motion to compel

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, CENTRAL DISTRICT

AARON BEAULIEU, an individual,

Plaintiff,

vs.

SIMONE GONZALEZ, an individual, B&G LOS ANGELES CORP, a California corporation dba PLEASURE DOING BUSINESS, PLEASURE DOING BUSINESS, a California partnership, TIED CONCEPTS, INC., a California corporation, and DOES 2 THROUGH 10, inclusive

Defendants.

Case No. BC 443861

PLAINTIFF’S NOTICE OF MOTION AND MOTION TO COMPEL [NO. 1] FURTHER RESPONSES TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS AT DEPOSITION; DECLARATION OF S. RYAN PATTERSON

Date: February 21, 2013Time: 8:30amDept. 52Complaint Filed: August 20, 2010Trial Date: April 3, 2013

SIMONE GONZALEZ, an individual, PLEASURE DOING BUSINESS, TIED CONCEPTS, INC., a California corporation, B&G LOS ANGELES CORP, a California corporation,

Cross-Complainants,

v.

PLAINTIFF BEAULIEU, an individual, O.D. MAISON, a sole proprietorship, and DOES 1 THROUGH 10, inclusive,

Cross-Defendants

[Filed concurrently with Separate Statement of Items In Dispute; Declaration of David Alden Erikson]

MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

LAW OFFICES OF DAVID ALDEN ERIKSONDavid Alden Erikson, California Bar No. 189838 [email protected]. Ryan Patterson, California Bar No. 279474 [email protected] 200 North Larchmont Blvd.Los Angeles, California 90004Telephone: (323) 465-3100Facsimile: (323) 465-3177

Attorney For Plaintiff and Cross-Defendant AARON BEAULIEU

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mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

TO ALL PARTIES AND TO THEIR ATTORNEYS OF RECORD:

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on February 21, 2013 at 8:30 a.m., or as soon thereafter

as the matter may be heard in Department 52 of the above-entitled Court, located at 111

North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012, Plaintiff Aaron Beaulieu (“Plaintiff” or

“Beaulieu”) will, and hereby does, move the Court for an order (1) compelling

Defendant Simone Gonzalez (“Gonzalez”) to provide further responses and documents

in response to Plaintiff’s November 27, 2012 Deposition Notice propounded by

Plaintiff to Defendant Gonzalez, and (2) imposing monetary sanctions against Gonzalez

and/or her counsel.

This motion to compel is made pursuant to Cal. Code Civ. Proc. (“CCP”) §

2025.480 (production of documents at deposition) and controlling California case law,

on the ground that Gonzalez failed to provide proper and adequate responses and

documents in response to Plaintiff’s Deposition Notice and Request for Production of

Documents.

The motion for sanctions is made pursuant to CCP §§ 2023.010 and 2023.030,

and controlling California case law on the grounds that Gonzalez knowingly failed to

provide proper discovery responses, and further misused the discovery process.

This Motion is based upon this Notice of Motion and Motion, the accompanying

Memorandum of Points and Authorities, the Separate Statement of Items in Dispute; the

Declarations of S. Ryan Patterson and David Alden Erikson, on all pleadings,

documents and records on file herein, and on such other evidence, including testimony,

as may be presented at the time of the hearing on this motion.

DATED: April 8, 2023 DAVID A. ERIKSON

By: ________ ______ David A. Erikson

Attorney for Plaintiff Aaron Beaulieu


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I. INTRODUCTION

This motion addresses over 1,000 individual objections. As the Court will see in

Plaintiff’s Separate Statement, virtually all of these objections are cut-and-pasted

boilerplate. Indeed, Plaintiff submits that his motions do not involve a single instance of

the kind of good faith and principled discovery dispute that requires judicial

intervention. On the contrary, Gonzalez asserts so many stock objections to every

request that one cannot isolate any serious ones. Even in Plaintiff’s laborious meet and

confer process, asking Gonzalez why she refuses to turn over any given piece of

information yields only the answer that the request is irrelevant, unduly burdensome,

conjunctive, disjunctive, seeks privileged and confidential information, and so on.

