Judge: Shirley K. Watkins, Case: 21VECV00692, Date: 2022-08-29 Tentative Ruling
If ALL parties submit on the tentative, then no appearance is necessary unless some other matter (i.e., Case Management Conference) is on calendar. It is not necessary to call the court to request oral argument. Oral argument is permitted on all tentative rulings.
Case Number: 21VECV00692 Hearing Date: August 29, 2022 Dept: T
TENTATIVE RULING
Cross-defendant Aliashar Khatibi's Motion to compel form interrogatories against Melica Khatibi: (No timely reply filed by 8/23/2022)
50.1 This interrogatory asks for each agreement alleged in the pleadings, to answer a, b, c, d, e, and f. At the time this discovery was served, the 2nd Amended Cross-complaint was the operative complaint. At para. 19, there is a joint venture agreement that was “entirely oral.” Therefore, responding party should have answered 50.1(b), (c), (d), (e), and (f). Responding party indicates that there were oral agreements. As to 50.1(b) responding party has not identified the dates of the agreements. Otherwise, the supplemental responses are satisfactory. Responding party is to provide a supplemental response to 50.1(b) as to dates of the agreements.
50.2 This interrogatory asks if there was a breach of any agreement in the pleadings and, if so, for each breach, the date of every breach. She has identified yes as to “Insofar as Aliasghar, Shabnam, Ebrahim and Mohammed have sought title over the Karen Property after transfer to Melica and/or Faezeh.” However, she has not identified the dates of breach and is ordered to do so.
50.5 This interrogatory seeks to determine if responding party alleges that the agreement alleged in the pleadings was unenforceable. The answer should be yes or no, and if yes, to identify each agreement and why it was unenforceable. Responding party is ordered to answer this interrogatory.
Overall, many of the objections are made without proper basis. Therefore, the court ordered responses are ordered to be answered without objection. Counsel is warned that future assertions of meritless objections will result in monetary sanctions.
The court does find that there was no substantial justification for not answering these questions and for asserting meritless objections. For instance, she objects that the information is irrelevant. She objects that it calls for attorney client communications. She objects that the information is equally available, contains trade secrets, seeks a compilation, and are harassing. None of these objections have merit with respect to these particular form interrogatories. However, this motion was overworked. A reasonable number of hours to file this motion and attend the hearing would be 4 hours. There is no explanation by counsel to justify a $450 per hour rate (no explanation of education, training experience, complexity of the case and other factors the court takes into consideration in determining fees under the lodestar method.) This motion did not require any complex analysis. For discovery abuse without substantial justification per CCP sec. 2023.010, the court awards attorney fees of $1,200 plus $60 in costs for a total of $1,260 payable within 30 days to the Client Trust Account of Vokshori Law Group, APLC jointly by Melica Khatibi and her counsel, Farivar Law Firm, APC.