Judge: Ronald F. Frank, Case: 21TRCV00822, Date: 2023-08-24 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 21TRCV00822    Hearing Date: September 14, 2023    Dept: 8

Tentative Ruling¿¿ 

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HEARING DATE:                 August 24, 2023

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CASE NUMBER:                  21TRCV00822

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CASE NAME:                        DSG International, LLC v. General Motors, LLC, et al.

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MOVING PARTY:                Plaintiff, DSG International, LLC

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RESPONDING PARTY:       Defendant, General Motors, LLC

TRIAL DATE:                        December 5, 2023

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MOTION:¿                              (1) Motion for Order to Compel Further Responses to Plaintiff’s Requests for Production of Documents, Set One

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Tentative Rulings:                  (1) GRANTED in part

I. BACKGROUND¿¿¿ 

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A. Factual¿¿¿ 

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As noted in the Court’s previous Tentative Ruling on the subject discovery motion, DSG International, LLC (“Plaintiff”) filed a Complaint against Defendant, General Motors, LLC, alleging multiple causes of action under the Song-Beverly Act.  The motion to compel concerns Plaintiff’s June 8, 2022 RFPs.  After issuing a detailed tentative ruling for the June and August prior hearings on this motion, the Court ordered the parties to prepare a Joint Status Report on remaining issues the Court had not already addressed. 

B. Procedural¿¿¿ 

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On September 12, 2022, Plaintiff filed a Motion to Compel Further Responses to Plaintiff’s Request for Production of Documents, Set One. On May 25, 2023, Defendant filed an opposition. On June 1, 2023, Plaintiff filed a reply brief. On June 12, 2023, Plaintiff filed a joint stipulation and protective order which this Court has signed. Prior hearings on the subject motion to compel were conducted on June 8, July 27, and August 24, 2023.  On September 9, 2023, the parties filed the requested Joint Status Report.  It appears that only RFPs 16-21 remain at issue. 

II. ANALYSIS¿¿ 

In the August joint statement, the parties noted that on August 16, 2023, Defendant served unverified Code-compliant supplemental responses to RFP Nos. 7, 35-39, and 50. The parties note that as of the day of the filed joint statement, Defendant had not provided supplemental verifications for the supplemental responses, but GM asserts that it corrected that deficiency at 9:06 a.m. on August 17. 

The August and September joint statements note that GM refuses to provide any supplemental responses for RFP Nos. 16-21. Plaintiff’s position is that GM must provide

similar warranty repairs, failure rates, root cause analysis documents, PowerPoint presentations and meeting minutes, all applicable TSBs related to the infotainment defects, similar customer calls, and communications between engineers, as well as internal analysis and investigation documents.   GM argues that RFPs 16-21 are overbroad and not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence as the term infotainment system is not narrowly tailored to the repairs Plaintiff’s vehicle actually experienced. In the September Joint Statement, GM’s position is clarified to seek to limit discovery to only actual repairs made, a Radio Replacement at 2,286 miles and a Radio with integrated receiver return to ESC at 2,253 miles.

The Court’s updated tentative ruling is to GRANT Plaintiff’s motion as to RFP Nos 16-21, but limit the request to documents that address the specific infotainment system symptoms or complaints that Plaintiff reported to a GM dealer on May 19 or May 24, 2021, not merely documents pertaining to the repairs performed those two days.  Based on the state of the record presented to the Court, Plaintiff did not report a symptom of the Infotainment screen remaining black in cold temperatures; rather, that was the subject of a safety recall campaign.  The Court will invite oral argument as to whether there have been any other symptoms or complaints initiated by Plaintiff (rather than initiated by GM) about the Infotainment system beside those noted on the two specific visits in May of 2021. 

If there have been no additional complaints or symptoms regarding the Infotainment system, the Court invites additional oral argument as to whether a jury trial is needed for this case, i.e., if there are other aspects of the repair history that are not the subject of this discovery motion.