Case Number: 18STCV07505 Hearing Date: December 02, 2019 Dept: 4B

[TENTATIVE] ORDER RE: MOTIONS TO COMPEL FUTHER DISCOVERY RESPONSES

On April 23, 2019, Defendant served requests for production of documents, special interrogatories, and form interrogatories on Plaintiff. Plaintiff contends Defendant served them at the wrong address – counsel’s old address. Defendant argues Plaintiff failed to file a proper change of address. In any event, on June 7, 2019, defense counsel mailed Plaintiff’s counsel about the missing responses. Plaintiff’s counsel called, saying counsel had not received the discovery request. Defense counsel sent another copy of the discovery requests and granted an extension to respond to August 12, 2019. Plaintiff served responses on August 13, 2019, because, Plaintiff’s counsel states, he mistakenly thought the responses were due that day based on a calendaring error.

On October 2, 2019, Defendant served motions to compel further responses. Defendant argued the responses were defective, Plaintiff waived all objections by serving the responses late, and Plaintiff’s counsel refused to meet and confer. On November 12, 2019, the parties participated in an IDC. On November 14, 2019, Plaintiff served further responses without the objections. Therefore, the motions to compel are now MOOT.

At this point, the only issue appears to be sanctions. Defendant claims $2,060, $2,310 and $2,560 in sanctions for the three motion based on eight hours, nine hours, and ten hours of work, for a total of 27 hours of work on all three motions. Given that the motion and reply papers for the three motions are almost entirely duplicative of each other, the claim for $6,930 in sanctions for 27 hours of work in total is excessive. Also, much of the parties’ motion papers was occupied with whether Plaintiff properly filed and served a change of address form, long discussions of meet and confer letters, and other such ancillary matters. The Court awards sanctions in the amount of $1,180 against Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s counsel, jointly and severally, to be paid within 20 days of the date of this order.

Moving party to give notice.