Case Number: EC067356 Hearing Date: August 31, 2018 Dept: NCD

TENTATIVE RULING

Calendar: 2

Date: 8/31/18

Case No: EC 067356 Trial Date: July 1, 2019

Case Name: Ginosyan, et al. v. Government Employees Insurance Company, et al.

MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES TO INTERROGATORIES

(CCP § 2030.300, et seq.)

Moving Party: Plaintiff Marine Ginosyan

Responding Party: Defendant Government Employees Insurance Company

RULING:

Motion to Compel Further Answers to Interrogatories is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part as follows:

Motion is GRANTED as to Special Interrogatories, Set Number Three, Interrogatories Nos. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 36, 37, 38, 44, 45 and 46. Defendant Government Employees Insurance Company is to serve further responses to each interrogatory, without objection, which include all the information called for relating to the insurance claim which is the subject of this lawsuit. The court has considered defendant’s objections, which the court finds defendant has failed to justify in opposition, and which are without merit, and are overruled.

Further responses are to be served within ten days.

Motion is DENIED as to Special Interrogatories Nos. 40, 41, 42 and 43. Defendant has sufficiently established the objections that the interrogatories are compound, and impose undue burden. The motion is denied without prejudice to more narrowly tailored interrogatories being propounded, or some alternative method of discovering this information being proposed or agreed to.

RELIEF REQUESTED:

Further Responses to Special Interrogatories, Set No. Three

MONETARY SANCTION

None sought

CHRONOLOGY

Date Discovery served: May 14, 2016

Date Responses served: ? POS incomplete

Date Motion served: July 31, 2018 timely

Meet and Confer? Ok, Exhibit 10

FACTUAL BACKGROUND:

Plaintiffs Marine Ginosyan, Armen Sughyan and Artashes Sughyan allege that they procured from defendant Government Employees Insurance Company (“GEICO”) an automobile insurance policy, which insured their 2017 Audi AG vehicle. Plaintiffs allege that on the evening of July 28, 2017, plaintiff Artashes Sughyan parked the subject vehicle on Victory Boulevard in Glendale, outside an apartment building with a recording video camera, and drove to dinner with a friend in the friend’s automobile. Upon returning to his car from dinner on July 29, 2017, shortly after midnight, plaintiff discovered that the vehicle had been side-swiped, and damaged in what appeared to be a hit and run accident. Plaintiff called law enforcement, which took a statement, and plaintiff later that day informed defendant GEICO of the body damage, and an insurance claim was opened. The vehicle was then entrusted to Route 66 Collision Center, and plaintiff ensured it was available for inspection.

Plaintiffs allege that the vehicle was inspected by defendant Collision Dynamics, LLC, sent by GEICO, and Collision Dynamics concluded that the vehicle was moving at the time of the accident, and provided its conclusions to GEICO. Plaintiffs allege that GEICO improperly accepted the conclusion of Collision Dynamics, without inquiring into the methods used, or conducting interviews, or inquiring concerning video recording equipment on the apartment buildings at the time or otherwise properly investigating. Plaintiffs allege that because plaintiffs are of Armenian descent, their national origin raised a “red flag” for GEICO with respect to insurance fraud, and that GEICO failed to meet its obligation to report the suspected insurance fraud because defendant makes a regular practice of denying claims of persons of Armenian descent and did not want to raise suspicion of the Department of Insurance that it engages in discriminatory and unlawful practices.

ANALYSIS:

Under CCP § 2017.010, “any party may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action…if the matter either is itself admissible in evidence or appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” The section specifically provides that “discovery may relate to the claim or defense of the party seeking discovery or of any other party,” and that discovery may be obtained “of the identity and location of persons having knowledge of any discoverable matter, as well as of the existence, description, nature, custody, condition and location of any…tangible thing.”

CCP § 2030.300(a) provides that if the party propounding interrogatories deems that an objection is without merit or too general or that “an answer to a particular interrogatory is evasive or incomplete”, “the propounding party may move for an order compelling a further response…”

If a timely motion to compel has been filed, the burden is on the responding party to justify any objection or failure to fully respond to discovery. Coy v. Superior Court (1962) 58 Cal.2d 210, 220-221. The granting or denial of a motion to compel is in the discretion of the trial court. Id. A court should generally consider the following factors:

The relationship of the information sought to the issues framed in the pleadings;

The likelihood that disclosure will be of practical benefit to the party seeking discovery;

The burden or expense likely to be encountered by the responding party in furnishing the information sought.

Columbia Broadcast System, Inc. v. Superior Court (1968) 263 Cal.App.2d 12, 19.

Interrogatories Nos. 27, 28, 29, 30 and 46

These interrogatories are primarily directed to the representations made by plaintiff Marine Ginosyan, the policy holder, concerning the claim under her policy, which plaintiffs intend to argue must be considered separately from the representations made by her son, plaintiff Sughyan, who was an approved driver of the vehicle at the time.

The interrogatories ask for a statement of each statement Marine Ginosyan made to GEICO that it contends was false, as to each false statement, what GEICO contends is true, what makes such statements material to the handling of the claim, and the basis for the contention Marine Ginosyan knew the statements to be false when made. Interrogatory No. 46 asks if defendant contends that material misrepresentations by Artashes Sughyan were not credible in order to preclude recovery by Marine Ginosyan and to state the full basis for such a contention.

