Judge: Ronald F. Frank, Case: 22TRCV01329, Date: 2023-09-28 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 22TRCV01329 Hearing Date: September 28, 2023 Dept: 8
Tentative Ruling¿¿
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HEARING DATE: September 28, 2023¿¿
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CASE NUMBER: 22TRCV01329
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CASE NAME: June
Vantrimpont v. Blue Cross of California, et al.
MOVING PARTY: Plaintiff, June Vantrimpont
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RESPONDING PARTY: Defendant,
Blue Cross of California dba Anthem Blue Cross
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TRIAL DATE: October 14, 2023
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MOTION:¿ (1) Motion to Compel Further
Responses to Form Interrogatories, Set One
(2)
Motion to Compel Further Responses to Demand for Discovery and Production, Set
One
(3)
Request for Sanctions
Tentative Rulings: (1) Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel
Further Responses to Form Interrogatories, Set One is MOOTED
(2)
Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel Further Responses to Demand for Discovery and Production,
Set One is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART
(3)
Request for Sanctions is GRANTED for $750, payable within 30 days
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I. BACKGROUND¿¿¿
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A. Factual¿¿¿
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On
November 23, 2023, Plaintiff, June Vantrimpont (“Plaintiff”) filed a Complaint
against Defendant, Blue Cross of California dba Anthem Blue Cross
(“Defendant”). On March 18, 2023, Plaintiff filed a FAC alleging causes of
action for: (1) Breach of Contract; (2) Breach of Implied Covenant of Good
Faith and Fair Dealing; and (3) Violation of Business & Professions Code
Section 17200.
On
March 13, 2023, Plaintiff propounded her first set of Form Interrogatories and
Requests for Production of Documents upon Anthem. Plaintiff notes that on April
14, 2023, Anthem responded with a preliminary statement and pages of allegedly
boilerplate general objections, incorporating both into each specific response,
and additional unsupported boilerplate objections raised in response to each
interrogatory at issue. Plaintiff notes she attempted to resolve this issue via
meet and confer efforts, but Anthem stands by its objections.
B. Procedural¿¿¿
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On August 25, 2023, Plaintiff filed her Motions to
Compel Further Responses. On September 14, 2023, Defendant filed oppositions.
On September 20, 2023, Plaintiff filed reply briefs. Further, since the
filing of this motion, Anthem provided supplemental responses to the Form
Interrogatories, partially mooting this motion.
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¿II. MEET AND CONFER ¿¿¿
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The
parties have met and conferred in good faith.
¿III. ANALYSIS¿¿
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“Unless
otherwise limited by order of the court in accordance with this title, any party
may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to
the subject matter involved in the pending action or to the determination of
any motion made in that action, if the matter either is itself admissible in
evidence or appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of
admissible evidence.” (Code of Civ. Proc. § 2017.010.) For discovery purposes,
information is regarded as relevant “if it might reasonably assist a party in
evaluating the case, preparing for trial, or facilitating settlement thereof.”
(City of Los Angeles v. Superior Court (2017) 9 Cal.App.5th 272,
288.)
A
motion to compel further responses to a demand for inspection or production of
documents (“RFP”) may be brought based on: (1) incomplete statements of
compliance; (2) inadequate, evasive, or incomplete claims of inability to
comply; or (3) unmerited or overly generalized objections. (Code Civ.
Proc., § 2031.310(c).) A motion to compel further production must set
forth specific facts showing good cause justifying the discovery sought by the
inspection demand. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310(b)(1).) In Digital Music
News LLC v Superior Court (2014) 226 Cal.App.4th 216 at 224, the Court
defined “good cause” as a showing that there “a disputed fact that is of
consequence in the action and the discovery sought will tend in reason to prove
or disprove that fact or lead to other evidence that will tend to prove or
disprove the fact.” If the moving party has shown good cause for the
requests for production, the burden is on the objecting party to justify the
objections. (Kirkland v. Sup.Ct (2002) 95 Cal. App.4th 92, 98.)
