Judge: Mel Red Recana, Case: 22STCV32691, Date: 2024-04-09 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22STCV32691    Hearing Date: April 9, 2024    Dept: 45

Superior Court of California

County of Los Angeles

Hearing Date:             April 9, 2024

Moving Party:             Defendants Stephan Filip PC and Stephan Airapetian

Responding Party:      None

Motion to Compel Compliance with Subpoena Duces Tecum

The court has considered the moving papers. No opposition has been received.

The court GRANTS Defendants’ motion to compel compliance with subpoena duces tecum. Specialty Eye Center is ordered to produce the requested documents within twenty (20) days of this Order.

Background

This is a legal malpractice case. Plaintiff Lisa Berberian filed this action on October 5, 2022 against defendants Stephan Filip P.C. and Stephan Airapetian, alleging causes of action for (1) Professional Negligence; (2) Breach of Fiduciary Duty; and (3) Breach of Contract.

The Complaint alleges that Plaintiff sustained permanent injuries to her eyes following a facial hair removal on November 27, 2020 at Beauty Medical Corporation dba LA Beauty Skin Center (“LABS”). (Compl. ¶¶7-8.) Plaintiff retained Defendants in December 2020 to represent her in her claims against LABS, but Defendants failed to realize that LABS was a health care provider to whom the one-year statute of limitations and 90-day prelawsuit notice requirement applied. (Id. at ¶¶ 9, 11.) As a result, Defendant failed to bring an action for professional negligence against LABS within the one-year limitations period, and while a settlement agreement was reached with LABS, the monetary terms were de minimis and Plaintiff never consented to the terms. (Id. at ¶¶ 11-12.)

On October 23, 2023, Defendants filed the instant motion for order directing compliance with subpoena duces tecum.

As of April 4, 2024, no opposition has been filed to the instant motion.

Legal Standard

A party seeking discovery from a person who is not a party to the action may obtain discovery by oral deposition, written deposition, or deposition subpoena for production of business records.  (Code Civ. Proc., § 2020.010.)  A deposition subpoena may command: (1) only the attendance and testimony of the deponent, (2) only the production of business records for copying, or (3) the attendance and testimony of the deponent, as well as the production of business records, other documents, electronically stored information, and tangible things.  (Code Civ. Proc., § 2020.020.) 

Code of Civil Procedure § 1987.1(a) provides: “If a subpoena requires the attendance of a witness or the production of . . . documents . . . at the taking of a deposition, the court, upon motion . . . may make an order . . . directing compliance with it upon those terms or conditions as the court shall declare. . . .” § 1987.1 does not contain a meet and confer requirement, nor a requirement that good cause for production of documents be shown.

However, case law has read a good cause requirement as to requests for production of documents from a nonparty:

Although the scope of civil discovery is broad, it is not limitless. . . . [Former] Section 2031, subdivision (l), which applies to document production requests served on a party, requires a party seeking to compel such production to “set forth specific facts showing good cause justifying the discovery sought by the inspection demand . . . .” (Italics in original.) Section 2020, the statute at issue, contains no such specific requirement. However, since both sections are part of a single statutory scheme, and since it is unlikely the Legislature intended to place greater burdens on a nonparty than on a party to the litigation, we read a similar requirement into the latter section.

(Calcor Space Facility v. Superior Court (1997) 53 Cal.App.4th 216, 223-24.)

Discussion

            Based on Plaintiff’s claim that she received treatment from Specialty Eye Center for her eye injuries on at least two separate occasions, Defendants personally served a business records subpoena on non-party Specialty Eye Center for documents relating to all medical, billing, and radiology records pertaining to Plaintiff from June 1, 2020 to the present. (Tarpley Decl. ¶¶ 3-5, Exh. B.) Responses were to be provided by August 7, 2023, but despite an attempt to meet and confer, Specialty Eye Center has failed to comply with the business records subpoena.

Here, Defendants have demonstrated good cause for the production of business records because Plaintiff’s eye injury and subsequent treatment is relevant to this action . Furthermore, it is noted that Plaintiff does not oppose the instant motion.

Accordingly, the court grants the motion.

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Conclusion

Based on the foregoing, the court GRANTS Defendants’ motion to compel compliance with subpoena duces tecum and Specialty Eye Center is ordered to produce the requested documents within twenty (20) days of this Order.

It is so ordered.

Dated: April 9, 2024

_________________________

ROLF M. TREU

Judge of the Superior Court