Case Number: 18STCV09540 Hearing Date: February 18, 2020 Dept: 26

Superior Court of California
County of Los Angeles
Department 26

Evangeline c. ward michayluk,

Plaintiff,

v.

FCA US LLC, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No.: 18STCV09540

Hearing Date: February 18, 2020

[TENTATIVE] order RE:

DEFENDANT’S motion to COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES TO Special interrogatories

Background

On December 18, 2018, Plaintiff Evangeline C. Ward Michayluk (“Plaintiff”) commenced the instant action against defendants FCA US LLC (“Defendant”), BN Dealership I, LLC, West Valley Chrysler Jeep, and Does 1 through 10 for (1) Breach of Express Warranty under the Song-Beverly Act, (2) Breach of Implied Warranty under the Song-Beverly Act, (3) Fraudulent Inducement, and (4) Negligent Repair. These causes of action arise out of defects in the totally integrated power module which centralizes power distribution to the subject vehicle’s electrical system.

On January 14, 2020, Defendant filed the instant motion to compel further responses to special interrogatories set one. On February 3, 2020, Plaintiff filed an opposition. Defendant replied on February 6, 2020.

Legal Standard

CCP § 2030.300 provides that “[o]n receipt of a response to interrogatories, the propounding party may move for an order compelling a further response if the propounding party deems that any of the following apply: (1) An answer to a particular interrogatory is evasive or incomplete; [or] (2) An exercise of the option to produce documents under Section 2030.230 is unwarranted or the required specification of those documents is inadequate; [or] (3) An objection to an interrogatory is without merit or too general.” (CCP § 2030.300(a).)

Notice of the motion must be given within 45 days of service of the verified response, or upon a later date agreed to in writing. Otherwise, the propounding party waives any right to compel a further response. (CCP § 2031.310(c).) The motion must also be accompanied by a meet and confer declaration. (CCP § 2031.310(b)(2).)

The burden is on the responding part to justify any objection or failure fully to answer the interrogatories. (Fairmont Ins. Co. v. Sup.Ct. (Stendell) (2000) 22 Cal. 4th 245, 255.)

Discussion

There are nine Special Interrogatories at issue – Special Interrogatories Nos. 2, 6-7, 21-23, and 33-35.

Timeliness

A party making a motion to compel further responses must do so within 45 days of service of the verified response unless the parties agree in writing to a later date. (CCP § 2030.300(c).)

Here, Plaintiff served unverified responses to Defendant’s discovery requests on September 5, 2019. (Fisher Decl., ¶ 2.) The parties had a written agreement extending the time for Plaintiff to provide supplemental verified responses by two weeks and extending the time for Defendant to file the instant motion by two weeks. (Id. at ¶¶ 3-4, Ex. B, C.) Plaintiff provided responses on October 21, 2019. (Id. at ¶ 5, Ex. D.) The deadline to file a motion to compel was extended while the parties met and conferred until January 14, 2020. (Id. 6-8, Ex. E, F.) Accordingly, this motion was timely filed on January 14, 2020.

Meet and Confer

“A meet and confer declaration in support of a motion shall state facts showing a reasonable and good faith attempt at an informal resolution of each issue presented by the motion.” (CCP § 2016.040.)

Plaintiff contends that the meet and confer effort could have been more extensive and that further meet and confers would have addressed these issues. While the Court agrees that for future discovery motions the parties should meet and confer more extensively by telephone or in person to resolve discovery matters, the Court finds that for this motion, Defendant has adequately met and conferred.[1] (See Fisher Decl. ¶¶ 7-9.)

Boilerplate Objections

For nearly every SROG at issue, Plaintiff objects on the ground that the SROG invades privileged information such as attorney-client privilege and confidentiality. For claims of privilege, the party asserting the privilege bears the burden to demonstrate its applicability and must file a privilege log to support the claims of privilege. As Plaintiff has not filed any privilege log or otherwise demonstrated the applicability of any privilege, Plaintiff’s claims of privilege are unsupported and without merit.

Additionally, for every SROG at issue, Plaintiff makes the same objection that the SROG is overly broad, unduly burdensome, oppressive, irrelevant, vague, and ambiguous. In some instances, as noted below, the Court agrees that the RPD is overbroad, and the Court will accordingly narrow the scope of documents to be produced. However, apart from the limited exceptions noted below, Plaintiff’s boiler-plate, repetitive objections make no reference to the SROG in question. A party opposing discovery has the burden to justify objections in response to a motion filed to compel further responses. (Fairmont Ins. Co. v. Sup. Ct. (2000) 22 Cal.4th 245, 255.) Here, Plaintiff provides no substantive justification for these objections. Plaintiff does not meet her burden of justifying the objections, and the boilerplate objections are without merit. (CCP § 2031.310(a)(3).)

