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Plaintiff’s (Amended) Motion to Compel Further Responses to Plaintiff’s Request for Production of Documents, Set No. Two
May 8, 2026 Law and Motion Calendar
HONORABLE MICHAEL L. MAU, Department 20 ________________________________________________________________________ Case Title / Nature of Case 9:00 AM Line 1 24-CIV-00269 HAMID KHAZAELI VS. DAVID A BREWER, ET AL
HAMID KHAZAELI PRO SE DAVID A BREWER JOHN S. CLAASSEN
Plaintiff’s (Amended) Motion to Compel Further Responses to Plaintiff’s Request for Production of Documents, Set No. Two
TENTATIVE RULING:
Plaintiff Hamid Khazaeli’s (Amended) Motion to Compel Further Responses to Requests for Production of Documents, Set No. 2 and Request for Monetary Sanctions is DENIED.
Overview
Plaintiff has propounded five different sets of requests for production of documents (“RFP”) directed to five different Defendants, but here improperly moves to compel further responses as to all five sets in a single motion. The specific Requests of Production (RFPs) at issue are (1) RFP, Set Two, No.’s 21-24, propounded on Defendant David A. Brewer; (2) RFP, Set Two, No.’s 21-31, propounded on Defendant Former NT Corp.; (3) RFP, Set Two, No.’s 21-25, propounded on Defendant Notify Technology Corporation (an Ohio Corporation); (4) RFP, Set Two, No.’s 21-30, propounded on Defendant Paul F. Depond; and (5) RFP, Set Two, No.’s 21-30, propounded on Defendant Robert Polychron.
Defendants’ Opposition (“Opp.”) argues that Plaintiff’s Motion should be denied on its face for procedural flaws, or in the alternative should be denied without prejudice so that remaining discovery at issue can be re-propounded in a narrowed set directed to all Defendants collectively. (Opp. at p. 14:6-10.)
Plaintiff’s Reply Memorandum of Points and Authorities (“MPA”) is 11 pages long, exceeding the allowable length. Excluding the caption page, the notice of motion and motion, exhibits, declarations, attachments, the table of contents, the table of authorities, and the proof of service, no reply memorandum may exceed ten pages. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.1113(d).) No permission to file a longer reply memorandum was even requested let alone granted. Plaintiff’s excessively long Reply highlights the difficulty of addressing five separate discovery requests in a single motion. This difficulty is also apparent in the length of Plaintiff’s Separate Statement, which is 125 pages long, and the resulting Defendants’ Separate Statement in Response, which is 143 pages long.
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Legal Standards
Discovery is permitted as to any nonprivileged matter relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action, subject to proportionality limits. (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 2031.010, 2017.020.)
May 8, 2026 Law and Motion Calendar PAGE 3 HONORABLE MICHAEL L. MAU, Department 20 ________________________________________________________________________ A party may move to compel further responses to document demands where a statement of compliance is incomplete, a representation of inability to comply is inadequate, or objections are without merit or too general. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310(a).) The moving party bears the initial burden of demonstrating good cause with specific facts. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.310(b)(1).)
Document requests must describe the items sought with reasonable particularity. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.030(c)(1); Calcor Space Facility, Inc. v. Superior Court (1997) 53 Cal.App.4th 216, 222.) Meet-and-confer efforts are mandatory and must be reasonable and in good faith; perfunctory correspondence is insufficient. (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 2016.040, 2031.310(b)(2); Townsend v. Superior Court (1998) 61 Cal.App.4th 1431, 1438.)
Where documents are withheld based on privilege or work product, the responding party must provide sufficient factual information to evaluate the claim, which may require a privilege log. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.240(c)(1).)
Trial courts possess broad discretion to manage discovery and to limit discovery that is unreasonably cumulative, overbroad, or disproportionate. (Greyhound Corp. v. Superior Court (1961) 56 Cal.2d 355, 380; West Pico Furniture Co. v. Superior Court (1961) 56 Cal.2d 407, 417.)
Analysis
Plaintiff’s Motion is procedurally improper. Plaintiff may be self-represented, but he is held to the same standard of an attorney. Bianco v. California Highway Patrol (1994) 24 Cal.App.4th 1113, 1125-1126 [“The in propria personal litigant is held to the same restrictive rules of procedure as an attorney.]” The Court concurs with Defendants’ argument that plaintiff’s “separate statement that copies and pastes the same argument block twenty-three times satisfies neither the letter not the purpose of that rule” [referring to CRC, Rule 3.1345].
Defendant’s MPA, pgs. 12, lines 21-23. Plaintiff has failed to elucidate the specific issues to be addressed as to each individual discovery request in his separate statement, Plaintiff also has impermissibly compounded the issue, by improperly moving to compel in a single motion a combined five separate RFP’s when the RFP’s are not duplicative. This is a disfavored practice. “Motions to compel compliance with separate discovery requests ordinarily should be filed separately.” Weil & Brown – The Rutter Group California Practice Guide, Civil Procedure Before Trial, § 8:1140.1.
