Case Name: Shelly Qian, et al. v. Lily Tu
Case No.: 2014-1-CV-263874 (consolidated with Case No. 2014-1-CV-269481)

Currently before the Court is a motion to compel further responses to form interrogatories by plaintiffs and cross-defendants Deepak Ganju, Herman Zheng, and Patty Kiang. Defendant and cross-complainant Lily Tu, individually and as trustee of the Tu Family Trust, opposes plaintiffs’ motion.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

This action arises out of the purchase of, construction on, and resale of a property on Waverly Drive in Palo Alto. In her operative Fifth Amended Cross-Complaint (“5AXC”), Lily Tu alleges that her deceased husband, George Tu, entered into a partnership agreement regarding this project with plaintiffs and also with cross-defendants Shelly Qian, Jeff Chou, and Wei She. (5AXC, ¶ 14.) After George died, Lily completed construction on the property and put it up for sale. (Id., ¶ 18.) Shortly thereafter, Lily discovered that the property could not be sold due to unspecified claims by the cross-defendants. (Id., ¶ 19.) Certain cross-defendants coerced Lily into setting aside a large portion of the proceeds from a sale in escrow before they would remove the impediments to enable the sale to close. (Ibid.) After the sale, cross-defendants refused to accept the accounting provided by Lily pursuant to the terms of the partnership agreement. (Id., ¶ 20.)

Plaintiffs filed their initial complaint against Lily on April 15, 2014, and Lily cross-complained on November 3, 2014. The operative 5AXC, filed October 21, 2015, asserts claims for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and duty of loyalty, and fraud and deceit.

II. Discovery Dispute

On January 19, 2016, plaintiffs each served Lily with a set of requests for admission (the “RFA”s), which ask her to admit that there is no support for various contentions and requests for relief in her cross-complaint. Along with the RFAs, each of the plaintiffs propounded a third set of form interrogatories consisting of form interrogatory 17.1 (“FI 17.1”), which asks for the facts, witnesses, and documents supporting any denial of an RFA. Lily responded to these requests on February 23 by denying all of the RFAs and providing a single response to FI 17.1 as to all of the RFAs.

On March 21, 2016, plaintiffs’ counsel sent Lily’s counsel a meet and confer letter asserting that Lily’s responses were inadequate. Following a further exchange of letters by counsel, Lily provided supplemental responses to the FIs on April 1, which set forth a separate but identical response as to each RFA. Plaintiffs’ counsel again stated that these responses were inadequate because they merely repeated a single, boilerplate answer with respect to each RFA. On April 6, Lily’s counsel sent a meet and confer letter defending Lily’s responses in general, but indicating that Lily would review a handful of specific responses and decide whether to further supplement those responses by April 14. On April 11, plaintiffs filed the instant motion to compel further responses to the FIs.

III. Analysis

Ganju moves to compel a further response to FI 17.1 with respect to RFAs 1, 2, 4-6, 9-26, 28-42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 55, and 59-65; Zheng moves to compel a further response as to RFAs 1, 2, 4-6, 9-15, 17-28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 41, and 45-51; and Kiang seeks a further response as to RFAs 1, 2, 4-6, 9-24, 26-40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 53, and 57-63.

In response to the FIs as to each of these RFAs, Lily interposed objections and provided an identical response consisting of: (a) a general narrative summary of the allegations in her cross-complaint, (b) a single list of witnesses, and (c) an invocation of Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.230 (which permits a party to specify documents from which the answer to an interrogatory may be ascertained where compiling or summarizing the documents presents an equal burden to either of the parties), followed by a list of general categories of documents. As urged by plaintiffs, these responses do not comply with the requirement that interrogatory responses be as complete and straightforward as possible. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.220, subd. (a); Deyo v. Kilbourne (1978) 84 Cal.App.3d 771, 783 [“a party may not provide deftly worded conclusionary answers designed to evade a series of explicit questions”].) Nor is it appropriate for Lily to respond to interrogatories seeking the evidentiary support for her own contentions with a blanket invocation of Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.230.

Lily does not defend her objections to the FIs in her opposition, other than to state (without citing any supporting authority) that she is entitled to assert objections for preservation at trial. This is not so: upon a motion to compel further responses, Lily must defend her objections or they will not be preserved. (See Coy v. Superior Court (Wolcher) (1962) 58 Cal.2d 210, 220-221 [party opposing discovery has the burden to justify its objections].) Lily’s undefended objections are therefore overruled.

Lily defends her boilerplate responses by arguing that plaintiffs’ discovery requests are “abusive” due to their volume and in light of the fact that plaintiffs filed the instant motion after noticing their second motion for summary judgment. While the requests at issue do appear to be more voluminous and repetitive than necessary, they are not “abusive.” Contention interrogatories are a permissible method of discovery (see Burke v. Superior Court (Fidelity & Deposit Co. of Maryland) (1969) 71 Cal.2d 276, 283-285), and plaintiffs are entitled to seek discovery until the cutoff before trial (see Code Civ. Proc., § 2024.020), notwithstanding the pendency of summary judgment or other motions. Lily’s arguments consequently fail, and she must provide further, specific responses without objections to FI 17.1 with respect to each of the RFAs at issue in compliance with the Code of Civil Procedure.

IV. Requests for Monetary Sanctions

Both Lily and plaintiffs seek monetary sanctions in connection with plaintiffs’ motion. The Court will not award sanctions against plaintiffs and their counsel, since plaintiffs’ motion was successful. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.300, subd. (d).) Since Lily’s opposition was unsuccessful, she and her counsel did not act with substantial justification, and no other circumstance renders the imposition of sanctions against them unjust, the Court will award sanctions against Lily and her counsel as requested by plaintiffs. (Ibid.)

In support of plaintiffs’ request for sanctions, their counsel declares that she and her colleague both bill at $350, which is a reasonable hourly rate given their experience. Plaintiffs’ counsel have spent a combined total of 23 hours reviewing the discovery responses at issue, preparing meet and confer correspondence, and preparing plaintiffs’ moving and reply papers. Counsel further estimates that she will spend an additional 2 hours travelling to and attending the hearing on this motion. The Court does not award sanctions for meet and confer efforts or anticipated time spent on a motion. Furthermore, given the straightforward nature of the motion at issue, 23 hours is an excessive amount of attorney time to have spent preparing the moving and reply papers. The Court will therefore award $2,800 in sanctions for 8 hours’ work, a more reasonable amount of time to have spent on plaintiffs’ motion ($350/hour x 8 hours = $2,800), plus $90 in costs.

V. Conclusion and Order

Plaintiffs’ motion is GRANTED. Lily shall serve verified, code-compliant further responses to FI 17.1 with respect to the following RFAs, without objections, within 20 calendar days of the filing of this order: RFAs 1, 2, 4-6, 9-26, 28-42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 55, and 59-65 by Ganju; RFAs 1, 2, 4-6, 9-15, 17-28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 41, and 45-51 by Zheng; and RFAs 1, 2, 4-6, 9-24, 26-40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 53, and 57-63 by Kiang.

Plaintiffs’ request for monetary sanctions is GRANTED in the amount of $2,890. Lily and her counsel shall remit this amount to plaintiffs’ counsel within 20 calendar days of the filing of this order.

Lily’s request for monetary sanctions is DENIED.

The Court will prepare the order.