Plaintiff’s claim that the special interrogatories are overbroad is also without merit. “[A]ny party may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action or to the determination of any motion made in that action, if the matter either is itself admissible in evidence or appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” (CCP § 2017.010.) “[A]n implicit waiver of a party’s constitutional rights encompasses only discovery directly relevant to the plaintiff’s claim and essential to the fair resolution of the lawsuit.” (Vinson v. Superior Court (1987) 43 Cal. 3d 833, 842.) However, discovery should not be denied if the information sought has any relevance to the subject matter. Therefore, even if interrogatories are found to be “burdensome and oppressive,” the Court should not simply sustain the objection and thereby excuse any answer. Rather, the Court should limit the question to a reasonable scope. (Borse v. Sup.Ct. (Southern Pac. Co.) (1970) 7 Cal. App. 3d 286, 289.) The disputed interrogatories directly relate to the claims that Plaintiff has brought.

With regard to compound questions, the court finds that this objection too is without merit. “No specially prepared interrogatory shall contain subparts, or a compound, conjunctive, or disjunctive question” (CCP § 2030.060(f).) Since any question using an ‘and’ or ‘or’ could be compound and conjunctive this “‘rule should probably apply only where more than a single subject is covered by the question.’” (Clement v. Alegre, (2009) 177 Cal. App. 4th 1277, 1291) [quoting Weil & Brown, Cal. Practice Guide: Civil Procedure Before Trial, supra, ¶ 8:978.1, p. 8F–21] [emphasis in original].) Here each interrogatory in question only deals with one subject matter. Therefore, they are not compound.

Special Interrogatory 2

“Identify the dates during which YOUR VEHICLE was present at any of FCA US LLC’s authorized repair facilities, as alleged in YOUR Complaint..” (Special Interrogatory, No. 2.)

After the list of unsupported boilerplate objections, Plaintiff provides a substantive response. Plaintiff responds stating that she is currently investigating whether additional repairs were performed. Plaintiff’s response is evasive and incomplete. In Deyo v. Kilbourne (1978) 84 Cal.App.3d 771, the Court of Appeal held that:

[i]f only partial answers can be supplied, the answers should reveal all information then available to the party. If a person cannot furnish details, he should set forth the efforts made to secure the information. He cannot plead ignorance to information which can be obtained from sources under his control.

(Deyo v. Kilbourne, 84 Cal.App.3d at 782.) Here, Plaintiff has not set forth any information as to what actions she has undertaken to obtain the requested information. Indeed, Plaintiff has made no assurance at all that she has complied with her obligation to “make a reasonable and good faith effort to obtain the information by inquiry to other natural persons or organizations.” (CCP § 2030.220(c).)

The balance of Plaintiff’s response is also insufficient as it is evasive. Plaintiff asserts that she delivered the vehicle to the repair station eight or more times, exceeding thirty days in duration. Nothing in Special Interrogatory 2 inquires about the number of times Plaintiff took the subject vehicle in or the total duration of these visits. Plaintiff has misconstrued Special Interrogatory 2 and has provided a non-responsive answer.

Thus, Plaintiff is ordered to provide within 15 days of notice of this order a further response to Special Interrogatory 2 that is code-compliant.

Special Interrogatory 6

“Please DESCRIBE all “incidental. consequential. and general damages” YOU have incurred, including the date and amount of any such expense and to whom the expense was paid.” (Special Interrogatory 6.)

Here, in addition to the boilerplate objections that Plaintiff has provided, Plaintiff lists damages that she has sustained but only specifies the “amount paid or payable under the 26 sales contract ($48,127.28).” This fails to fully respond to the interrogatory as Plaintiff has not fully described the damages paid as requested by the interrogatory. While Plaintiff notes that damages are ongoing and discovery is still continuing, as noted above, Plaintiff has failed to set forth any actions she has undertaken to obtain the requested information and has failed to give any assurance that she has complied with her obligation to “make a reasonable and good faith effort to obtain the information by inquiry to other natural persons or organizations.” (CCP § 2030.220(c).)

Thus, Plaintiff is ordered to provide within 15 days of notice of this order a further response to Special Interrogatory 6 that is code-compliant.