Defendants are unreasonably limited in their ability to respond due to the consolidated nature of the Motion and these procedural defects. As such, on this procedural basis the motion is DENIED.
Plaintiff’s Motion is substantively not persuasive. Defendants’ initial substantive argument is that all requests are objectionable, as grossly overbroad and temporally unreasonable. Opp., pg. 14, ¶ D.1. After review, the Court finds that some of the requests have no temporal time limit whatsoever, while the majority seek records back to 2000, 2003 and 2006. See generally, Plaintiff’s and Defendants’ Separate Statements. Defendants’ objections that the requests are overbroad, and vague and ambiguous as to time, are sustained.
The Court has no obligation to redraft Plaintiff’s unreasonable requests in order to make them reasonable. Deaile v. General Telephone Co. (1974) 40 Cal.App.3d 841, 851. Further, this Court has already expressly placed temporal time limits on past discovery indicating that such limits are appropriate. See, Order Granting in part and Denying in Part Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Further Responses to RFP, Set One, filed on February 3, 2026. Despite that history, Plaintiff has still maintained this Motion without good cause, without limiting his requests, and without supplying specific facts in support of each request in his motion.
CCP § 2031.310(b)(1). Moreover, Plaintiff’s MPA and even its Reply MPA, fails to even identify a specific RFP Request at issue, whatsoever. As a result, there are no
May 8, 2026 Law and Motion Calendar PAGE 4 HONORABLE MICHAEL L. MAU, Department 20 ________________________________________________________________________ required specific facts (Id.) arguing or even claiming, why a further response should be compelled on specific requests. Plaintiff’s separate statement is also of no assistance; because of the block copying and pasting of a generalized argument as noted above, it does not factually argue the merits of each request. As such, because Defendants’ objections are sustained, the motion is DENIED on this separate basis.
Finally after review of the discovery requests as identified, the Court finds that the amended responses are code-compliant, and on this separate basis the motion is again DENIED. In summary, the amended responses “state specific objections, agree to produce within the actionable period, and/or confirm the results of a diligent search.” Id. lines 23-24. On this point, where a party has confirmed it has no responsive records and confirms a diligent search under CCP Section 2031.230, there is nothing further to compel. When viewed in conjunction with the procedural defects of the motion, and the overbreadth objections, such responses are code-compliant.
CCP Section 2031.310 provides in pertinent part:
(h) Except as provided in subdivision (j), the court shall impose a monetary sanction under Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 2023.010) 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.
As Plaintiff’s motion has been denied in its entirety, Plaintiff’s request for sanctions is likewise DENIED. Plaintiff had no substantial justification for bringing or maintaining this motion, and neither Plaintiff’s MPA or Reply argues why the imposition of sanctions would be unjust.
Defendants’ request for sanctions was noticed in its filed Opposition, both on the caption and in the content. Opp., filed April 21, 2026, pg. 1 and 18. Defendants seek sanctions in the Court’s discretion payable withing thirty days of the Court’s order. Opp. pg. 18, lines 23-24. Defendants have demonstrated a minimum of 20 hours opposing this motion at a rate of $450.00 per hour which rate is reasonable, and which equates to a subtotal of $9,000.00. Classen Decl. filed April 21, 2026, ¶ 15. Also claimed are 30 hours at $180.00 per hour for an additional $5,400.00 for a Ms.
Chamberlain (presumed to be a paralegal but this is not clearly articulated nor was there any declaration by Ms. Chamberlain), which equates to a subtotal of $5,400.00. Id. Thus Defendants’ total sanction request is $14,400.00. As noted, Section 2031.310 by its express language requires sanctions under these circumstances. The Court utilizes its discretion to significantly reduce Defendants’ total sanction request. Plaintiff is ordered to pay sanctions of $1,250.00 to Defendants thru their attorney of record, within 30 days of the service of the Order after hearing.
Any party who contests a tentative ruling must email Dept20@sanmateocourt.org with a copy to all other parties by 4:00 p.m. stating, without argument, the portion(s) of the tentative ruling that the party contests.
If the tentative ruling is uncontested, it shall become the order of the Court. Thereafter, Counsel for the prevailing party shall prepare for the Court’s signature a written order consistent with the Court’s ruling pursuant to CRC Rule 3.1312 and provide written notice of the ruling to all parties who have appeared in the action, as required by law and by the CRC. Please note that Local Rule 3.403(b)(iv) states in part “prevailing party on a tentative ruling is required to prepare a proposed order REPEATING VERBATIM the tentative ruling” (emphasis added). The order should be filed or e-filed only, do not email or mail a hard copy to the Court.