What becomes clear is that the parties are before the Court for the simple reason

that Gonzalez has adopted a policy of pure stonewalling. It is nothing short of

outrageous that Gonzalez refused even to withdraw patently frivolous objections, which

could have avoided many hours of needless work by both Plaintiff and the Court.

This is entirely consistent with Gonzalez’s general approach to discovery. The

court will be shocked to learn just how little information she has surrendered in

response to Plaintiff’s two years of diligent efforts. Some of her techniques have been

common enough (absurd objections, document dumps, and a professed inability to

understand common English words), while some have been truly innovative (dismissing

all claims against a party to moot its requests, setting up and maintaining an utterly

frivolous appeal to stay the case, and relying on invented doctrines of priority).

The only way to treat such scattershot objections is to laboriously go through

them one by one, as Plaintiff does in his Separate Statements. In this Memorandum, all

Plaintiff can do is provide some history, and demonstrate the impropriety Gonzalez’s

refusing to turn over general categories of information, and of Gonzalez’s use of

particular objections. This generalized approach is applied specifically in the Separate


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Statement. Plaintiff has done everything in his power to keep the Separate Statements as

brief as possible.

II. BACKGROUND

In November 2008, Plaintiff Aaron Beaulieu and Defendant Simone Gonzalez

launched a fashion line called Pleasure Doing Business (“PDB”). PDB became an

instant success, carried by major department stores such as Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth

Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, and Nordstrom, as well as high-end boutiques.

A. Plaintiff’s Allegations

Plaintiff alleges that at the height of the company’s success, Gonzalez blindsided

him by ousting him from both the business and their shared residence without any

notice or legal justification, and while he was out of town. [Complaint, ¶¶ 18-22.] She

executed a precision and premeditated plan to erase him from the business. [Id. at ¶¶ 22-

23.] Plaintiff will show at trial that Gonzalez simply did not want to share the

company’s profits and success—largely due to greed and the misguided impression that

she deserved more of the spoils because, she believed, it was her extraordinary talent

that led to the company’s success.

B. Gonzalez’s Counterclaims

In her defensive countersuit, Gonzalez levels accusations that Plaintiff

misrepresented his own talent and qualifications when the parties were forming the

business [Cross-Complaint, ¶¶29-36.], and that he embezzled company money [Id. at

¶20]. This apparently justified her in expelling him through self-help, and caused

largely unspecified further damages.

C. Even After Filing Her Cross-Complaint, Gonzalez Went To Incredible Lengths

To Impede Discovery, And To Make Court Intervention Impossible

Gonzalez was thumbing her nose at discovery long before serving the responses

at issue here—and she got away with it until now. First, she filed a motion to compel

arbitration (months after answering and filing a cross-complaint) that was designed to


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fail, in order to manufacture an automatic right to appellate review, and with it a

yearlong stay of discovery. [Declaration of David Erikson (“Erikson Decl.”), ¶¶ 3-4.]

She ate up further months obtaining every possible extension to file an Opening Brief,

and when that had run its course she declined to file a brief at all. [Id.]

Once back in the trial court and facing a deadline to respond to new written

discovery, she avoided any disclosure of information by dismissing all claims against

the propounding party. [Id. at ¶¶ 6-7.] Next, Gonzalez’s counsel refused to produce her

for deposition, based on the obviously specious logic that priority gave him the right to

first finish Plaintiff’s deposition (which had already gone one day back before the

appeal). [Id.] What made this an extremely effective strategy was that Gonzalez’s

counsel also refused to conduct or even schedule that second day of Plaintiff’s

deposition. [Id.] In other words, he improperly created a false prerequisite to his client’s

deposition and then made sure the prerequisite would not be satisfied in the foreseeable

future. It was not until Gonzalez was on the brink of being called to account via a

motion to compel that her counsel agreed to schedule Plaintiff’s deposition (which

Plaintiff’s counsel hoped would pave the way for Gonzalez’s deposition). [Id.] And it

was not until he was on the brink of another motion to compel that he agreed to actually

set Ms. Gonzalez’s deposition. [Id.] And after trying to cancel at the last minute, it was

not until Gonzalez was on the brink of yet another motion to compel that she actually

appeared. [Id. at ¶5.]

