Judge: Michael Shultz, Case: 22STCV21534, Date: 2025-03-06 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 22STCV21534 Hearing Date: March 6, 2025 Dept: 40
22STCV21534
Pamela Cook v. University of Southern California, et al.
Thursday, March 6, 2025
[TENTATIVE]
ORDER
[TENTATIVE]
ORDER
I.
BACKGROUND
The
complaint alleges that Defendant, University of Southern California
(“Defendant”) employed Plaintiff as a collector of patients’ accounts. Plaintiff
alleges 18 causes of action for discrimination, retaliation, and related claims
for violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act, for violations of the
Labor Code and tort claims arising from her termination from employment.
II.
ARGUMENTS
A.
Motions filed 12/11/24
Plaintiff
argues that on October 31, 2024, the court granted Plaintiff’s motion to compel
responses from Defendant to Plaintiff’s employment form interrogatories and the
first set of Plaintiff’s document request. The court ordered Defendant to provide
responses to both requests for discovery without objection within 20 days of
the order and imposed monetary sanctions against Defendant totaling $3,720 for
both motions.
Defendant
served responses to interrogatories on November 20,2024 that improperly
included objections, referred to documents, and otherwise were evasive and
incomplete. Plaintiff asserts Defendant lied in their court ordered responses
to discovery.
Defendant’s
responses to the document request served on November 20, 2024, were
non-compliant as Defendant failed to identify the requests for which documents
were produced, improperly included objections, were evasive and incomplete, and
otherwise refused to produce all responsive documents as Plaintiff possessed
emails that Defendant did not produce.
Despite
having met and conferred, Defendant has not provided supplemental,
code-compliant responses to the interrogatories and document request. The court
should impose issue, evidentiary, and monetary sanctions against Defendant and
its counsel and compel Defendant to provide further compliant responses.
B.
Oppositions filed February 21, 2025
Defendant
argues it made a good faith effort to comply with the court’s order and provide
further responses to the document request. Defendant paid monetary sanctions
imposed by the court. The court should deny the motion, although Defendant is
amenable to supplementing its responses to the document request.
With
respect to form interrogatories, Defendant argues it substantially complied with the court’s order and served responses to
interrogatories without objection. As to both motions, Defendant understands
that the court might order Defendant to supplement its responses, however,
Defendant requests that the Plaintiff’s requests for sanctions be denied given
Defendant’s efforts to comply.
C.
Reply filed February 27, 2025
Defendant
has not tried to comply with the court’s order. Defendant’s responses were not
compliant and were “absurdly evasive.” Some responses were false.
III.
LEGAL STANDARDS
The
court may impose monetary, evidentiary, issue, or terminating sanctions against
a party where that party fails to obey an order to provide discovery responses
which is a misuse of the discovery process. (Code
Civ. Proc., § 2023.030.) However, discovery
sanctions are not to be imposed for punishment, but instead are used to
encourage fair disclosure of discovery to prevent unfairness resulting from the
lack of information. (Midwife
v. Bernal (1988) 203
Cal.App.3d 57, 64.) The
type of sanction imposed should be “appropriate to the dereliction,” and
tailored to accomplish the discovery sought. (Do It Urself Moving & Storage, Inc. v.
Brown, Leifer, Slatkin & Berns (1992)
7 Cal.App.4th 27, 35.) Failure to comply with a court’s order is an abuse
of the discovery process subjecting the non-complying party to monetary,
evidentiary, issue, and/or terminating sanctions. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2023.010.)
A motion to compel further responses to a
document request is proper where the moving party believes the statement of
compliance is incomplete or a representation of inability to comply is
inadequate, evasive, and/or an objection is without merit or too general. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310 (a), § 2030.300 subd. (a); §2031.310 subd. (a).)
IV.
DISCUSSION
A.
Employment
Form Interrogatories
On October 31, 2024, the court granted
Plaintiff’s motions to compel responses to employment form interrogatories and
the first set of document requests and ordered Defendant to provide “fully
compliant responses without objections within 20 days.” (Plaintiff’s Ex. 1.)
