Judge: Robert B. Broadbelt, Case: 20STCV17143, Date: 2024-04-24 Tentative Ruling

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Case Number: 20STCV17143    Hearing Date: April 24, 2024    Dept: 53

Superior Court of California

County of Los Angeles – Central District

Department 53

MOVING PARTY:                 Plaintiff Ian Patterson

RESPONDING PARTY:        Defendant AVX Design and Integration, Inc.

Motion to Compel Further Responses to Requests for Production of Documents

The court considered the moving, opposition, and reply papers filed in connection with this motion.

REQUEST FOR JUDICIAL NOTICE

The court grants defendant AVX Design & Integration, Inc.’s request for judicial notice as to exhibit 1.  (Evid. Code, § 452, subd. (c).)

The court denies defendant AVX Design & Integration, Inc.’s request for judicial notice as to exhibits 2-4.  (SHR St. Francis, LLC v. City and County of San Francisco (2023) 94 Cal.App.5th 622, 642 [denying request for judicial notice of unpublished superior court decision]; Cal. Rules of Ct., rule 8.1115, subd. (a).)

DISCUSSION

Plaintiff Ian Patterson (“Plaintiff”) moves the court for an order (1) compelling defendant AVX Design and Integration, Inc. (“Defendant”) to provide further responses to Plaintiff’s Requests for Production of Documents, numbers 1-70, and (2) awarding sanctions in favor of Plaintiff and against Defendant in the amount of $3,260.

The parties dispute, as a threshold issue, whether Plaintiff’s motion was timely filed.  For the reasons set forth below, the court finds that Plaintiff timely filed this motion.  

“Unless notice of this motion is given within 45 days of the service of the verified response, or any supplemental verified response, or on or before any specific later date to which the demanding party and the responding party have agreed in writing, the demanding party waives any right to compel a further response to the demand.”  (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310, subd. (c).)  “[T]he time within which to make a motion to compel production of documents is mandatory and jurisdictional . . . .”  (Sexton v. Superior Court (1997) 58 Cal.App.4th 1403, 1410.)

Plaintiff served Defendant with his Requests for Production of Documents on May 20, 2020.  (Benyamin Decl., ¶ 2; Benyamin Decl., Ex. 1.)  On June 22, 2020, two days before responses were due, Defendant filed a motion to compel arbitration.  (Benyamin Decl., ¶¶ 3, 5.)  On June 24, 2020, while its motion to compel arbitration was pending, Defendant served objection-only responses to the Requests for Production.  (Benyamin Decl., ¶ 6; Benyamin Decl., Ex. 2.)  The objections were signed by Defendant’s attorney but were not verified.  (Benyamin Decl., Ex. 2, p. 122.)  On May 14, 2021, the court issued an order denying Defendant’s motion to compel arbitration.  (May 14, 2021 Order, p. 10.)  Thereafter, on July 12, 2021, Defendant and defendants Focus Universal and Desheng Wang filed a “Notice of Appeal” with the court, stating that they were appealing the court’s May 14, 2021 order.  The Court of Appeal affirmed the court’s order on January 19, 2023, and issued its remittitur on May 4, 2023.  (Jan. 19, 2023 Order, p. 2; May 4, 2023 Remittitur.)  Defendant contends that Plaintiff’s motion is untimely because it was filed on February 6, 2024, i.e., more than 45 days after its signed responses were served and the stay in this action was lifted.  The court disagrees.