And when the deposition finally happened, Gonzalez failed to provide so much

information that the issues will be brought to the Court’s attention in the near future

unless Gonzalez is somehow chastened into a adopting a more cooperative approach.

[Id. at ¶9.]

D. Key Points Of Dispute

On each of the key issues in this case, Gonzalez steadfastly refuses to state her

position—much less specify supporting facts and evidence. Even more fundamentally,


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she refuses to provide Plaintiff with the facts he needs to maintain his claim. As a result,

Plaintiff is utterly unable to prepare for trial.

1. The Parties’ Relationship

Plaintiff asserts that he and Gonzalez were partners. Gonzalez appears to

disagree—although she refuses to clearly state as much, or provide an alternative

characterization of the relationship. She has refused to state her position on basic

contractual matters (Was there a contract? What were its terms? Did it change over

time? Was it beached?). To avoid these issues, Gonzales has had to refuse even to

answer the basic “50 series” form interrogatories. She does not argue that Plaintiff is not

entitled such information, which would be absurd. Rather, she finds creative ways to

avoid providing a substantive response—usually based on the supposed vagueness and

ambiguity of entirely straightforward requests.

Gonzalez has also has refused to turn over any emails relating to the case (even

while acknowledging that they exist but claiming, incorrectly, that they must have been

produced by former counsel). Plaintiff’s counsel has literally begged for these emails,

which will certainly bear on the partnership issue. Indeed, Plaintiff expects to find in

such emails communications between the parties that clearly reflect a co-equal status,

and communications between Gonzalez and third parties in which she characterizes the

parties’ contractual relationship in this manner.

Gonzalez and her counsel have each stated on the record that they were under the

impression that her prior counsel had produced many emails. When assured that this

was not the case, they agreed to turn them over soon. [Declaration of S. Ryan Patterson

(Patterson Decl.), ¶4.] Despite repeated requests and assurances, this never happened.

[Id.]

Plaintiff has also attempted to discover facts and Gonzalez’s position on some of

the more obvious indicia of partnership and/or equal status, such as the facts that

Plaintiff invested money in the business and paid business bills out of his pocket; that


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Plaintiff’s name appears on all official documents; that a partnership agreement was

drafted and discussed; that Plaintiff and Gonzalez later formed a corporation to operate

the business, with both as equal shareholders; and that the corporation was called

“B&G” (for “Beaulieu & Gonzalez”). Again, Gonzalez outrageously refuses to respond

to such requests based on a professed inability to understand the questions.

2. Fact About “PDB”

The parties’ business was called “Pleasure Doing Business,” often referred to in

the fashion world as “PDB.” In his discovery requests, Plaintiff followed this

convention, using the defined term “PDB” to refer to the business. As one can imagine

with respect to a partnership dispute regarding the business, more than a few of

Plaintiff’s discovery requests referred to “PDB.” To all such requests, Gonzalez

responded as follows (in addition to the other usual stock objections):

PDB is a trademark not an entity. The term ‘PDB’ as used in this interrogatory is hopeless [sic] vague and ambiguous. As a result, Gonzalez is unable to fully respond to this interrogatory as it is unintelligible as written. Gonzalez responds, to the extent she is able, that no business entity by the name of PDB was ever formed and thus she is aware of no such documents related to the same. [Patterson Decl. re Special Interrogatories, ¶3 Exhibit B, p. 20, ll. 18-21.]

Feigning an inability to understand any request using the term “PDB” is

ludicrous, and utterly stymies some of the most vital discovery Plaintiff needs in this

case. Plaintiff spent hours in the meet and confer process explaining that the best way,

and an entirely common way, to refer to a business entity is usually to use its

trademarked name (just as the best and perhaps only way to refer to a person is to use

his or her proper name). In response, Gonzalez stuck to her frivolous objection.

[Patterson Decl., ¶6, Exh. D, p. 2, ¶1.]

