Judge: Teresa A. Beaudet, Case: 24STCV12374, Date: 2024-10-11 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 24STCV12374    Hearing Date: October 11, 2024    Dept: 50

Superior Court of California

County of Los Angeles

Department 50

Background

On May 16, 2024, Plaintiff Jonathan Thomas Elie (“Plaintiff”) filed this action against Defendants City of Los Angeles, Barbara Romero, and Mark Fernandez.

On May 29, 2024, Plaintiff filed the operative First Amended Complaint (“FAC”). The FAC alleges causes of action for (1) race discrimination, (2) racial harassment, hostile work environment, (3) retaliation, (4) associational race discrimination, (5) associational race harassment, (6) “failure to investigate, failure to prevent racial discrimination, harassment, retaliation,” and (7) defamation.

City of Los Angeles (the “City”) now demurs to each of the causes of action of the FAC. Plaintiff opposes. 

Discussion

As an initial matter, on July 5, 2024, the City filed a “Declaration of Demurring or Moving Party in Support of Automatic Extension,” which provides, inter alia, that “[d]ue to Defense counsel’s schedule, Defense counsel has not been able to schedule a meet and confer with Plaintiff’s counsel prior to the deadline. Defendant’s counsel intends to schedule a meet and confer the week of July 8, 2024 and will proceed as necessary thereafter.” However, it does not appear that the City filed any declaration in connection with the demurrer demonstrating that the parties ever met and conferred in person, by telephone, or by video conference, or that the City’s counsel attempted to do so.

In addition, in the opposition, Plaintiff asserts that the “demurrer should be rejected because [the City] never complied with their Code of Civil Procedure § 430.41(a) mandatory meet-and-confer requirements…” (Opp’n at p. 2:1-2.) In the reply, the City acknowledges that it left out “a section in Defendant’s Demurrer relating to Defendant’s counsel’s inability to engage in the meet-and-confer process due to unexpected work conflicts.” (Reply at p. 5:18-19.)

Pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 430.41, subdivision (a), “[b]efore filing a demurrer pursuant to this chapter, the demurring party shall meet and confer in person, by telephone, or by video conference with the party who filed the pleading that is subject to demurrer for the purpose of determining whether an agreement can be reached that would resolve the objections to be raised in the demurrer.” (Emphasis added.) Such meeting and conferring must be done in good faith with an effort to try to resolve the issues subject to the demurrer.

In light of the foregoing, the hearing on the City’s demurrer is continued to _______________, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. in Dept. 50. 

The City is ordered to meet¿and confer¿with Plaintiff within 10 days of the date of this order.¿If the parties are unable to resolve the pleading issues¿or if the parties are otherwise unable to meet and confer in good faith, the City is to¿thereafter¿file and serve¿a declaration setting forth the efforts to meet and confer in compliance with¿Code of Civil Procedure section 430.41, subdivision (a)(3) within 15 days of this order.¿

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The City is ordered to give notice of this order. 

DATED:  October 11, 2024                           ________________________________

Hon. Teresa A. Beaudet

Judge, Los Angeles Superior Court