Judge: Matthew C. Braner, Case: 37-2023-00047888-CU-BT-CTL, Date: 2024-03-20 Tentative Ruling

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA,

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HALL OF JUSTICE

TENTATIVE RULINGS - February 22, 2024

02/23/2024  09:00:00 AM  C-60 COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO

JUDICIAL OFFICER:Matthew C. Braner

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Civil - Unlimited  Business Tort Motion Hearing (Civil) 37-2023-00047888-CU-BT-CTL JINGOLI POWER LLC VS BEAL [IMAGED] CAUSAL DOCUMENT/DATE FILED:

Plaintiff Jingoli Power, LLC's motion for leave to conduct limited anti-SLAPP discovery is GRANTED.

Defendant Erica Beal's filed and served her opposition to Plaintiff's motion a week late. For a motion hearing on February 23, 2024, and factoring in two court holidays on February 12 (Lincoln's Birthday) and February 19 (President's Day), Defendant was required to file and serve her opposition no later than February 8, 2024. Defendant instead filed (multiple times) and served her opposition papers on February 14 and then again served her supporting declaration on February 15 (along with another filing of the opposition). Defendant has provided no explanation or justification for the late filing, which gave Plaintiff less than 24 hours to file and serve a timely reply, and the court can think of none. The court declines to excuse this conduct and will therefore exercise its discretion to refuse to consider Defendant's late-filed opposition. (CRC 3.1300, subd. (d).) The filing of a SLAPP motion automatically stays discovery unless the court orders otherwise. Relief from this stay must be sought via noticed motion, and will be granted only if the moving party establishes good cause for conducting the specified discovery. (Code Civ. Proc., § 425.16(g).) Even where good cause is shown, the scope of discovery is limited to the issues raised in the motion to strike and addressed in the motion requesting discovery. (See Sipple v. Foundation for Nat'l Progress (1999) 71 Cal.App.4th 226, 247.) Here, Plaintiff is seeking leave to conduct discovery on limited issues concerning the justice4womenofcolor@gmail.com email account, from which the allegedly defamatory emails were sent.

More specifically, Plaintiff seeks to depose Defendant Beal and third-party Maria Dolores Merrell for up to four hours each to investigate attestations each made in declarations supporting Defendant's anti-SLAPP motion. These declarations purport to establish that Defendant Beal did not create the email account and did not send the emails, nor instruct her mother (Ms. Merrell) to send them. (ROA #19, Beal Dec., ¶¶ 2-3; ROA #20, Merrell Dec., ¶¶ 2-3, 7-8.) With these declarations, Defendant aims to establish that Plaintiff cannot demonstrate a probability of prevailing on any of its causes of action because the emails upon which its claims are grounded did not originate from Defendant, and in (presumably) sending the emails, Ms. Merrell was exercising her protected First Amendment rights.

Plaintiff has demonstrated good cause to conduct the requested limited discovery. Plaintiff presents evidence that a document subpoena to Google for records relating to the email address revealed that the recovery e-mail for the account is texi2cali@gmail.com. (Kiesling Dec., Ex. B.) Plaintiff's counsel attests, based on his personal knowledge, that Defendant Beal confirmed under oath in a related case that texi2cali@gmail.com is her personal email address. (Kiesling Dec., ¶ 4.) Given these facts, and that Calendar No.: Event ID:  TENTATIVE RULINGS

3083153  27 CASE NUMBER: CASE TITLE:  JINGOLI POWER LLC VS BEAL [IMAGED]  37-2023-00047888-CU-BT-CTL information related to the circumstances surrounding both the email account and the specific emails is exclusively within the possession and control of Defendant and Ms. Merrell, the court agrees that limited discovery is warranted.

Accordingly, Plaintiff's motion is granted. Plaintiff has leave to depose Defendant Beal and Ms. Merrell.

The court has reviewed the proposed deposition notices (Kiesling Dec., Exs. C, D), and concludes they accurately reflect the limited scope of discovery sought by Plaintiff's motion and granted by the court.

The minute order is the order of the court.

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