Excerpt: ... necessary assistance at meals and that plaintiff would often feed himself. According to plaintiff, defendant was reminded of the risk whenever a family member came to visit. Even so, plaintiff contends, defendant failed to take the appropriate steps. Plaintiff further contends that defendant understaffed even knowing of the risk that presented. On June 5, decedent was found with coffee ground emesis and was in respiratory distress. Plaintiff ass...

Excerpt: ...es were served right before the motion was filed. Those supplemental responses are the same: “After an exhaustive search attached is a true and correct copy of all responsive documents in Plaintiff's possession documents are attached as Exhibit 1 and 2.” Plaintiff is correct that this is not code-compliant. The code is quite specific as to the response. The response must be that the production “will be allowed either in whole or in part, an...

Excerpt: ...ciates defendants' candor, that does not change a bad faith response into a good faith response. Further extensions were given but no supplemental responses were filed. Plaintiff has moved to compel. The court has reviewed the requests for production and believes plaintiff has made the requisite showing to justify the discovery as required by CCP section 2031.310(b)(1). The court has reviewed the objections. They are in bad faith and boilerplate....

Excerpt: ...it was here). Generally, only “very slight” evidence is required because the law favors a merits disposition. (Kramer v. Traditional Escrow, Inc. (2020) 56 Cal.App.5th 13.) Of course, that rule does not allow setting aside a default where the decision not to file a timely response was tactical or deliberate rather than negligent. Defendant here has provided a detailed declaration with corroborating evidence demonstrating that there were vario...

Excerpt: ...d sought—on multiple occasions—a preliminary injunction or TRO to allow him to stay on the property. Those motions were denied because the court found that plaintiff had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits. The written contracts all had fee-shifting clauses. Defendant obtained summary judgment and now seeks fees. There is an initial question whether fees are recoverable. Defendant has argued, with force although ultimately not ful...

Excerpt: ...ond procedure, he was told to take antibiotics, but forgot. He told the defendant that he forgot to take the antibiotics (or at least that he did not take the full course) but they went ahead anyway. After the second procedure, plaintiff became infected and was hospitalized for 8 days. During that time, plaintiff contends that the hospital tried to get his medical records from defendant but defendant did not provide them. Defendant now demurs to ...

Excerpt: ...at the responses were not sufficient. The court is taking these two motions out of the many filed. The court had hoped that the parties would be able to work the discovery out amongst themselves, but alas, such is not the case. There were emails exchanged and promises to supplement, but the promises seem empty as the supplements never materialized. That said, due to personal issues, defense counsel promised the supplements by month's end—which ...

Excerpt: ...[Safady] to SOLICIT investments in CYBERLINE.” RFP 2 seeks communications with any “PERSON [Safady] SOLICTED to invest in CYBERLINE regarding a potential or actual investment in CYBERLINE.” RFP 3 seeks documents relating to efforts by Safady “to recommend that any PERSON invest in CYBERLINE.” RFP 4 seeks communications relating to Cyberline “with any person to whom [Safady] recommended investing in CYBERLINE.” The response to each i...

Excerpt: ... of the crime to obtain attorneys' fees in a civil action. Plaintiff, having prevailed against two defendants, asserts $179,729.50 in fees. Lead counsel bills at between $950 and $1050/hour and co- counsel bills at between $605 and $685/hour. Plaintiff elected not to submit billing records, but did submit declarations from counsel going into some detail as to the work done. Plaintiff is willing to submit records for in camera review. Defendant op...

Excerpt: ...filed on December 8, 2023. The case is set to go to trial on February 20, 2024. Plaintiff's discovery (which might be the first written discovery plaintiff propounded) was served on October 12, 2023, about two months before the last day to serve. The discovery was wide-ranging, consisting of RFPs, SIs, and Fis. Responses were due in November, but were not served until December 8, 2023. Defendant's counsel states that he learned of his brother's p...

Excerpt: ...otice of those actions is GRANTED. Defendant Greyhound seeks to change venue to Tulare. (The other defendant has not joined that motion, but has not opposed it either.) Plaintiff opposes. CCP section 395 states that in a personal injury case involving negligence, venue is proper where any defendant resides or where the event took place. Plaintiff contends that none of the defendants reside in Tulare County, although Tulare is proper because that ...

Excerpt: ...held the security deposit claiming that there was damage to the apartment. Plaintiff says that a neighbor claims that this was the landlord's pattern: not to hold a walk-through but to withhold the security deposit. On that basis, plaintiff alleges fraud and the landlord demurs. It is plaintiff's burden to establish a false representation by the landlord upon which plaintiff reasonably relied to his detriment. The allegation must be specific. Tha...