3. The Value of The Business, and Related Financial Information

Plaintiff’s damage claim for being wrongfully expelled from PDB will obviously

not get far without his knowing the value of the company, which can only be derived

from financial information such as revenue and costs. Similarly, Gonzalez’s own claim


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for damages necessarily involves company financial information. Nevertheless,

Gonzalez refuses to turn over any such information. Oddly, she does not attempt to

justify her refusals by presenting an argument as to why the need for confidentiality

outweighs Plaintiff’s right to pursue his claim—perhaps because that would require

legal and factual research or because she knows that such argument would ultimately be

a loser.

What Gonzalez does instead, in justifying refusal to turn over financial

statements (besides the usual claimed inability to understand) is to again falsely and

inexplicably claim that she already has turned over such materials, or that she soon will.

At her deposition, when asked if she brought the requested financial statements, both

Ms. Gonzalez and her counsel falsely stated that they were contained in the box of

documents sitting on the table. [Erikson Decl, ¶10; Patterson Decl, ¶4.] Because the box

was huge and contained a jumble of mostly insignificant documents, Plaintiff was not

able to confront Gonzalez and her counsel about the matter on that day. [[Erikson Decl,

¶10; Patterson Decl, ¶4.] Since that time, Gonzalez has refused to either turn over the

documents, or take a position one way or the other on their discoverability. [Erikson

Decl, ¶ 10.]

4. The Existence and Purpose of Tied Concepts, Inc.

Tied Concepts, Inc. appeared in this case as a Cross-Complainant alongside.

Gonzalez. In her Cross-Complaint, Gonzalez acknowledges that she formed Tied

Concepts and that it now does business as “Pleasure Doing Business.”

Plaintiff intends to prove that in an effort to shield assets from a judgment in this

case, Gonzalez transferred all such assets out of the company she owned with Plaintiff

and into Tied Concepts, a company she formed for this specific purpose. Plaintiff also

suspects that Gonzalez forged his name on documents needed to effectuate such

transfer.


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But although Gonzalez is in sole possession of information related to Tied

Concepts, she refuses to share it based on the usual litany of objections, even going so

far as to object to the term “Tied Concepts” itself. [See Patterson Decl. re Document

Production, ¶3, Exh. B, p. 39, ll. 20-21.]

III. GONZALEZ’ SHOULD BE COMPELLED TO PROVIDE FURTHER

RESPONSES

Again, the sheer volume of Gonzalez’s objections renders any through treatment

of them impossible except via separate statements. Nevertheless, below is a brief

treatment of Gonzalez’s use of her favorite objections.

A. Gonzalez’s Objections Based on Vagueness And Ambiguity Do Not Survive

Scrutiny

Gonzalez has objected to each and every discovery request propounded by

Plaintiff on the grounds that it is vague and ambiguous in general. In addition, Gonzalez

picks a few words from each request and objects to them specifically as vague and

ambiguous. In each case, the terms that Gonzalez objected to are common English

words and phrases. For example, Gonzalez objected to the word “describe” in Plaintiff’s

Special Interrogatories as vague and ambiguous in at least thirteen instances. [See, for

example, Patterson Decl. re Special Interrogatories, ¶3 Exh. B, p. 13, l. 21.]

Other examples of words Gonzalez supposedly does not understand include

“and” [see, for example, Patterson Decl. re Form Interrogatories, ¶3 Exh. B, p. 15, l.

18], “once” [see, for example, Patterson Decl. re Requests for Admissions, ¶3 Exh. B, p.

4, l. 22] and, perhaps most amazing of all, “Simone Gonzalez,” her own name [see, for

example, Patterson Decl. re Document Production, ¶3 Exh. B, p. 3, l. 24].

Gonzalez makes these objections without further explanation—even where she

uses such words and phrases in her own Cross-complaint and discovery requests. For

example, Gonzalez objected to the term “entity” [Patterson Decl. re Document


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Production, ¶3 Exh. B, p. 4, ll. 19-20], but uses the same term in her Cross-Complaint.

[See, i.e., Gonzalez Cross-Complaint, ¶4.]