The responses include objections such as that the interrogatories are vague, ambiguous, overbroad, and not limited to the claim, and vague due to the failure to refer to the claim. Responses are then provided substantively, such as that:

“Assuming this interrogatory refers to the collision insurance claim submitted by Marine Ginosyan to GEICO. Responding party states that Marine Ginosyan stated that her Audi A6 was damaged while it was parked which was false. She also stated there was no prior damage at all to her Audi A6, but she has admitted under oath that this was an untrue statement. She also stated she did not know who recommended Route 66 Collision Center to her when in fact her son is friends with the owners of Route 66 Collision Center.”

The motion argues that the objections are not justified, and seems to argue that the information does not appear to be complete, or made based on inquiry to other persons within GEICO familiar with the claim.

Under CCP § 2030.220:

“(a) Each answer in a response to interrogatories shall be as complete and straightforward as the information reasonably available to the responding party permits.

(b) If an interrogatory cannot be answered completely, it shall be answered to the extent possible.

(c) If the responding party does not have personal knowledge sufficient to respond fully to an interrogatory, that party shall so state, but shall make a reasonable and good faith effort to obtain the information by inquiry to other natural persons or organizations, except where the information is equally available to the propounding party.”

It does not appear that the responses require further inquiry to others, as GEICO presumably obtained the information in the response from the employees with the information, and it has not responded that it lacks sufficient personal knowledge to respond fully to the interrogatory.

The opposition does not justify the objections, but does argue that to the extent the interrogatories are not expressly limited to the insurance claim that provides the basis for this action, it was appropriate to limit the responses to the claim. This appears to be appropriate. However, to the extend the responses are incomplete or improper because they include objections, which have not been justified, at the very least, further responses are ordered to be served to these interrogatories, without objection, so that plaintiff can be sure that if any further information is later relied upon concerning the alleged representations of Marine Ginosyan, that information can be barred from being admitted as evidence.

Interrogatories Nos. 31, 36, 37, 38

These interrogatories seek information concerning GEICO’s reliance on defendant Collision Dynamics, LLC with respect to its conclusion that the damage had occurred while the vehicle was moving, which plaintiff explains is necessary to defeat any “genuine dispute” argument on the part of defendants. The interrogatories seek a statement of what GEICO did to verify the accuracy of the report by Collision Dynamics with respect to the claim, what GEICO did before deciding to utilize Collision Dynamics to verify its qualifications, each thing done to ensure the report would not be designed solely to enable defendant to deny the claim, and what it was about the claim that caused GEICO to engage the services of Collision Dynamics to analyze the damage.

The responses again include objections such as overbroad, ambiguous, misleading, uncertain, with responses, when necessary limited to the claim, which provides substantive information, such as “Responding Party was in possession of Collision Dynamic’s resume and had previously received expert reports from this expert verifying its qualifications.”

Again, it appears that any concerns that plaintiff appears to have that these responses are incomplete should be addressed by ordering further responses to be served without objection, and limited to the claim at issue where appropriate. Such an order is issued here.

Interrogatories Nos. 40, 41, 42, 43

These interrogatories ask, “How many claims have YOU denied an insurance claim due to MISREPRESENTATIONS, from January 1, 2014 to the present,” and as for each identified claim, the claim number, the court and case number of any lawsuit, and the number of times a finder of fact found the contention to be true.

The responses are the same boilerplate objections, but also include objections that the interrogatories are “compound,” and explains that the information is not maintained in the ordinary course of business in a way that would permit the information to be collected through automation, and that the burden and expense to compile the information would outweigh its relevance.

With respect to the interrogatories being compound, Under CCP Section 2030.060(f), “No specially prepared interrogatory shall contain subparts, or a compound, conjunctive or disjunctive question.” This rule has long been recognized to prevent parties from avoiding the rule of 35. See Weil & Brown, Civ. Proc. Before Trial 8:978.1. Here, the questions require identification of and details concerning what could well be multiple claims denials. This objection appears to have been properly asserted and is sustained.

With respect to burdensomeness, CCP §§ 2030.090 provides that with respect to interrogatories, “the party to whom the interrogatory has been directed… may promptly move for a protective order,” and that

“The court, for good cause shown, may make any order that justice requires to protect any party or other natural person or organization from unwarranted annoyance, embarrassment, or oppression, or undue burden or expense.”

CCP section 2030.090 (a).

CCP § 2023.010(c) (3) defines a sanctionable misuse of the discovery process to include “Employing a discovery method in a manner or to an extent that causes unwarranted annoyance, embarrassment, or oppression, or undue burden and expense.”

The opposition actually seeks to justify its undue burden objection here, and submits the declaration of GEICO’s Continuing Unit Claim Representative, who states that providing further responses to these interrogatories would require the compilation of a list of every claim submitted in the last five years without limitation as to type of claim, type of policy, or state of issuance, and that this would require a personal review of every claim file, taking thirty to sixty minutes per file for hundreds of thousands of claims files. [Burich Decl., para. 5].

This information does appear highly relevant to the claim that GEICO engages in routine conduct of denying claims brought by persons of Armenian descent on misrepresentation grounds, and plaintiff does not even offer to narrow the requests here given this showing. The court will discuss whether the field can be narrowed, as discussed by GEICO, to limit an initial inquiry to certain types of policies, in California or a particular region.

Interrogatories Nos. 44, 45, 46

These interrogatories ask if defendant contends that Marine Ginosyan was not credible in connection with information provided, state all facts leading to that conclusion, with a similar interrogatory as to Artashes Sushyan. The responses are that the interrogatories are duplicative of previous interrogatories, but they do not appear to be. Further responses, providing all information, without objection, are ordered served.