1 LAW OFFICES OF DAVID ALDEN ERIKSON

David Alden Erikson, California Bar No. 189838 David@daviderikson.com S. Ryan Patterson, California Bar No. 279474 3 Ryan@daviderikson.com 200 North Larchmont Blvd. 4 Los Angeles, California 90004 Telephone: (323) 465-3100 5 Facsimile: (323) 465-3177
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6 Attorney For Plaintiff and Cross-Defendant AARON

BEAULIEU

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SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, CENTRAL DISTRICT AARON BEAULIEU, an individual, Plaintiff, vs. Case No. BC 443861

PLAINTIFFS NOTICE OF MOTION AND MOTION TO COMPEL [NO. 1] FURTHER RESPONSES TO SIMONE GONZALEZ, an individual, B&G REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF LOS ANGELES CORP, a California DOCUMENTS AT DEPOSITION; corporation dba PLEASURE DOING BUSINESS, PLEASURE DOING DECLARATION OF S. RYAN BUSINESS, a California partnership, TIED PATTERSON CONCEPTS, INC., a California corporation, and DOES 2 THROUGH 10, inclusive Date: February 21, 2013 Time: 8:30am Defendants. Dept. 52 Complaint Filed: August 20, 2010 Trial Date: April 3, 2013 SIMONE GONZALEZ, an individual, PLEASURE DOING BUSINESS, TIED CONCEPTS, INC., a California corporation, [Filed concurrently with Separate Statement B&G LOS ANGELES CORP, a California of Items In Dispute; Declaration of David corporation, Alden Erikson] Cross-Complainants, v. O.D. MAISON, a sole proprietorship, and Cross-Defendants
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MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

25 PLAINTIFF BEAULIEU, an individual, 26 DOES 1 THROUGH 10, inclusive, 27 28

TO ALL PARTIES AND TO THEIR ATTORNEYS OF RECORD: PLEASE

2 TAKE NOTICE that on February 21, 2013 at 8:30 a.m., or as soon thereafter as the 3 matter may be heard in Department 52 of the above-entitled Court, located at 111 North 4 Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012, Plaintiff Aaron Beaulieu (Plaintiff or Beaulieu) 5 will, and hereby does, move the Court for an order (1) compelling Defendant Simone 6 Gonzalez (Gonzalez) to provide further responses and documents in response to 7 Plaintiffs November 27, 2012 Deposition Notice propounded by Plaintiff to Defendant 8 Gonzalez, and (2) imposing monetary sanctions against Gonzalez and/or her counsel. 9

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

10 2025.480 (production of documents at deposition) and controlling California case law, on 11 the ground that Gonzalez failed to provide proper and adequate responses and documents 12 in response to Plaintiffs Deposition Notice and Request for Production of Documents. 13

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

14 controlling California case law on the grounds that Gonzalez knowingly failed to provide 15 proper discovery responses, and further misused the discovery process. 16

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

17 Memorandum of Points and Authorities, the Separate Statement of Items in Dispute; the 18 Declarations of S. Ryan Patterson and David Alden Erikson, on all pleadings, documents 19 and records on file herein, and on such other evidence, including testimony, as may be 20 presented at the time of the hearing on this motion. 21 22 DATED: February 23, 2013 23 24 25 26 27 28 2
MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

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

3 Plaintiffs Separate Statement, virtually all of these objections are cut-and-pasted 4 boilerplate. Indeed, Plaintiff submits that his motions do not involve a single instance of 5 the kind of good faith and principled discovery dispute that requires judicial intervention. 6 On the contrary, Gonzalez asserts so many stock objections to every request that one 7 cannot isolate any serious ones. Even in Plaintiffs laborious meet and confer process, 8 asking Gonzalez why she refuses to turn over any given piece of information yields only 9 the answer that the request is irrelevant, unduly burdensome, conjunctive, disjunctive, 10 seeks privileged and confidential information, and so on. 11

