Case Number: BC622539 Hearing Date: March 22, 2018 Dept: 97

Superior Court of California
County of Los Angeles
Department 97

Amanda Wyatt,

Plaintiff,

v.

Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No.: BC622539

Hearing Date: March 22, 2018

[Tentative] order RE:

Motion to compel further responses

Defendant Magic Mountain, LLC (“Defendant”) filed two motions to compel further responses from Plaintiff Amanda Wyatt (“Plaintiff”) for: (1) special interrogatories, set two (“SROG”); and (2) request for production of documents, set three (“RPD”). An Informal Discovery Conference (“IDC”) was held on February 27, 2018. The parties resolved their discovery issues related to the RPD, subject to code compliant responses. The discovery issues related to the SROG were not completely resolved, and the parties filed a joint statement regarding SROG 17 through 25. Defendant requests that Plaintiff be ordered to provide further responses to SROG 17 through 25 and to pay sanctions for this motion.

With respect to the remaining discovery at issue, SROG 17 through 25, ordinarily, the Court would provide a ruling as to each question individually. However, Plaintiff and Defendant have provided the exact same arguments for each of the special interrogatories at issue. This motion rests on the words “was defective” being erroneously included in each of the SROG at issue. For example, special interrogatory 17 states: “Please state with particularity all facts supporting your claim that Magic Mountain, LLC had actual notice of any defect(s) relating to the Tatsu ride at Six Flags was defective, on June 8, 2014.” Plaintiff’s supplemental—and somewhat impertinent—response to each question, not including objections, was “Amanda WYATT does not contend that actual notice of any defects was defective.”

Defendant states that the phrase “was defective” was erroneously included in each of the interrogatories at issue. Plaintiff argues that this error was fundamental to understanding the question, and that Plaintiff should not have to guess what information Defendant intended to seek by this phrasing of each question. Plaintiff also argues that she is not able to provide a further response because she fully answered the Interrogatory as it is currently phrased.

Both parties dispute whether the “was defective” language was adequately removed from the interrogatories at issue. Defendant claims that during the meet and confer process Defense Counsel instructed Plaintiff’s Counsel to ignore the words “was defective” in each of the questions at issue.[1] Plaintiff claims that Plaintiff’s Counsel pointed out the errors, but that Defendant did not attempt to reach an agreement or send new, error-free interrogatories. Instead Defendant filed the current motion to compel.[2]

The Court finds that both parties have acted unreasonably in the actions that have led to this motion. Defendant should have provided an amended set of interrogatories removing the erroneously inserted language, or, at the very least, a Notice of Errata stating that “was defective” was incorrectly included in each question. Conversely, Plaintiff’s supplemental responses are evasive and show that Plaintiff was not answering the questions in good faith. “A party may not deliberately misconstrue a question for the purpose of supplying an evasive answer. [Citation] Indeed, where the question is somewhat ambiguous, but the nature of the information sought is apparent, the proper solution is to provide an appropriate response.” (Deyo v. Kilbourne (1978) 84 Cal.App.3d 771, 783.) A plain reading of the SROG 17 through 22 demonstrates that Defendant is inquiring about whether Plaintiff has evidence to support a claim that Defendant had actual or constructive notice of defects related to the Tatsu ride. Plaintiff does not provide a reasonable alternative reading of these questions, (see Joint Stmt, pg. 6), that would indicate that Defendant is inquiring about any other information.

SROG 23 through 25 inquire about the evidence Plaintiff has relating to the negligent training of employees. While the inclusion of the phrase “was defective” in these questions could be seen as more likely to cause confusion, the seven previous questions containing the same defect should have indicated to Plaintiff that this “was defective” phrase should be ignored. Further, Plaintiff did not change her argument in any way when addressing SROG 23 through 25. Both parties simply cut and pasted the exact same argument and opposition after each SROG and SROG response. Therefore, Plaintiff has not indicated any prejudice specific to SROG 23 through 25 that would result in a substantially different reading of the question than intended by Defendant.

By way of this motion, Defendant has made clear its intention that the extraneous words “was defective” be stricken from each of special interrogatories number 17 through 25. Accordingly, the Court orders the words “was defective” stricken from Defendant’s second set of special interrogatories number 17 through 25. Plaintiff is ordered to provide further verified responses to special interrogatories number 17 through 25, as modified, within 20 days of notice of this order.

Based on the foregoing, the Court denies Defendant’s request for sanctions. While Plaintiff should have attempted to answer the questions in good faith, Defendant should have

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corrected the error before involving the Court in a rather trivial discrepancy. Therefore, imposing sanctions on one party and not the other would be unjust. (CCP § 2030.300, subd. (d).)

Defendant is ordered to give notice of this order.

DATED: March 22, 2018 ___________________________

Elaine Lu

Judge of the Superior Court

[1] Defendant provides no supporting evidence, such as an email, to show that this request was made.

[2] Plaintiff provides no evidence that Counsel requested an error-free copy of the interrogatories from Defendant at any time.