B. Gonzalez’s Objections Based on Relevance Do Not Survive Scrutiny

Gonzalez has objected to nearly every discovery request on the grounds that it

seeks information that is neither relevant, nor likely to lead to the discovery of

admissible evidence. Gonzalez asserts this objection so often and in response to so

many clearly relevant requests, that it is difficult to accept it as a serious objection. For

example, out of 86 different Special Interrogatories, Gonzalez objects to 71 on grounds

of relevance. Included in those 71 are requests for a description of the terms of any

agreement between the parties [Special Interrogatory No. 4, Patterson Decl. re Special

Interrogatories, ¶3, Exhibit B, p. 6, ll. 10-15], identification of documents relating to the

formation of the parties’ business [Special Interrogatory No. 16, Id. at p. 19, l. 28 – p.

20, ll. 1-5] and an explanation for the formation of Tied Concepts, Inc. [Special

Interrogatory No. 20, Id. at p. 23, ll. 25-28.]

Based on the facts of this case, each of these requests, as well as those made in

Plaintiff’s other discovery requests Gonzalez has refused to answer, pertains to

information that is critical to the claims alleged by both Gonzalez and Beaulieu.

C. Gonzalez’s Objections Based on California Code of Civil Procedure

§2030.060(f) Do Not Survive Scrutiny

Gonzalez also objects to nearly every discovery request on the grounds that it is

compound, conjunctive, disjunctive, and contains subparts. Two examples clearly show

that such objections are asserted frivolously. Special Interrogatory No. 20 asks, “Why

was TIED CONCEPTS formed?” Gonzalez objected on grounds that this five-word

request is compound conjunctive and disjunctive, as well as improper in form because it

contains subparts. [Patterson Decl. re Special Interrogatories, ¶3 Exhibit B, p. 23, ll. 18-

21.] Special Interrogatory No. 36 asks, “Why was B&G formed?” Again, Gonzalez

objects that this four-word request violates CCP §2030.060(f) [Id. at p. 38, ll. 11-14.]


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IV. PLAINTIFF’S ATTORNEYS MORE THAN SATISFIED THE MEET

AND CONFER REQUIREMENT

As detailed in the concurrently filed Declarations of David Alden Erikson and S.

Ryan Patterson, Plaintiff more than satisfied the requirement that he engage in a proper

meet and confer effort prior to filing this and his other motions to compel. In fact,

Plaintiff’s efforts in this regard were monumental—involving phone calls, detailed

letters separately addressing each and every request at issue here, and good faith

invitations to meet and confer in person at Gonzalez’ counsel’s office. [Patterson Decl.

re Production of Documents, ¶ 8.]

Gonzalez’ participation in such process was as pro forma as were her efforts to

respond to the discovery in the first instance. [Id. at ¶ 7.] The overtures regarding in-

person conferences were ignored. [Id. at ¶ 8.] Her counsel’s responsive letters did little

more than repeat unwarranted objections, in what was clearly a token effort to meet the

minimum requirements. [Id., ¶7, Exh. E.] While supplemental responses were promised

in some instances, no such responses were ever provided. [Id.] By January 18, six days

before the deadline to file this motion, the meet and confer process was clearly over.

[Id. at ¶11.] By that date, Gonzalez was well aware that Plaintiff’s counsel had begun

the laborious process of drafting this motion and its companions. [Id.] Gonzalez’s

counsel obviously had the opportunity even at such late date to substantially reduce the

hours that would be required to prepare this and the other motions: if not by providing

information and documents, then at least by withdrawing some of the most obviously

specious objections (which of course must be treated individually in the separate

statement). As angry as the Court will be that it has to separately review and rule on

clearly improper objections and responses, Plaintiff and his counsel are equally

outraged to have to prepare these materials.


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V. PLAINTIFF IS ENTITLED TO MONETARY SANCTIONS

The Court may impose a monetary sanction for misuse of the discovery process.

CCP 2023.030.

The Court shall impose a monetary sanction against the losing party on a motion

to compel unless it finds that the party acted with substantial justification, or other

circumstances render sanctions unjust. CCP § 2025.480 (production of documents at

deposition). Obviously, there is no justification for an utter failure to respond. Neither is

there anything in the record to suggest that sanctions would be “unjust.”

