I. BACKGROUND 

Plaintiff Carlos Vazquez (“Plaintiff”) propounded (1) form interrogatories, set one, (2) special interrogatories, set one, and (3) demand for production of documents, set one, on defendant Dora Medrano (“Defendant”) on August 31, 2023. After granting defense counsel’s multiple requests for extensions up to November 17, 2023, Defendant served responses without verifications on November 17, 2023. Plaintiff requested Defendant to serve the signed verifications by December 18, 2023. However, Defendant has failed to serve verifications to date. Plaintiff therefore seeks an order compelling Defendant to provide verified responses and to pay sanctions.  

Any opposition was due on or before March 26, 2024; the motions are unopposed. 

II. MOTIONS TO COMPEL 

For a motion to compel initial discovery responses, all a propounding party must show is that it properly served its discovery requests, that the time to respond has expired, and that the party to whom the requests were directed failed to provide a timely response. (See Leach v. Superior Court (1980) 111 Cal.App.3d 902, 905 906.) Where a party fails to serve timely responses to discovery requests, the court may make an order compelling responses. (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 2030.290; 2031.300; Sinaiko Healthcare Consulting, Inc. v. Pacific Healthcare Consultants (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 390, 403.) A party that fails to serve timely responses waives any objections to the request, including ones based on privilege or the protection of attorney work product. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.290, subd. (a); § 2031.300, subd. (a).)    

Plaintiff avers the responses contained minimal information without signed verifications. Plaintiff did not provide a copy of Defendant’s responses. The Court presumes that the responses, timely served, contained a mixture of objections and fact-specific responses. Accordingly, the Court is guided by Food 4 Less Supermarkets, Inc. v. Superior Court (1995) 40 Cal. App.4th 651, 658, which stands for the proposition that omission of the verification portion of the response containing fact-specific responses merely renders that portion of the response untimely and therefore creates a right to move for orders and sanctions as to those responses, but does not result in a waiver of objections made. Therefore, because the evidence shows Defendant was properly served with discovery, and there is no indication that objection-only responses were served in which verifications are not required, Plaintiff’s unopposed motions are GRANTED.  

Defendant is ordered to serve verified responses/verifications to Plaintiff’s (1) form interrogatories, set one, (2) special interrogatories, set one, and (3) demand for production of documents, set one, within twenty (20) days. (CCP §§ 2030.290(a),(b), 2031.300(a),(b).) 

III. SANCTIONS 

Sanctions are mandatory against any party, person, or attorney who unsuccessfully makes or opposes a motion to compel a response, unless a court makes certain findings.¿ (Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.290(c), 2031.300(c).)¿ Plaintiff did not file any opposition. However, sanctions may be awarded, even though no opposition was filed, pursuant to CRC 3.1348(a). Sunset seeks sanctions in the amount of $811.65 for each motion. 

A court has discretion to award sanctions that are “suitable and necessary to enable the party seeking discovery to obtain the objects of the discovery he seeks” but they should not be punitive in nature or levied for the purposes of punishing an offending party. (Vallbona v. Springer (1996) 43 Cal.App.4th 1525, 1545.)         

Plaintiff is awarded one hour for each motion to compel, and one hour to appear at the hearing (awarded only once), at the requested rate of $250 per hour for a total of $1,000 in attorney’s fees. Further, Plaintiff is awarded three motion filing fees of $61.65, for a total of $184.95 as costs.       

Sanctions are imposed against Defendant and her counsel, jointly and severally. Defendant and/or Defendant’s counsel are ordered to pay sanctions to Plaintiff, by and through counsel of record, in the total amount of $1,184.95, within twenty (20) days. 

Moving party is ordered to give notice.   

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE: 

Dated this 10th day of April 2024