60-Day Deadline To Compel Runs From Proper Service Of The Subpoena, No Separate Statement Absolutely Required If Motion Provides A Road Map, And Post-Motion Meet And Confer Discovery Efforts Are Not Compensable As A Cost In Bringing A Motion To Compel.
Marriage of Moore, Case No. A165038 (1st Dist., Div. 4 May 21, 2024) (published) was a case dealing with a lower court’s award of $25,000 each in discovery sanctions against two third parties which had made largely unsuccessful objections to documents-only deposition subpoenas, with the sanctions awarded to ex-wife in a marital dissolution case (the third parties were affiliated with ex-husband). For the most part, the sanctions awards were affirmed, but a remand was ordered on one expense allowed by the lower court. Here are takeaways from this opinion, some of which involved first impression issues:
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- The 60-day deadline to file a motion to compel deposition document subpoena compliance runs from when a valid service is made on a third party, not from when objections are made where service is not validly accomplished.
- Although a lower court can deny a motion to compel for lack of a separate statement, the rule does not prevent a lower court excusing this requirement where the moving papers provide a proper outline of what needs to be done as far as responding to discovery requests, citing CRC 3.1345(b)(2).
- Discovery meet and confer efforts are generally compensable if they are conducted before the filing of a discovery motion. However, once the discovery motion is filed and briefing is done, further meet and confer efforts during a mediation are not compensable because they are not causally enough linked to the bringing of the discovery motion for compensation purposes. This resulted in a limited remand for the lower court to exclude those expenses from any ultimate discovery sanctions award.
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