Judge Shirley K. Watkins, Case 22VECV00735 2023-03-14 Tentative Ruling

Judge: Shirley K. Watkins, Case: 22VECV00735, Date: 2023-03-14 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: 22VECV00735 Hearing Date: March 14, 2023 Dept: T

22VECV00735 AARON ROSEN vs VAN NUYS LOFTS, LLC, et al.

Tentative rulings:

Defendants’ motions to compel production of documents, request for admissions, form interrogatories and special interrogatories:

Denied. Defense counsel advised that there was a deadline of 2 p.m. on 2/15/2023 to provide the response to avoid the filing of Motions to Compel. Instead, defense counsel claims that he had a phone call with plaintiff’s counsel (according to plaintiff’s counsel, mid-day) on 2/9/2023 that no responses would be provided. At 4 p.m. on 2/9/2023, defendants filed these motions. There is no email confirming that no responses would be served. To the contrary, an email from plaintiff’s counsel to defense counsel on 2/9/2023 at 6:20 p.m. confirmed that plaintiff would continue the engage in discovery even if the case went to arbitration. Also, even though there was a span of about 4 hours between counsels' phone call and the filing of the 4 motions, on 2/9/2023, defense counsel billed for 2.2 hours for the form interrogatory motion, 2.3 hours for the RFP motion, 2.2 hours for the special interrogatory motion, and 2.4 hours for the RFA motion for a total of 9.3 hours. On 2/15/2023, the date agreed to by defendants, plaintiff’s counsel sent an email at about noon that he would not be able to meet the 2 p.m. deadline but would have them done in the evening and, at 5:44 p.m., all verified responses were served by email on defense counsel.

The court finds that the motions were premature and were unnecessary. Had defense counsel waited until 2/16/2023 to file the motions, they would not have been necessary.

Motions denied, no monetary sanctions.