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

12 that Gonzalez has adopted a policy of pure stonewalling. It is nothing short of outrageous 13 that Gonzalez refused even to withdraw patently frivolous objections, which could have 14 avoided many hours of needless work by both Plaintiff and the Court. 15

This is entirely consistent with Gonzalezs general approach to discovery. The court

16 will be shocked to learn just how little information she has surrendered in response to 17 Plaintiffs two years of diligent efforts. Some of her techniques have been common enough 18 (absurd objections, document dumps, and a professed inability to understand common 19 English words), while some have been truly innovative (dismissing all claims against a 20 party to moot its requests, setting up and maintaining an utterly frivolous appeal to stay the 21 case, and relying on invented doctrines of priority). 22

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

23 one by one, as Plaintiff does in his Separate Statements. In this Memorandum, all Plaintiff 24 can do is provide some history, and demonstrate the impropriety Gonzalezs refusing to 25 turn over general categories of information, and of Gonzalezs use of particular objections. 26 This generalized approach is applied specifically in the Separate Statement. Plaintiff has 27 done everything in his power to keep the Separate Statements as brief as possible. 28 1
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II. BACKGROUND In November 2008, Plaintiff Aaron Beaulieu and Defendant Simone Gonzalez

3 launched a fashion line called Pleasure Doing Business (PDB). PDB became an instant 4 success, carried by major department stores such as Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, 5 Neiman Marcus, Macys, and Nordstrom, as well as high-end boutiques. 6 A. 7

Plaintiffs Allegations Plaintiff alleges that at the height of the companys success, Gonzalez blindsided

8 him by ousting him from both the business and their shared residence without any notice 9 or legal justification, and while he was out of town. [Complaint, 18-22.] She executed a 10 precision and premeditated plan to erase him from the business. [Id. at 22-23.] Plaintiff 11 will show at trial that Gonzalez simply did not want to share the companys profits and 12 successlargely due to greed and the misguided impression that she deserved more of the 13 spoils because, she believed, it was her extraordinary talent that led to the companys 14 success. 15 B. 16

Gonzalezs Counterclaims In her defensive countersuit, Gonzalez levels accusations that Plaintiff

17 misrepresented his own talent and qualifications when the parties were forming the 18 business [Cross-Complaint, 29-36.], and that he embezzled company money [Id. at 20]. 19 This apparently justified her in expelling him through self-help, and caused largely 20 unspecified further damages. 21 C. 22 23

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

24 issue hereand she got away with it until now. First, she filed a motion to compel 25 arbitration (months after answering and filing a cross-complaint) that was designed to fail, 26 in order to manufacture an automatic right to appellate review, and with it a yearlong stay 27 of discovery. [Declaration of David Erikson (Erikson Decl.), 3-4.] She ate up further 28 2
MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

1 months obtaining every possible extension to file an Opening Brief, and when that had run 2 its course she declined to file a brief at all. [Id.] 3

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

4 discovery, she avoided any disclosure of information by dismissing all claims against the 5 propounding party. [Id. at 6-7.] Next, Gonzalezs counsel refused to produce her for 6 deposition, based on the obviously specious logic that priority gave him the right to first 7 finish Plaintiffs deposition (which had already gone one day back before the appeal). [Id.] 8 What made this an extremely effective strategy was that Gonzalezs counsel also refused 9 to conduct or even schedule that second day of Plaintiffs deposition. [Id.] In other words, 10 he improperly created a false prerequisite to his clients deposition and then made sure the 11 prerequisite would not be satisfied in the foreseeable future. It was not until Gonzalez was 12 on the brink of being called to account via a motion to compel that her counsel agreed to 13 schedule Plaintiffs deposition (which Plaintiffs counsel hoped would pave the way for 14 Gonzalezs deposition). [Id.] And it was not until he was on the brink of another motion to 15 compel that he agreed to actually set Ms. Gonzalezs deposition. [Id.] And after trying to 16 cancel at the last minute, it was not until Gonzalez was on the brink of yet another motion 17 to compel that she actually appeared. [Id. at 5.] 18

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

19 information that the issues will be brought to the Courts attention in the near future unless 20 Gonzalez is somehow chastened into a adopting a more cooperative approach. [Id. at 9.] 21 D. 22

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

23 positionmuch less specify supporting facts and evidence. Even more fundamentally, she 24 refuses to provide Plaintiff with the facts he needs to maintain his claim. As a result, 25 Plaintiff is utterly unable to prepare for trial. 26 27 28 3
MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

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1.