Special Interrogatories 7, 21, 33

Each of these special interrogatories requests that Plaintiff state the facts that support her contention with regard to punitive damages, and the third cause of action. In response to the interrogatory, Plaintiff propounds identical boilerplate objections and responds by quoting the complaint and referring to a mass of document production.

With regard to the document productions Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.230 provides that “[i]f the answer to an interrogatory would necessitate the preparation or the making of a compilation, abstract, audit, or summary of or from the documents of the party to whom the interrogatory is directed, and if the burden or expense of preparing or making it would be substantially the same for the party propounding the interrogatory as for the responding party, it is a sufficient answer to that interrogatory to refer to this section and to specify the writings from which the answer may be derived or ascertained.” (CCP § 2030.230.) However, “[t]his exception applies only if the summary is not available and the party specifies the records from which the information can be ascertained. A broad statement that the information is available from a mass of documents is insufficient.” (Deyo v. Kilbourne (1978) 84 Cal.App.3d 771, 784.) Here, no documents have been specified. Therefore, merely referencing a mass of documents is insufficient.

Further, Plaintiff’s response of quoting the complaint does not answer these special interrogatories that ask for all facts that support Plaintiff’s third cause of action and punitive damages. Plaintiff’s response is evasive and does not answer Defendant’s interrogatory. Accordingly, Plaintiff is ordered to provide within 15 days of notice of this order further responses to Special Interrogatories 7, 21, 33 that are code-compliant.

Special Interrogatories 22, 34

These two special interrogatories ask for Plaintiff to identify all documents in support of Plaintiff’s third cause of action and for punitive damages. Plaintiff’s response to both is identical and simply refers to documents produced in discovery. As discussed earlier, this is insufficient as it does not specify the documents out of the produced documents.

Accordingly, Plaintiff is ordered to provide within 15 days of notice of this order further responses to Special Interrogatories 22 and 34 that are code-compliant.

Special Interrogatories 23, 35

These two special interrogatories ask plaintiff to identify those who have information to support Plaintiff’s third cause of action and punitive damages. After the boilerplate objections, Plaintiff responds Plaintiff and Defendant, its agents, representatives, and employees. This is too general and does not respond to the prerequisite interrogatories as the answer is too broad and does not identify the individuals in question. Accordingly, Plaintiff is ordered to provide within 15 days of notice of this order further responses to Special Interrogatories 25 and 35 that are code-compliant

Sanctions

“[T]he court shall impose a monetary sanction … against any party, person, or attorney who unsuccessfully makes or opposes a motion to compel further response to a demand, unless it finds that the one subject to the sanction acted with substantial justification or that other circumstances make the imposition of the sanction unjust. (CCP § 2031.310 (h).)

Defendant requests sanctions under CCP § 2023.010 for misuse of discovery. Sanctions have been sufficiently noticed against Plaintiff and her counsel.

In light of the greater meet and confer efforts in which Defendant and Plaintiff could have engaged to avoid this litigation, the Court finds that the imposition of sanctions should be reduced. As such, Defendant’s motion for sanctions is granted in the amount of $1,200.

Defendant requests sanctions against Plaintiff and her counsel under CCP § 2023.010. The Court finds Plaintiff’s failure to respond a misuse of the discovery process. Sanctions have been sufficiently noticed against Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s counsel. The Court awards sanctions for a total of $1,350. Plaintiff Evangeline C. Ward Michayluk and her counsel Knight Law Group, jointly and severally, are ordered to pay monetary sanctions in the amount of $1, 350.00 to Defendant, by and through counsel, within thirty (30) days of notice of this order.

CONCLUSIONS AND ORDER

Based on the foregoing reasons, Defendant’s Motion to Compel Further Responses to Special Interrogatories set one is GRANTED in full. Plaintiff is ordered to serve within fifteen (15) days of notice of this order verified, code-compliant, further responses to Special Interrogatories 2, 6-7, 21-23, 33-35 without objection.

Defendant’s request for sanctions is GRANTED in the amount of $1,350.00. Plaintiff Evangeline C. Ward Michayluk and her counsel Knight Law Group, jointly and severally, are ordered to pay monetary sanctions in the amount of $1, 350.00 to Defendant, by and through counsel, within thirty (30) days of notice of this order.

Moving Party is ordered to provide notice of this order and file proof of service of such.

DATED: February 18, 2020 ___________________________

Elaine Lu
Judge of the Superior Court

[1] Plaintiff’s additional claim that this motion is moot because Plaintiff will supplement the responses is unavailing. The motion is not moot until Plaintiff provides code-compliant responses, and even then, the issue of sanctions may not be moot.