Further, “Any party may obtain discovery . . . by propounding to any
other party to the action written interrogatories to be answered under oath.”¿
(Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.010, subd. (a).)¿¿ “The
party to whom interrogatories have been propounded shall respond in writing
under oath separately to each interrogatory by any of the following: (1) An
answer containing the information sought to be discovered[;] (2) An exercise of
the party's option to produce writings[;] (3) An objection to the particular
interrogatory.”¿ (Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.210, subd. (a).)¿“On receipt of a
response to interrogatories, the propounding party may move for an order
compelling a further response if the propounding party deems that any of the
following apply: (1) An answer to a particular interrogatory is evasive or
incomplete[;] (2) An exercise of the option to produce documents under Section
2030.230 is unwarranted or the required specification of those documents is
inadequate[;] (3) An objection to an interrogatory is without merit or too
general.”¿ (Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.300, subd. (a).)¿
"The
court shall limit the scope of discovery if it determines that the burden,
expense, or intrusiveness of that discovery clearly outweighs the likelihood
that the information sought will lead to the discovery of admissible
evidence." (Cal. Code of Civ. Proc. § 2017.020(a).) Generally, objections
on the ground of burden require the objecting party to produce evidence of (a)
the propounding party's subjective intent to create burden or (b) the amount of
time and effort it would take to respond. (See West Pico Furniture Co. of
Los Angeles v. Superior Court In and For Los Angeles County (1961) 56
Cal.2d 407, 417.) However, no such evidence is necessary where discovery is
obviously overbroad on its face. (See Obregon v. Superior Court (1998)
67 Cal.App.4th 424, 431.)
B.
Discussion
Plaintiff’s
motions indicate that she has suffered from various cardiac conditions since birth
and had mitral valve surgery for the first time over 30 years ago. The motions assert that she had surgical
repair of her aorta in 2013, nearly a decade ago, and pulmonic value replacement
in 2016. The current lawsuit appears to
focus on a more recent series of medical procedures in late 2021 to early 2022
when her cardiologist sought to obtain prior authorization for a valve replacement
to be performed via catheter rather than open heart surgery. The requested procedure is referred to by the
parties an TPVR, or transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement. The patient history and plaintiff’s decades
of coronary care and treatment provide a context for the Court to consider a motion
to compel production of “all” documents as distinct from documents pertaining
to the scope requested by Anthem (which is limited to TVPR), or to a specific
time period that is reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of evidence
that may be admissible at trial. It is
not clear from the papers whether Anthem has been plaintiff’s insurer since her
birth or since her first heart surgery, but from the papers the Court understands
that Anthem has been involved for many years.
That means a document demand seeking “all documents relating to
Plaintiff” with this factual context will need to be narrowed in scope.
On
the other hand, Anthem has lodged a multitude of objections to the discovery requests,
many of which the Court is inclined to overrule once a reasonable time period is
established and protective order is in place to address privacy concerns. To the extent that Anthem is withholding
responsive documents on the ground of attorney-client or work product privilege,
the Court will order creation of a privilege log. To the extent the objections are raised for harassment or duplicative requests for the same
information, Anthem can address those with the narrowed time period and by
referencing documents produced pursuant to an earlier partially dupliative RFP.
Form
Interrogatories
The
Court acknowledges that since the filing of this motion, Anthem served
supplemental responses to the Form Interrogatories, Set One. Because of that, a new 45-day period
commences for the sufficiency of the supplemental responses but the motion to
compel further responses to the original responses is mooted. The Court will address the discovery motion
as to the original responses to the document demands and the requests for
monetary sanctions below.
RFPs
1-4, 14
Plaintiff contends that that each of
these document demands relate to herself (e.g., Anthem records regarding
Plaintiff, Plaintiff’s policies pertaining to Plaintiff, Plaintiff’s
application, and claims files pertaining to Plaintiff). Plaintiff argues these
are directly relevant because they can show that Anthem’s conduct failed to
conduct full, fair, and thorough investigations before denying Plaintiff’s
treatment. However, Anthem seeks to narrow the scope of discovery to solely the
Plaintiff’s request for the specific RPVR (heart valve) described in the FAC,
yet Plaintiff argues this unilateral narrowing is improper. Instead, Plaintiff
argues that Anthem investigated Plaintiff’s past health history when two of its
general practitioner Medical Directors rejected the UCLA cardiology team’s
recommendation that Plaintiff undergo a heart-valve replacement. Anthem has
objected to these requests, claiming they are overbroad as they may include
OB/GYN information and even flu shots, but Plaintiff contends that these
requests are still reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible
evidence. The Court disagrees with Plaintiff’s position, finding that what is “reasonably”
calculated to lead to admissible evidence would not include an Evidence of
Coverage page from 30 or even 10 years ago (RFP No. 3), nor would it include communications
with healthcare providers or the Department of Managed Care about Plaintiff’s mitral
value or aorta surgeries (RFP No. 2 and No. 14). On the other hand, evidence in Anthem’s files
for Plaintiff as to communications between Anthem and Plaintiff or Anthem and Plaintiff’s
health care providers regarding medical necessity of the previous pulmonic
valve surgery may bear some relevancy as to whether a different procedure was
medically necessary years later to address Plaintiff’s pulmonic valve. Generally,
the Court largely agrees with Anthem that the permissible scope of the
discovery requested as to these five RFPs be limited to the time period from
Plaintiff’s cardiologist’s initial request for authorization of the RPVR procedure
forward, except that documents evidencing communications or reports as to the
medical necessity for the 2016 pulmonary vale replacement which should also be produced.