Excerpt: ... the background of this case, which can be found in the court's Statement of Decision. Suffice it to say that the court found in favor of defendant Rock (owned by the Kayas) and against defendant Marmara. Perhaps fearing that Marmara is not going to be able to stand the judgment, plaintiff seeks to add Marmara's sole owner, Aghnami, as a judgment debtor on an alter ego theory. Alter ego is one theory by which a judgment can be amended even after ...

Excerpt: ...nveyance, not regular fraud. There is a difference. In traditional fraud, the plaintiff claims that the defendant made some knowingly false representation to the plaintiff upon which plaintiff reasonably relied to its detriment. In a fraudulent conveyance lawsuit it is different. There, the allegation is that the defendant transferred an asset to another for inadequate consideration at a time that defendant was insolvent or became insolvent due t...

Excerpt: ... September 28, 2023, by electronic mail. They claim responses were due on October 31, 2023 (although it might really be November 1, 2023). Plaintiff did not respond to the discovery. Defendants then insisted on responses the next day (November 1, 2023). Plaintiff asserted that it did not get the discovery, which turns out (according to defendants) to be untrue. Plaintiff eventually said it would provide responses. Plaintiff allegedly “dumped”...

Excerpt: ... does, however, set forth a few things that apply to both motions. A SMS has two prongs. The first goes to whether the complaint alleges liability based on defendants' exercise of certain constitutional rights. The burden on this prong is on the moving party. It is generally resolved by the pleadings, but the court can look beyond the pleadings primarily for context and understanding. If the first prong is met, then plaintiffs must address the se...

Excerpt: ...er, she would (allegedly) insist that defendants' response was adequate and then say she would discuss the matter with “the team.” The court's guidelines suggest (strongly) that the person at the meet and confer be authorized to make a deal then and there. It appears that Armenta was not. That is a problem. More of a problem, though, is plaintiff's counsel tenor and tone in some of the written communications. The tone is uncivil, contemptuous...

Excerpt: ...aintiff's income from being a FINRA arbitrator both before and after the allegedly wrongful conduct. Plaintiff provided none, claiming that he had no pertinent documents because his practice was to shred them. Plaintiff shredded documents from not only the period pre- dating the conflict, but also after the conflict arose, after he contemplated suing defendants, after he brought suit, and to this day. Defendants contend that plaintiff's conduct w...

Excerpt: ...in apparent charge” of the premises according to the POS. According to defendant, though, Manvel is not even an employee, let alone in charge of the location. Rather, defendant states that Manvel is a contractor who is called upon from time to time when needed. He was not authorized to accept service and was not in “apparent charge” of anything. While defendant admits to getting “numerous legal documents,” he did not know he was being s...

Excerpt: ...ity to agree to anything or did. In the former case, the meet and confer was improper. There is no proper meet and confer where one side has no ability to reach an agreement. That is bad faith. In the latter case, the meet and confer was improper. It is concerning that a paralegal would have the ability to make binding legal decisions. Making binding legal decisions is something that the Code envisions only a licensed attorney can do. (Code Civ. ...

Excerpt: ...erved on May 11, 2022. But the deposition was set to take place on June 27, 2023—over a year later. That fact was lost on the defense, which (not unreasonably) thought that the deposition was set for June 27, 2022. There was email correspondence concerning the date and appearance and the location of the deposition, all of which made it clear that the defense thought the deposition was going forward in 2022, not 2023. The deposition did not go f...

Excerpt: ... The release was relatively broad form and everyone released everyone from everything, at least that could have been brought in the prior UD action. That includes any claims that plaintiff may have had and any defenses defendant may have had. It also included a representation that neither side was aware of any unsettled claim against the other. Of course, that settlement will not bar defendant from raising any alleged misconduct that occurred aft...

Excerpt: .... The seller is an LLC. Shiri is one of the LLC's owners. He is also the LLC's manager. He is sued in his individual capacity for, among other things, interference with contract. Shiri demurred before, claiming that he cannot be sued individually because he was acting in his capacity as the LLC's agent and manager. The court sustained the demurrer but gave plaintiff leave to amend. Plaintiff did so and this demurrer follows. The court in its prio...

Excerpt: ...solution. Although plaintiff asked defendant to respond to plaintiff's concerns in writing, defendant did not do so. On July 14, 2023, defendant sent plaintiff 256 pages of documents, uncategorized, but no supplemental discovery responses. Defendant allegedly said that they did not know how to categorize the documents. Plaintiff moves to compel and seeks sanctions. Defendant asserts that it is not the bad guy here because the document demands wer...

Excerpt: ...matter and also a cross-defendant. All cross-defendants were represented by Ervin Cohen & Jessup LLP (ECJ). All of the individual attorney cross-defendants other than Lerner-Hill were a part of ECJ, and ECJ was also a cross-defendant. Lerner-Hill seeks to recover her fees in full; that is, she has not reduced or apportioned them in any way to account for the fact that none, or virtually none, of the hours worked were unique to her case as opposed...