Sentry Select Insurance Company vs David Mata

Case Number

22CV01132

Case Type

Hearing Date / Time

Fri, 01/12/2024 - 10:00

Nature of Proceedings

CMC; (4) Motions to Compel

Tentative Ruling

Plaintiff served defendant David Mata with Form Interrogatories (Set 1), Special Interrogatories (Set 1), Requests for Production (Set 1), and Requests for Admissions (Set 1) on October 28, 2022. When no responses were provided, plaintiff on February 1, 2023, served the current motions to compel responses to the Form Interrogatories, Special Interrogatories, and Requests for Production, along with a motion for deemed admissions. Each motion separately seeks sanctions of $900, and each sanction request includes requests for attorney’s fees incurred at $150/hour for three hours preparing each motion, one hour to prepare reply, one hour to prepare for oral argument, and one hour to attend the hearing. The motions were initially set for hearing on May 5, 2023.

On February 2, 2023, defendant Mata filed a Substitution of Attorneys form, in which his current attorney substituted into the action on his behalf.

The hearings were then continued by stipulation of the parties multiple times, while they engaged in settlement discussions.

After settlement discussions broke down in the Fall of 2023, defendant Mata on December 14, 2023 provided responses to the discovery, without objections, thereby mooting the motions to the extent they sought responses.

Plaintiff continued to object to the adequacy of the responses, and after subsequent meet and confer efforts, apparently amended responses were provided by Mata which were deemed satisfactory by plaintiff. The amended responses are not before the court in any manner, nor are they properly considered by the Court in resolving the motions which were filed.

The parties now appear to agree that the motions are substantively moot. However, plaintiff has declined to take the motions off calendar, and is continuing to seek sanctions based upon defendant’s original failure to respond.

The Court has no information before it that would permit it to attribute the blame for defendant’s original failure to respond to the discovery to defendant personally, rather than to his prior counsel. The Court will therefore decline to award sanctions for any of the three motions to compel responses.

The Court notes that the imposition of sanctions is mandatory, however, when a party’s failure to respond to requests for admissions results in the filing of a motion for deemed admissions. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2033.280, subd. (c).) The Court will therefore award sanctions to plaintiff and against defendant Mata, for this motion alone, in the total amount of $500.00, which the Court finds to be the reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred in making the deemed admissions motion.