Judge: Ronald F. Frank, Case: 22TRCV00144, Date: 2023-04-12 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22TRCV00144    Hearing Date: April 12, 2023    Dept: 8

Tentative Ruling 

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HEARING DATE:                 April 12, 2023¿ 

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CASE NUMBER:                   22TRCV00144 (Consolidated with Case No. 20TRCV00180)

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CASE NAME:                        Timothy Roth, et al v. Kelly Thompson, et al

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MOVING PARTY:                Plaintiffs, Timothy Roth, as an individual and as successor-in-interest to 3302 Manhattan Avenue, LLC; Roth Management Group, LLC; 435-445 Avalon, LLC; The Roth Group, LLC; and 505 Marine, LLC.

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RESPONDING PARTY:       Defendants, Kelly Thompson, Daniel Curtis Investments, LLC

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TRIAL DATE:                       Not Set

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MOTION:¿                              (1) Motion to Compel Further Responses by Plaintiff to Defendant’s Form Interrogatories

                                                (2) Motion to Compel Further Responses by Plaintiff to Defendant’s Requests for Admission

 

Tentative Rulings:                  The Court will order an additional verified further response to the RFOGs.  The Court intends to have Plaintiff excise much of the preamble to each of the further responses to Form Interrogatory 17.1 so that the substance of what will be the 2nd further verified response as to each denied RFA (except RFAs 47-51) can stand alone in those additional further responses which should be hundreds of pages shorter.  The Court hopes this can be accomplished in less than another 30 days.

 

The 2nd further response shall not re-state each of the definitions and instructions, and shall not gratuitously state that these Court-ordered further responses are being “volunteered” as they were ordered by the Court, not volunteered.  The clear thrust of each RFA is to list the Complaint’s allegations so that the Judicial Council’s design of FROG 17.1’s subparts could be achieved.  Once the Court overruled most of the responding party’s objections, the Court’s January tentative ruling sought to fulfill the Judicial Council’s design.  To facilitate the 2nd further responses, the Court will further order that the definition of “YOU” in the RFAs (and for purposes of a 2nd further response to FROG 17.1) to be deemed to be narrowed to only Timothy Roth, not his lawyers or representatives, etc., which can be stated a single time at the outset of the 2nd further responses.  The defense will have to accept the fact that its method of drafting the definitions, instructions, and RFAs helped to create this monster of a discovery dispute.

                                                           

The Court will hear oral argument from Mr. Johnson as to why every further response to FROG 17.1(c) and (d) purportedly lists the same witnesses as to the facts in scores of these contention interrogatories, and does not specifically identify which groups or categories of the produced documents are responsive to which specific RFA denial.  The intention of the Legislature in CCP §2030.230 was to enable a party to collectively identify responsive documents as they are produced or as they were maintained in files or folders that are being provided, not to camouflage which groups of produced documents are responsive to a particular interrogatory.  However, if in fact every single FROG 17.1(b) response is evidenced by all of the documents being produced, which seems unlikely, the Court would like to hear that from Mr. Johnson.  Otherwise, the Court will expect that the 2nd further responses will list Bates numbers or in some other way marry the produced documents to the relevant RFA or RFAs.

 

Also to be addressed by Mr. Johnson in oral argument is what Mr. Spitzer noted to be an apparent mistake in the listed Lomita addresses for Ms. Rocha and Ms. Roth, and when he believes the case reasonably could be set for trial given the time it is taking to complete this phase of discovery.  Mr. Johnson should also address what appears to have been a simple mistake by Mr. Johnson in neglecting to initially attach one of the further response documents being emailed, and whether the few hours delay in rectifying that mistake caused any specific prejudice.

 

The Court will also hear further argument from Mr. Spitzer as to what Mr. Johnson asserts to be a duplication of discovery requests, comparing the special interrogatories with the FROG 17.1 pairing with the RFAs.  The Court views the body of discovery responses as a whole when measuring whether either party has engaged in misuse of the discovery process.  The Court continues to be dis-inclined to grant monetary sanctions to either side because each side had substantial justification for its discovery position taken on these motions.  The Court continues to believe that there are varying levels of gamesmanship by each side, Mr. Johnson’s protestations in his declaration notwithstanding.  The Court acknowledges the elements of good faith advocacy on both sides, but also recognizes that substantial substantive responses, witness identification, and document production have occurred here.

 

The Court is currently engaged in trial that resumes on March 12 after the 8:30 motion calendar, so the 11 a.m. IDC will need to be rescheduled with Mr. Wiggins on the Court’s staff.  Counsel should be mindful of the fact that the trial will be resuming at 9:30 a.m. in making their further oral argument as succinct and non-repetitive as possible.