2012-00119362-CU-BT

Jei McLees vs. USA Coton de Tulear Club Inc

Nature of Proceeding:      Motion to Compel 1) Special 2) Admisions 3) Form 4) Production

Filed By:   Rosasco, Erica L.

On motion of the court, this matter is continued to December 26, 2013 at 09:00AM in
this department.  If the new date is inconvenient for any party, then counsel shall meet
and confer and inform the Department 54 clerk of their request for a different,
subsequent date.

Having reviewed the moving and opposing papers, and the numerous discovery
requests that the parties dispute, it is apparent to the court that counsel must resume
the meet-and-confer process in good faith before drawing upon the court’s limited
resources.  Counsel for the parties are thus ordered to resume the meet-and-confer
process in order to resolve or substantially narrow their discovery dispute.

In resuming the meet-and-confer process, the parties should be guided by the
observation(s) that: (1) the Court disagrees with USACTC that Plaintiffs have waived
their objections, (2) to the extent Plaintiffs contend that they have produced all
documents responsive to a respective request for production of document, they must
so state, (3) to the extent Plaintiffs object to the term “lineage information” as vague
and ambiguous, Plaintiffs must still attempt to provide a respond to the respective
discovery requests and may base their response based upon their understanding of
the term as they have previously used it,  (4) because Plaintiffs have served further
supplemental responses to USACTC’s Special Interrogatories, the dispute is no longer
at issue.  To the extent USACTC contends that Plaintiffs’ supplemental responses are
deficient, they must engage in meet and confer efforts and file a new motion to compel
(if necessary), (5) the Court agrees that the term “condone” and “ruin” are ambiguous.

Counsel shall meet and confer in person no later than December 9, 2013.  After             thoroughly meeting and conferring in an attempt to resolve each and every issue that
the motion currently encompasses, and no later than December 16, 2013, counsel
shall file a joint statement indicating which discovery issues have been resolved, and
which issues (if any) remain outstanding.  For each outstanding issue, counsel shall
set forth in the joint statement their respective positions, citing the relevant facts and
authorities.  Boilerplate or cut-and-paste arguments are strongly discouraged.

Counsel are reminded that this court does not have the resources to tend to and
resolve every discovery issue that could have and should have been resolved
informally. (See Young v. Rosenthal (1989) 212 Cal.App.3d 96, 117 [“The very
purpose of an order to meet and confer is to obtain a negotiated resolution of a
discovery dispute without having to expend judicial time to sort out which party is
correct and what relief should be granted. What the court seeks is an agreement by
the parties which resolves the dispute”].)

Counsel are also reminded that this court has adopted, as part of its local rules, the
California Attorney Guidelines of Civility and Professionalism, promulgated by the
State Bar of California.  In particular, the court refers counsel to Sections 4, 6, 9 and
10. The court is bound to impose monetary sanctions against any party who
unsuccessfully makes or opposes a motion to compel further discovery\line responses,
absent a substantial justification or other reason making the imposition of sanctions
unjust.  The court may also impose sanctions for the failure to meet and confer in good
faith or otherwise misuse the discovery process. (See Cal. Code Civ. Proc. §§
2023.010-2023.030.)

The court will consider each side’s meet-and-confer efforts in deciding whether to
impose sanctions.