The Parties Relationship

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

3 disagreealthough she refuses to clearly state as much, or provide an alternative 4 characterization of the relationship. She has refused to state her position on basic 5 contractual matters (Was there a contract? What were its terms? Did it change over time? 6 Was it beached?). To avoid these issues, Gonzales has had to refuse even to answer the 7 basic 50 series form interrogatories. She does not argue that Plaintiff is not entitled such 8 information, which would be absurd. Rather, she finds creative ways to avoid providing a 9 substantive responseusually based on the supposed vagueness and ambiguity of entirely 10 straightforward requests. 11

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

12 while acknowledging that they exist but claiming, incorrectly, that they must have been 13 produced by former counsel). Plaintiffs counsel has literally begged for these emails, 14 which will certainly bear on the partnership issue. Indeed, Plaintiff expects to find in such 15 emails communications between the parties that clearly reflect a co-equal status, and 16 communications between Gonzalez and third parties in which she characterizes the parties 17 contractual relationship in this manner. 18

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

19 impression that her prior counsel had produced many emails. When assured that this was 20 not the case, they agreed to turn them over soon. [Declaration of S. Ryan Patterson 21 (Patterson Decl.), 4.] Despite repeated requests and assurances, this never happened. [Id.] 22

Plaintiff has also attempted to discover facts and Gonzalezs position on some of

23 the more obvious indicia of partnership and/or equal status, such as the facts that Plaintiff 24 invested money in the business and paid business bills out of his pocket; that Plaintiffs 25 name appears on all official documents; that a partnership agreement was drafted and 26 discussed; that Plaintiff and Gonzalez later formed a corporation to operate the business, 27 with both as equal shareholders; and that the corporation was called B&G (for Beaulieu 28 4
MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

1 & Gonzalez). Again, Gonzalez outrageously refuses to respond to such requests based on 2 a professed inability to understand the questions. 3 4

2.

Fact About PDB

The parties business was called Pleasure Doing Business, often referred to in the

5 fashion world as PDB. In his discovery requests, Plaintiff followed this convention, 6 using the defined term PDB to refer to the business. As one can imagine with respect to 7 a partnership dispute regarding the business, more than a few of Plaintiffs discovery 8 requests referred to PDB. To all such requests, Gonzalez responded as follows (in 9 addition to the other usual stock objections): 10 11 12 13 14

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,

15 and utterly stymies some of the most vital discovery Plaintiff needs in this case. Plaintiff 16 spent hours in the meet and confer process explaining that the best way, and an entirely 17 common way, to refer to a business entity is usually to use its trademarked name (just as 18 the best and perhaps only way to refer to a person is to use his or her proper name). In 19 response, Gonzalez stuck to her frivolous objection. [Patterson Decl., 6, Exh. D, p. 2, 1.] 20 21

3.

The Value of The Business, and Related Financial Information

Plaintiffs damage claim for being wrongfully expelled from PDB will obviously

22 not get far without his knowing the value of the company, which can only be derived from 23 financial information such as revenue and costs. Similarly, Gonzalezs own claim for 24 damages necessarily involves company financial information. Nevertheless, Gonzalez 25 refuses to turn over any such information. Oddly, she does not attempt to justify her 26 refusals by presenting an argument as to why the need for confidentiality outweighs 27 28 5
MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

1 Plaintiffs right to pursue his claimperhaps because that would require legal and factual 2 research or because she knows that such argument would ultimately be a loser. 3

