Lawzilla Additional Information:
Per the Los Angeles court records we believe plaintiff is represented by attorney Nick Pacheco

Case Number: KC063200 Hearing Date: April 08, 2014 Dept: O

Carrick v. Abad et al. (KC063200)

Defendant Affinity Painting Company Inc.’s MOTION FOR TERMINATING SANCTIONS, OR, IN THE ALTERNATIVE, ISSUE SANCTIONS

Respondent: NO OPPOSITION

TENTATIVE RULING

Defendant Affinity Painting Company Inc.’s motion for terminating sanctions, or, in the alternative, issue sanctions is GRANTED. The Complaint is dismissed for failure to prosecute.

If anyone engages in conduct that is a misuse of the discovery process, the court may impose monetary sanction, issue sanction, evidence sanction, terminating sanction, and contempt sanction. (CCP § 2023.030.) The sanctions the court may impose are such as are suitable and necessary to enable the party seeking discovery to obtain the objects of the discovery he seeks, but the court may not impose sanctions which are designed not to accomplish the objects of discovery but to impose punishment. (Laguna Auto Body v. Farmers Ins. Exchange (1991) 231 Cal.App.3d 481, 487.) A prerequisite to the imposition of the dismissal sanction is that the party has willfully failed to comply with a court order. (Ibid.) Terminating sanctions should only be ordered when there has been previous noncompliance with a rule or order and it appears a less severe sanction would not be effective. (Link v. Cater (1998) 60 Cal.App.4th 1315, 1326.) A terminating sanction issued solely because of a failure to pay a monetary sanction is never justified. (Newland v. Sup.Ct. (1995) 40 Cal.App.4th 608, 615.)

On 10/31/13, this court ordered Plaintiff to provide supplemental responses without objections within 30 days. No responses have been served. Trial was set for 4/8/2014.

On 3/20/2014, in the court’s previous tentative ruling the court felt terminating sanctions are warranted because it does not appear that less severe sanctions will accomplish the object of discovery. Plaintiff was ordered to comply with Defendant’s discovery requests, and failed to comply. The plaintiff filed to file opposition. However, at the hearing Plaintiff’s counsel appeared and alleged that he was not served with the motion, even though it was shown that counsel’s secretary was personally served. At the hearing counsel for moving party stated that when the secretary was served by him he could hear plaintiff’s counsel in an adjoining room telling her to just take the papers. Despite Plaintiff’s counsel’s credibility issue, this court allowed counsel to file an opposition.

Now in opposition, Counsel provides no justification or excuse for the long overdue discovery. Instead, counsel complains of staff turnover, and promised to provide discovery by 3/31/14. As of the date of the Reply, April 4, 2014, Plaintiff has broken yet another promise and failed again to provide discovery responses.

Defendant notes that attorney Pacheco is the husband of the plaintiff. Despite many extensions, many opportunities to respond to discovery, and many opportunities to comply with this court’s orders, Plaintiff and her counsel have shown a pattern of willful disobedience and complete lack of regard for this court’s orders. They have needlessly strung out the defendant’s ability to respond to this lawsuit and continue to deny the defendant the information needed to defend. (The court also critically notes that, on 2/17/2013 the parties were ordered to attend mediation and at the scheduled mediation of 4/1/2013 plaintiff failed to appear. This furthers supports the finding of a pattern of disobedience of the court’s orders.)

Accordingly, motion is GRANTED. Additional monetary sanctions are imposed against Plaintiff and counsel, jointly and severally, in the reduced sum of $500.00, payable within 30 days because their failure to comply necessitated the instant motion. The Complaint is dismissed for failure to prosecute.