is going on.  Some of the requests do serve that purpose, but others do not.  Asking the defense about plaintiff’s medical treatment in an RFA is not proper, for example.  The court has reviewed the discovery at issue, and it is unnecessary.  A better way to get at almost all of this would be by deposition.  True, at a deposition a witness may have a failure of recollection that would not apply to written discovery.  But the better way to do this is to take the deposition—which will be cheaper and easier for everyone—and then if there are truly questions that the witness cannot answer due to a memory issue, plaintiff can follow up.

The same is true for the interrogatories.  The number is excessive and most can be dealt with more appropriately through other discovery means.

This really is not a close question, and the court does not believe that plaintiff had substantial justification for the discovery or for the opposition.

The motion is GRANTED.  The RFA’s are stricken as are the SI’s.  Sanctions are awarded against plaintiff and counsel in the amount of $4998.50 for the two motions combined, payable in 30 days.