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

4 (besides the usual claimed inability to understand) is to again falsely and inexplicably 5 claim that she already has turned over such materials, or that she soon will. At her 6 deposition, when asked if she brought the requested financial statements, both Ms. 7 Gonzalez and her counsel falsely stated that they were contained in the box of documents 8 sitting on the table. [Erikson Decl, 10; Patterson Decl, 4.] Because the box was huge and 9 contained a jumble of mostly insignificant documents, Plaintiff was not able to confront 10 Gonzalez and her counsel about the matter on that day. [[Erikson Decl, 10; Patterson 11 Decl, 4.] Since that time, Gonzalez has refused to either turn over the documents, or take 12 a position one way or the other on their discoverability. [Erikson Decl, 10.] 13 14

4.

The Existence and Purpose of Tied Concepts, Inc.

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

15 Gonzalez. In her Cross-Complaint, Gonzalez acknowledges that she formed Tied Concepts 16 and that it now does business as Pleasure Doing Business. 17

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

18 case, Gonzalez transferred all such assets out of the company she owned with Plaintiff and 19 into Tied Concepts, a company she formed for this specific purpose. Plaintiff also suspects 20 that Gonzalez forged his name on documents needed to effectuate such transfer. 21

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

22 Concepts, she refuses to share it based on the usual litany of objections, even going so far 23 as to object to the term Tied Concepts itself. [See Patterson Decl. re Document 24 Production, 3, Exh. B, p. 39, ll. 20-21.] 25 26 27 28 6
MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

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III.

GONZALEZ SHOULD BE COMPELLED TO PROVIDE FURTHER RESPONSES Again, the sheer volume of Gonzalezs objections renders any through treatment of

4 them impossible except via separate statements. Nevertheless, below is a brief treatment of 5 Gonzalezs use of her favorite objections. 6 A. 7 8

Gonzalezs Objections Based on Vagueness And Ambiguity Do Not Survive Scrutiny Gonzalez has objected to each and every discovery request propounded by Plaintiff

9 on the grounds that it is vague and ambiguous in general. In addition, Gonzalez picks a few 10 words from each request and objects to them specifically as vague and ambiguous. In each 11 case, the terms that Gonzalez objected to are common English words and phrases. For 12 example, Gonzalez objected to the word describe in Plaintiffs Special Interrogatories as 13 vague and ambiguous in at least thirteen instances. [See, for example, Patterson Decl. re 14 Special Interrogatories, 3 Exh. B, p. 13, l. 21.] 15

Other examples of words Gonzalez supposedly does not understand include and

16 [see, for example, Patterson Decl. re Form Interrogatories, 3 Exh. B, p. 15, l. 18], once 17 [see, for example, Patterson Decl. re Requests for Admissions, 3 Exh. B, p. 4, l. 22] and, 18 perhaps most amazing of all, Simone Gonzalez, her own name [see, for example, 19 Patterson Decl. re Document Production, 3 Exh. B, p. 3, l. 24]. 20

Gonzalez makes these objections without further explanationeven where she uses

21 such words and phrases in her own Cross-complaint and discovery requests. For example, 22 Gonzalez objected to the term entity [Patterson Decl. re Document Production, 3 Exh. 23 B, p. 4, ll. 19-20], but uses the same term in her Cross-Complaint. [See, i.e., Gonzalez 24 Cross-Complaint, 4.] 25 B. 26

Gonzalezs Objections Based on Relevance Do Not Survive Scrutiny Gonzalez has objected to nearly every discovery request on the grounds that it seeks

27 information that is neither relevant, nor likely to lead to the discovery of admissible 28 7
MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

1 evidence. Gonzalez asserts this objection so often and in response to so many clearly 2 relevant requests, that it is difficult to accept it as a serious objection. For example, out of 3 86 different Special Interrogatories, Gonzalez objects to 71 on grounds of relevance. 4 Included in those 71 are requests for a description of the terms of any agreement between 5 the parties [Special Interrogatory No. 4, Patterson Decl. re Special Interrogatories, 3, 6 Exhibit B, p. 6, ll. 10-15], identification of documents relating to the formation of the 7 parties business [Special Interrogatory No. 16, Id. at p. 19, l. 28 p. 20, ll. 1-5] and an 8 explanation for the formation of Tied Concepts, Inc. [Special Interrogatory No. 20, Id. at p. 9 23, ll. 25-28.] 10