Monetary sanctions compensating the moving party’s “reasonable expenses” are

proper—including fees on the motion to compel. See Marriage of Niklas, 211 Cal.App.

3d 28, 37-38 (1989); Ghanooni v. Super Shuttle of Los Angeles, 20 Cal.App. 4th 256,

262 (1993). The purpose of sanctions is to compel disclosure, but also to compensate

for the costs of enforcing discovery requests. Deyo v. Kilbourne, 84 Cal.App. 3d 771,

796 (1978).

Here, Plaintiff hopes the Court will understand that as lengthy as Plaintiff’s

moving papers are, they could have been worse. This motion and its companions

address only a subset of Gonzalez’ discovery abuses, in part because her successful

delaying tactics have now run their course. Plaintiff was able to further reduce the

number of requests on which he must move by forcing Gonzalez to finally submit to a

deposition (which was no small feat!) and doing his best to gather information through

that avenue. As the Court will see, that Plaintiff’s moving papers still run in the

hundreds of pages is the result of the volume of absurd objections Gonzalez continues

to assert even after Plaintiff’s herculean and extremely accommodating meet and confer

approach. There is simply no way to reduce the size of a separate statement where the

responding party rotely interposes, and refuses to withdraw, every objection in the

book. The Court will be justifiably angry at amount of the judicial resources required to

sort through this, which Plaintiff has minimized to the extent he can. Needless to say,


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2810

Plaintiff respectfully requests that the Court consider the amount of, and needlessness

of, the work that has gone into these papers when ruling on his requests for sanctions.

Here, Plaintiff is entitled to monetary sanctions in the amount of $5,153.20

because his attorney David Alden Erikson, whose rate is $400 per hour, has worked 4.5

hours on this motion, and 2 hours on the laborious meet and confer effort that preceded

the motion [Erikson Decl., ¶12.] for a total of $1,800; and because his attorney S. Ryan

Patterson, whose rate is $325 per hour, has worked 6 hours on this motion, and 4 hours

on the laborious meet and confer effort that preceded the motion [Patterson Decl., ¶ 12.]

for a total of $3,250. Plaintiff’s costs incurred in the printing of the 432 pages of this

motion and the related documents, totaling $43.20. Plaintiff’s costs incurred in the filing

of this motion total $60.

DATED: April 8, 2023 DAVID A. ERIKSON

By: ________ ______ David A. Erikson

Attorney for Plaintiff Aaron Beaulieu


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2811

DECLARATION OF S. RYAN PATTERSON

I, S. RYAN PATTERSON, declare as follows:

1. I am an attorney licensed to practice law in the State of California, and I am

counsel of record for the Plaintiff Aaron Beaulieu (“Beaulieu” or “Plaintiff”) in this

action. I have personal knowledge of the matters contained in this declaration. If called

upon as a witness, I could and would competently testify to such matters. I make this

declaration in support of Plaintiff’s motions to compel further discovery responses from

Defendant Simone Gonzalez (“Gonzalez”).

2. On November 27, 2012, I oversaw service of Notice of Deposition of

Simone Gonzalez and Request For Production of Documents on counsel for Gonzalez.

A true and correct copy of such document is attached hereto as Exhibit A.

3. On November 29, 2012, we received Objections to Notice of Taking

Deposition of Simone Gonzalez and Request for Production of Documents from

Gonzalez’s counsel, a true and correct copy of which is attached as Exhibit B. That 82-

page document contained numerous boilerplate objections, repeated again and again,

with respect to each document request. It contained no indication that any documents

would be produced.

4. On December 12, 2012, Gonzalez produced documents at her deposition, in

the form of a box containing two thousand pages of documents, the majority of which

had been produced previously. These documents were not accompanied by any formal

written response. Since searching through each document would have taken precious

time away from the long awaited deposition, Mr. Erikson inquired about whether

specific documents were included in the production, specifically emails and documents

related to the finances of Tied Concepts, Inc. With respect to emails, Gonzalez’s

counsel, Mr. Linzer, stated that no emails had been produced because he believed that

they had been previously produced by Gonzalez’s former counsel. With respect to the

documents related to the finances of Tied Concepts, Inc, Mr. Linzer stated that all

DECLARATION OF S. RYAN PATTERSON RE DOCUMENT PRODUCTION 1

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profit-and-loss statements and all financial statements of Tied Concepts were included

in the documents produced at the deposition. Following the deposition, I spent several

hours reviewing the two thousand pages of documents, but I failed to uncover any of

these promised items. As of the date of this motion, I have not received copies of any of

the requested correspondence or financial documents. A true and correct copy of those

pages of the transcript of Gonzalez’s deposition containing the statements made above

are attached hereto as Exhibit C.