The court also imposed monetary sanctions against Defendant. (Id.)
Defendant asserts it substantially
complied with the order to respond to form interrogatories and did not impose
any objections. However, Defendant
asserted qualified statements “to the extent that Defendant understands this Interrogatory.”
(See for example, Defendant’s response to Interrogatory 2.204.4.) This responsive
is evasive as it permits Defendant to reframe the interrogatory in a manner
that “it understands.” The court did not permit any objections, which includes
those based on vagueness or ambiguity. Defendant is ordered to provide complete
responses to all interrogatories qualified without the phrase
“to the extent Defendant understands this interrogatory”.
While Plaintiff believes Defendant is not
being truthful in its responses based on evidence Plaintiff already possesses, a
motion to compel further discovery responses cannot be granted based on the
reason that verified answers served are untrue. (Holguin v. Superior Court (1972) 22 Cal.App.3d 812, 820 [“We do not see, however, how any court can
force a litigant to admit any particular fact if he is willing to risk a
perjury prosecution or financial sanctions.”].) Therefore, the court denies
Plaintiff’s request for further response Nos. 204.3,
204.4, and 204.6.
The order precluding Defendant from
objecting includes the waiver of the right to exercise the option to produce
records in lieu of a complete response. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.290 subd.
(a).) Defendant is ordered to provide complete, code-compliant responses to
those interrogatories.
Complete responses are required, including
requests to provide names, address, and telephone numbers of persons. Defendant
is ordered to provide complete responses to the questions asked including the
identification of persons and their location information, regardless of whether
such persons can be contacted through counsel.
Accordingly, Defendant is ordered to
provide further verified, complete, code-compliant requests as ordered by the
court to all interrogatories at issue except Nos. 204.3, 204.4, and 204.6.
B.
Request
for production of documents, set one, Nos. 1-97.
In producing 62 pages of documents,
Defendant is required to identify the specific request to which the production
responds. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.280 subd. (a).) Defendant is ordered to
comply.
Pursuant to the court’s order, all
objections were waived. However, Defendant asserted objections to certain
requests on grounds including relevance, privacy, and “unintelligible.”
Defendant is ordered to provide further, verified, code-compliant responses and
production to these requests.
Defendant also responded by including a
qualifier “to the extent that”. This response is evasive and improper for the
reasons previously discussed. The requests are not “unintelligible.”
As also previously mentioned, the court
cannot compel the motion based on Plaintiff’s belief that Defendant is being
untruthful.
Defendant is ordered to provide further
responses and production to the requests demanding employee handbooks and
Plaintiff’s time records (Nos 9 and 56.) Defendant improperly used the qualifying
response “to the extent that”.
C.
Sanctions
Defendant’s incomplete, evasive, and
qualified responses, including interposing objections in defiance of the
court’s order does not support that Defendant acted in good faith or
substantial compliance. While more severe sanctions including evidentiary and
issue sanctions may be imposed for failure to comply with a court order, the
court adopts the incremental approach and orders Defendant to provide further
responses as explained above.
The court imposes monetary sanctions in
the reduced amount of $3,660 (8 hours x $450 + $60) incurred to prepare the
motion regarding the document request. The court imposes monetary sanctions in
the reduced amount of $3,660 incurred to prepare the motion regarding
employment interrogatories.
V.
CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff’s motion
to compel further responses to employment form interrogatories. Defendant is
ordered to provide within 10 days further, verified, complete, and code
compliant responses, without objection, to all interrogatories at issue except
Nos. 204.3, 204.4, and 204.6. The court imposes sanctions of $3,660 against
Defendant, University of Southern California, and counsel John Giovannone,
jointly and severally, payable within 10 days.
Plaintiff’s motion to compel further
responses to request for production of documents is granted. Defendant is
ordered to provide within 10 days further, verified, complete, and code
compliant responses, without objection, to Requests 1-97. The court imposes
sanctions of $3,660 against Defendant, University of Southern California, and
counsel John Giovannone, jointly and severally, payable within 10 days.