Judge: Ronald F. Frank, Case: 23TRCV00649, Date: 2024-01-23 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 23TRCV00649 Hearing Date: January 23, 2024 Dept: 8
Tentative Ruling
HEARING DATE: January 23, 2024
CASE NUMBER: 23TRCV00649
CASE NAME: Sultan Almakanin and Prime Trans Limousine LLC v. General Motors, LLC, et al.
MOVING PARTY: Plaintiffs Sultan Almakanin and Prime Trans Limousine LLC
RESPONDING PARTY: Defendant, General Motors LLC
TRIAL DATE: July 29, 2024
MOTION: (1) Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Further Responses to Requests for Production, Set One.
Tentative Rulings: (1) DENIED. Key definitions in the subject RFP are objectionably vague and ambiguous, and the burden to a company as large as GM conducting a company-wide ESI search appears to outweigh the discoverability for some if not most of what is being sought. The ruling is without prejudice to further discovery requests, such as documents evidencing the failure rate of oil filters in model year 2023 Cadillac Escalades sold or leased in California, or documents constituting GM’s investigation or root cause assessment of the defects or malfunctions addressed in a specified TSB.
I. BACKGROUND
A. Factual
On March 6, 2023, Plaintiffs, Soledad Meza and Prime Trans Limousine LLC (collectively “Plaintiffs”) filed a Complaint against Defendant, General Motors, LLC, and DOES 1 through 10. The Complaint alleges the following causes of action: (1) Violation of Civil Code § 1793.2(d); and (2) Violation of Civil Code § 1793.2(b); (3) Violation of Civil Code § 1793.2(a)(3); (4) Violation of Civil Code § 1791.2(a), 1794; and (5) Violation of Civil Code § 1791.1, 1794.
On August 29, 2023, Plaintiff propounded Request for Produce, Set One on Defendant GM, seeking documents relating to Defendant’s internal investigations and analysis of the defects Plaintiffs claimed they experienced in their Cadillac Escalade, allegedly establishing Defendant previously knew of such defects, but failed to repurchase the vehicle.
Plaintiffs’ moving papers assert that on September 29, 2023, Defendant provided unverified responses to Requests for Production, Set One, which contained responses that were not Code-compliant, replete with boilerplate objections, and failed to produce many of the documents requested. Plaintiffs claim their counsel sent a total of four meet and confer letters to discuss the alleged deficiencies in Defendant’s responses, but per Plaintiffs defense counsel was late in responding to resulting in GM firmly standing on its objections.
On October 22, 2023, Defendant sent Plaintiffs a proposed Protective Order, which this Court recently approved.
B. Procedural
On November 3, 2023, Plaintiffs filed this Motion to Compel Further Responses. On January 9, 2024, Defendant filed an opposition brief. On January 16, 2024, Plaintiffs filed a reply brief.
II. MEET AND CONFER
The Court finds that Plaintiff’s meet and confer efforts were sufficient. The parties had justification for their differing positions taken in that process, but neither side appears to have been willing or able to retreat from its initial position and try to narrow the scope of the requests or production. While unfortunate, that is not atypical. In future, the parties might consider using the Informal Discovery Dispute (IDC) process embraced by department 8 in its Courtroom Information guidelines as a mechanism for earlier and less time-intensive presentation of discovery disputes to Judge Frank. Parties must stipulate to an IDC in order to toll the running of the 45-day clock for bringing a motion to compel further responses and schedule an IDC with Judge Frank’s staff.
III. ANALYSIS
“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.) ¿
"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
Here, Plaintiff seeks further responses to RFP Nos. 16-21, which seek GM’s internal analysis, investigations, communications reports, and design-related documents (including other consumers’ complaints) about “alleged defects” in vehicles other than Plaintiffs’ own Escalade. The specifically defined term “engine defect” is overly broad since it is defined to include but not be limited to 8 different items. By including “any other concern identified in the repair history” of the subject vehicle, Plaintiffs’ definition embraces things unknown to the Court without having the entire repair history presented, and which may be things outside the engine compartment or things under the hood but not a component of the engine itself. That is troublesome for the Court. Then the Plaintiffs “refine” the term “engine defect” as something that resulted in certain symptoms. These definitions make it unreasonably ambiguous for GM to fairly respond, since it is unclear whether the “refined” definition is to be read to narrow or expand the scope of documents to be produced. For example, under the refined definition, are the requested documents limited to engine noise or insufficient lifter oil that resulted in a park assist malfunction? Or is it seeking any or all of documents pertaining to a ticking noise or insufficient oiling of valve lifters or park assist malfunctions? Further, what is the “failure rate” of a symptom? An abnormal noise itself may be evidence of a failure or a component part, such as an under-lubricated lifter. But what is the failure rate of a noise as distinct from the failure rate of a hose or oil line or a lifter that causes a noise? And what is the failure rate of a TSB, as distinct from the failure rate of a component part identified in a TSB? Because the parties failed to compromise on narrowed definitions (such as GM agreeing to produce documents that GM provided to the NHTSA as supporting the various TSBs), the Court is left with a motion to enforce a hopelessly vague and ambiguous specially defined term, a term contained in each of the subject RFPs. The Court also views the burden of searching for the ill-defined subject matter of the RFPs at issue as exceeding the discoverable value of such a search even if the discovered documents were likely to lead to admissible evidence in this case. Accordingly, the motion to compel is DENIED.
This ruling is without prejudice to further discovery requests. Plaintiffs can re-attempt to seek reasonable discovery with tighter and narrower definitions or without attempting to characterize every repair issue that Plaintiffs experienced with a single all-encompassing two-word phrase like “engine defect.” For example, Plaintiffs might try to draft a discovery request seeking documents evidencing the failure rate of oil filters in model year 2023 Cadillac Escalades sold or leased in California, or documents constituting GM’s root cause analysis of the defects or malfunctions addressed in a specified TSB.
On a future motion, the parties should be aware that the Court views the ambit of discovery in Lemon Law cases in a practical way, taking into account the needs of this single-vehicle case, the amount in controversy, and the importance of the issues at stake in this litigation. (Code Civ. Proc. § 2019.030(a)(2).) The Court generally does not order production of ESI as to other customers’ complaints for repair issues that appear only a single time in the subject vehicle’s repair history, as the burden of such a search generally exceeds the discoverable value of what is being sought. On the other hand, the Court generally does allow discovery of other customers’ complaints where a repair issue is recurrent and the discovery seeks information bearing on whether the defendant knew or should have known that the repair issue was not being successfully remedied with existing repair procedures.