Judge Ronald F. Frank, Case Number: 23TRCV01664, Date: 2024-01-23 Tentative Ruling

Judge: Ronald F. Frank, Case: 23TRCV01664, Date: 2024-01-23 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23TRCV01664 Hearing Date: March 20, 2024 Dept: 8

Tentative Ruling¿

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HEARING DATE: March 20, 2024

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CASE NUMBER: 23TRCV01664

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CASE NAME: Adam Bouzoubaa Abderrahman; Serine Limo v. General Motors LLC, et al.

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MOVING PARTY: Plaintiffs, Adam Bouzoubaa Abderrahman & Serine Limo Inc.

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RESPONDING PARTY: Defendant, General Motors, LLC

TRIAL DATE: September 23, 2024

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MOTION:¿ (1) Motion to Compel Further Responses to Plaintiff’s Request for Production of Documents, Set One (6 RFP categories in issue)

Tentative Rulings: (1) CONTINUED Again, with counsel ordered to meet and confer on Plaintiff’s offer to restrict the scope of the definition and other matters as per the Plaintiffs’ March 13 amended separate statement. Counsel for GM is ordered to provide a supplemental declaration addressing the content of this further meet and confer by March 29, 2024, and that declaration shall address GM’s position with respect to production of requested test/root cause/engineering reports on the re-defined “electrical defect” and narrowed scope of the subject 6 RFP categories. The new hearing date is April 11, 2024, 9:00 a.m., Inglewood Dept 8

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I. BACKGROUND¿¿

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A. Factual Setting.

The moving papers assert that on August 4, 2023, Plaintiffs propounded Requests for Production of Documents, Set One on Defendant seeking documents relating to GM’s internal investigations and analysis of the defects that plaintiffs claim manifest in the vehicle’s repair history and allegedly seeking to establish that GM previously knew of such defects but nevertheless refused to repurchase the vehicle. Plaintiffs assert that after granting a two-week extension, responses were due on September 19, 2023, but per Plaintiffs GM did not serve responses until September 27, 2023, which were unverified, and not Code-compliant. Per GM’s counsel, the defense verifications were not served until October 25, 2023. Plaintiffs note that Defendant’s initial document production was separately received on October 25, 2023. On October 20, 2023, the parties agreed to enter into a stipulated protective order to facilitate discovery, i.e., to address trade secret and other issues raised by Plaintiffs’ demand for production of potentially sensitive documents. On November 1, 2023, both parties concede that Defendant supplemented its document production with additional materials produced under the then-recently approved protective order. Plaintiff asserts that no documents relating to internal investigations and analysis of the “electrical defect” were ever produced.

GM’s opposition and declaration of counsel and an GM Engineering Analysis Senior Technical Consultant paint a very different picture: that plaintiffs’ law firm sends the same discovery requests, the same ESI demand letter, and the same meet and confer letter in every single case, suggestive that there is no good faith effort to meet and confer to reduce the number or scope of the discovery that is actually in dispute. GM’s declarations in opposition state that GM did in fact produce documents evidencing other customers’ complaints for vehicles purchased in California for the same make and model as Plaintiffs’ vehicle including materials in GM’s database for ESI, but asserts the commercially sensitive nature of “root cause analysis” and internal investigation reports and of the potential for responsive documents to contain social security numbers and other PII that GM desires to protect. Implicitly, defense counsel concedes that no internal investigation or analysis reports bearing on the “electrical defect” have been produced, despite that same counsel’s discussion of the parties’ protective order having been agreed upon before even the warranty policies and procedures manual and other customer complaints documents were provided.

B. Procedural¿¿

On December 12, 2023 Plaintiffs filed a Motion to Compel Further Responses to Plaintiffs’ Requests for Production of Documents, Set One. On February 14, 2024, Defendant GM filed an opposition. On February 21, 2024, Plaintiffs filed a reply brief.

This motion was originally set for hearing on February 28, 2024. This Court Continued this Motion to March 20, 2024, with parties ordered to further meet and confer in light of guidance by the Court and an amended separate statement to be submitted by Plaintiffs. On March 13, 2024, Plaintiff filed the required Amended Separate Statement.

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¿II. ANALYSIS¿

Plaintiff’s March 13, 2024 Separate Statement notes that a week earlier, on March 6, 2024, Plaintiff offered the following concessions: (1) Remove the blurbs “but not limited to” and “and any other concern identified in the repair history” in the “ELECTRICAL DEFECT” definition; (2) Tailor the search terms to more specific complained-of symptoms: “car battery failing prematurely; fairly new battery draining; shortened battery life; battery draining with no parasitic draw; vehicle constantly needing jump start; black/blank dash and center display screen at startup.”; and (3) Limit the search to 2018 Cadillac Escalades purchased/leased in California. The Court is mindful that these belated concessions correspond to restrictions this Court indicated in its original tentative ruling in this Lemon Law case.

Plaintiff notes that he invited Defendant to provide feedback on the concessions listed above, but in the less than two weeks between March 6 and the date of this hearing GM did not respond. ¿The Court desires to facilitate a meaningful meet and confer process and will create additional space and time for that to occur. The Court thus ORDERS defense counsel to meet and confer on Plaintiffs’ offer to restrict the scope of the definition and other matters as per the Plaintiffs’ March 13 amended separate statement. Counsel for GM is ORDERED to provide a supplemental declaration addressing the content of this further meet and confer by March 29, 2024, and that declaration shall address GM’s position with respect to production of requested test /root cause/ engineering reports on the re-defined “electrical defect” and narrowed scope of the subject 6 RFP categories. The new hearing date is April 11, 2024, 9:00 a.m., Inglewood Dept 8.

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