5. I largely handled the meet and confer process that preceded this motion. I

started the process on December 21, 2012, by sending a letter to Rachel L. Shinoskie

and Kenneth Linzer, counsel for Gonzalez. A true and correct copy of the letter is

attached hereto as Exhibit D. For the same reasons that this motion requires so many

pages (the many boilerplate objections asserted with respect to virtually every request),

my initial letter was eight pages long.

6. Following a thorough review of the documents produced at Gonzalez’s

deposition, and having heard no response to my previous letter, I sent a further meet and

confer letter to Gonzalez’s counsel on January 3, 2013. A true and correct copy of this

letter is attached hereto as Exhibit E. The second letter treated additional requests and

objections, and included further detail based on spending several more hours examining

the documents. Since this letter contained responses to even more boilerplate

objections, it totaled 35 pages in length.

7. On January 3, 2013, I received a letter from Gonzalez’s counsel in response

to my meet and confer letter of December 21, a true and correct copy of which is

attached hereto as Exhibit F. As the Court will see, this letter contained unsupported

reassertions of each and every one of Gonzalez’s stock objections, followed by the

conditional assurance that she would produce responsive documents. As of the date of

this motion, I have not received a response to my meet and confer letter of January 3,

2013, nor any supplemental documents responsive to our requests.


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8. I responded to Gonzalez’s counsel’s January 3 letter on Tuesday January 8,

2013, by sending an email to Rachel Shinoskie and Kenneth Linzer. In this email, I

offered to meet in person at Gonzalez’s counsel’s office at their convenience to discuss

the ongoing discovery disputes in an effort to save time in light of the impending

deadlines for our motions to compel. On January 9, 2013, I received an email from

Rachel Shinoskie informing me that no one from Gonzalez’s counsel would be able to

meet with me for 5 days.

9. On January 14, 2013, I received, via email, copies of Gonzalez’s

verifications of her responses to Beaulieu’s Special Interrogatories, Form

Interrogatories and Requests for Admission. A true and correct copy of this email and

the verifications attached thereto is attached as Exhibit G.

10. On January 15, 2013, I responded to the January 3, 2013 letter by sending a

letter to Gonzalez’s counsel. A true and correct copy of the letter is attached hereto as

Exhibit H. As of January 24, 2013, we have not received a response to this letter.

11. On January 18, 2013, I spoke with Rachel Shinoskie of Gonzalez’s counsel

and confirmed that the meet and confer process had reached its conclusion. I responded

to this phone call on January 21, by emailing Gonzalez’s counsel to request Microsoft

Word files of their discovery responses in order to save time in preparing these motions.

Gonzalez’s counsel sent the requested files that same day. A true and correct copy of

this email chain is attached hereto as Exhibit I.

12. I spent 6 hours preparing this motion. I spent 4 hours before that engaging in

the extensive meet and confer process, aimed at arriving at an informal resolution. I will

bill a minimum of two hours to appear at the hearing on this Motion, for of at least 12

hours. My hourly fee is $325/hour. I will revise my request for sanctions based on

further work I will do if a Reply Memorandum is required. I repeatedly warned

Defendants’ counsel that my motion to compel would include a request for sanctions.

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///

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I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States and the

State of California that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed this 24TH day of

January 2013, at Los Angeles, California.________________________________

S. Ryan Patterson


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motion to compel

Documents

survive scrutiny gonzalez

los angeles corp

plaintiffs costs incurred

david alden erikson

plaintiff aaron beaulieu

gonzalezs objections based

los angeles

special interrogatories