As set forth above, the 45-day deadline by which to file a motion to compel further responses begins on the date of service “of the verified response, or any supplemental verified response,” or any other date as the parties may have agreed in writing.  (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310, subd. (c).)  The court acknowledges that responses containing only objections do not need to be verified (i.e., signed under oath) and instead must only be signed by the responding party’s attorney.  (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.250, subds. (a) [“The party to whom the demand for inspection, copying, testing, or sampling is directed shall sign the response under oath unless the response contains only objections”] [emphasis added], (c) [“The attorney for the responding party shall sign any responses that contain an objection”].)  However, “the clock on a motion to compel begins to run once ‘verified responses’ or ‘supplemental verified responses’ are served.”  (Golf & Tennis Pro Shop, Inc. v. Superior Court (2022) 84 Cal.App.5th 127, 135 [citing Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.300].)  “Under the canon expression unius est exlusio alterius, the insertion of the word ‘verified’ before the word ‘responses’ necessarily requires [courts] to exclude from the provision what it does not mention – unverified responses.”  (Ibid. [emphasis in original].)

Thus, the court finds that (1) pursuant to the plain language of the statute and statutory interpretation, the 45-day deadline begins only on the date of service of verified responses, such that (2) Defendant’s responses to the Requests for Production of Documents, which consisted of only objections and were not verified (and did not need to be verified (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.250)), did not begin the 45-day time limit by which Plaintiff was required to file the pending motion.  (Golf & Tennis Pro Shop, Inc., supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 135; Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310, subd. (c); Benyamin Decl., Ex. 2.)  The court further finds that the statements made in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Bill Analysis do not support Defendant’s position on this issue.  (RJN Ex. 1, pp. 2-3.)  Moreover, the court disagrees that finding that the 45-day period does not begin to run upon service of unverified responses consisting of only objections would create “an ‘absurd result[.]’”  (Opp., pp. 5:26-6:2; Golf, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 127 [putting aside “the possibility of an ‘absurd result,’ as the trial court put it, if there is no time limit on a motion to compel involving objections” for another day].)  Instead, the court believes that it would be an “absurd result” if the service of unverified hybrid responses would not commence the running of the 45-day statutory deadline, but that service of objection-only, unverified responses would.  (Golf, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 136 [finding that 45-day clock on hybrid responses did not begin to run until responses were verified].)

The court therefore finds that Plaintiff’s motion is timely.

The court grants Plaintiff’s motion to compel Defendant’s further responses to Requests for Production of Documents, numbers 1-43, 46-67, and 69-70 because Defendant’s objections in its responses to those demands are without merit.  (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310, subd. (a)(3).)

The court denies Plaintiff’s motion to compel Defendant’s further responses to Requests for Production of Documents, numbers 44-45 because those demands improperly require Defendant to provide information instead of producing for inspection documents and other tangible things by specially defining the term “HUMAN RESOURCES TRAINING” to require Defendant “to state with particularity the actual education and information provided, the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all persons who provided such training, and the titles of all publications and visual presentations used in any manner during the training.”  (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.030, subd. (c)(1); Pl. Sep. Statement, p. 11:2-6.)

The court denies Plaintiff’s motion to compel Defendant’s further responses to Requests for Production of Documents, number 68 because this demand does not designate the documents to be inspected “by specifically describing each individual item or by reasonably particularizing each category of item.”  (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.030, subd. (c)(1).)

The court finds that the circumstances presented would make the imposition of sanctions unjust and therefore denies (1) Plaintiff’s request for monetary sanctions against Defendant, and (2) Defendant’s request for monetary sanctions against Plaintiff.  (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310, subd. (h).)

ORDER

            The court grants in part plaintiff Ian Patterson’s motion to compel further responses to requests for production of documents as follows.

            Pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 2031.310, the court orders defendant AVX Design and Integration, Inc. (1) to serve on plaintiff Ian Patterson further written responses to plaintiff Ian Patterson’s Requests for Production of Documents, numbers 1-43, 46-67, and 69-70, that comply with Code of Civil Procedure sections 2031.210-2031.250, and (2) to produce to plaintiff Ian Patterson all documents and things in defendant AVX Design and Integration, Inc.’s possession, custody, or control which are responsive to those requests within 20 days of the date of this order.

            The court denies all requests for monetary sanctions.

            The court orders plaintiff Ian Patterson to give notice of this ruling.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED:  April 24, 2024

_____________________________

Robert B. Broadbelt III

Judge of the Superior Court