The Court will consider oral
argument as to the permissible scope of a more narrowly tailored production
request at to RFPs No. 1-4 and 14, in light of the Court’s comments above. The Court also seeks Plaintiff’s concurrence
in Anthem’s request that any documents produced be subject to an agreed
protective order, which is fairly standard in medical procedure cases.
RFPs
11-14
Plaintiff argues that these requests
relate to Anthem’s handling of Plaintiff’s requests for coverage. In response
to requests 11-13, Anthem responded that it would agree to produce all
non-privileged documents responsive to the RFPs following the Court’s entry of
an agreed-upon stipulated protective order. In response to Request 14, as noted
above, the Court agrees this request should be narrowed. Plaintiff still argues
that there is an issue with Requests Nos. 11-13 as the actual response omits
the word “all” in response to the non-privileged, responsive documents. The
Court does not find it equitable to grant Plaintiff’s request overruling the
objections to these documents, and instead, will DENY the motion, considering the
Court’s statements above as to specific objections, while ordering that
Defendant provide a verified supplemental written response complaint with the Code
indicating whether all or only a subset of non-privileged, responsive documents
are being produced, and provide a privilege log as to any documents withheld from
production on privilege grounds. As to
any responsive documents that are not privileged, the Court will entertain oral
argument as to categories of documents in the narrowed time period and narrowed
scope that Anthem will not be producing.
RFPs
5-10
Lastly,
these requests seek to obtain Anthem’s claims handling policies procedures and
guidelines, with no time limitation and no limitation as to which of Plaintiff’s
actual medical procedures were implicated.
Plaintiff argues these requests are relevant as they seek to obtain
evidence of Anthem’s investigation, or lack thereof, into coverage before
denial. But the only denial or claims investigation
relevant to this litigation is that pertaining to the initial denial of the
request for coverage of the TPVR. In its
opposition, Anthem argues that the request for “all” policies and procedures
are overly broad and burdensome. The Court agrees with Anthem. Although the
Court believes that Plaintiff is entitled to Anthem’s policies and procedures
used or relied on or considered by Anthem in its initial denial of the request
to pre-authorize the TPVR, the time period and medical procedure subject to
RFPs no. 5-7 will be deemed to be narrowed to the time period from
Plaintiff’s cardiologist’s initial request for authorization of the RPVR procedure
forward. Plaintiff’s Requests
No. 8-10 includes a specified date range which appears to have been arbitrarily
set as commencing January 1, 2018.
Unless Plaintiff can explain why that broader time period is needed, the
Court would rule that Anthem must provide non-privileged responsive documents
in effect as of January 1, 2022, the time period when Anthem made the initial decision
to deny the cardiologist’s authorization request.
C.
Sanctions
Sanctions are mandatory in connection with
motions to compel responses to interrogatories and requests for production of
documents against any party, person, or attorney who unsuccessfully makes or
opposes a motion to compel.¿¿(CCP. §§ 2030.290(c),¿2030.300(d),¿2031.300(c),¿and
2031.310(h).) However, sanctions are not mandatory if the court “finds that the
one subject to the sanction acted with substantial justification or that other
circumstances make the imposition of the sanction unjust.”¿¿(Id.)
Here, Plaintiff has requested sanctions for
her Motion to Compel Further Discovery of Form Interrogatories, Set One in the
amount of $1,000, and $1,000 for the Requests for Productions, Set One. Because
the Court DENIED much of Plaintiff’s Motion elements above, and finds
substantial justification for Anthem’s overbreadth and relevancy objections beyond
the time and substantive limitations outlined above, Plaintiff needed to bring
the motion that drew the supplemental responses mooting the motion to compel Form
Interrogatories. Thus, the GRANTS
Plaintiff’s Request for Sanctions in the lowered amount of a combined
$750. That amount is payable within 30
days from defense counsel to Plaintiff’s counsel.