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

11 Plaintiffs other discovery requests Gonzalez has refused to answer, pertains to information 12 that is critical to the claims alleged by both Gonzalez and Beaulieu. 13 C. 14 15

Gonzalezs 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

16 compound, conjunctive, disjunctive, and contains subparts. Two examples clearly show 17 that such objections are asserted frivolously. Special Interrogatory No. 20 asks, Why was 18 TIED CONCEPTS formed? Gonzalez objected on grounds that this five-word request is 19 compound conjunctive and disjunctive, as well as improper in form because it contains 20 subparts. [Patterson Decl. re Special Interrogatories, 3 Exhibit B, p. 23, ll. 18-21.] Special 21 Interrogatory No. 36 asks, Why was B&G formed? Again, Gonzalez objects that this 22 four-word request violates CCP 2030.060(f) [Id. at p. 38, ll. 11-14.] 23 24 25

IV.

PLAINTIFFS ATTORNEYS MORE THAN SATISFIED THE MEET AND CONFER REQUIREMENT As detailed in the concurrently filed Declarations of David Alden Erikson and S.

26 Ryan Patterson, Plaintiff more than satisfied the requirement that he engage in a proper 27 meet and confer effort prior to filing this and his other motions to compel. In fact, 28 8
MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

1 Plaintiffs efforts in this regard were monumentalinvolving phone calls, detailed letters 2 separately addressing each and every request at issue here, and good faith invitations to 3 meet and confer in person at Gonzalez counsels office. [Patterson Decl. re Production of 4 Documents, 8.] 5

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

6 respond to the discovery in the first instance. [Id. at 7.] The overtures regarding in-person 7 conferences were ignored. [Id. at 8.] Her counsels responsive letters did little more than 8 repeat unwarranted objections, in what was clearly a token effort to meet the minimum 9 requirements. [Id., 7, Exh. E.] While supplemental responses were promised in some 10 instances, no such responses were ever provided. [Id.] By January 18, six days before the 11 deadline to file this motion, the meet and confer process was clearly over. [Id. at 11.] By 12 that date, Gonzalez was well aware that Plaintiffs counsel had begun the laborious process 13 of drafting this motion and its companions. [Id.] Gonzalezs counsel obviously had the 14 opportunity even at such late date to substantially reduce the hours that would be required 15 to prepare this and the other motions: if not by providing information and documents, then 16 at least by withdrawing some of the most obviously specious objections (which of course 17 must be treated individually in the separate statement). As angry as the Court will be that it 18 has to separately review and rule on clearly improper objections and responses, Plaintiff 19 and his counsel are equally outraged to have to prepare these materials. 20 21

V. PLAINTIFF IS ENTITLED TO MONETARY SANCTIONS The Court may impose a monetary sanction for misuse of the discovery process.

22 CCP 2023.030. 23

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

24 compel unless it finds that the party acted with substantial justification, or other 25 circumstances render sanctions unjust. CCP 2025.480 (production of documents at 26 deposition). Obviously, there is no justification for an utter failure to respond. Neither is 27 there anything in the record to suggest that sanctions would be unjust. 28 9
MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

Monetary sanctions compensating the moving partys reasonable expenses are

2 properincluding fees on the motion to compel. See Marriage of Niklas, 211 Cal.App. 3d 3 28, 37-38 (1989); Ghanooni v. Super Shuttle of Los Angeles, 20 Cal.App. 4th 256, 262 4 (1993). The purpose of sanctions is to compel disclosure, but also to compensate for the 5 costs of enforcing discovery requests. Deyo v. Kilbourne, 84 Cal.App. 3d 771, 796 (1978). 6

Here, Plaintiff hopes the Court will understand that as lengthy as Plaintiffs moving

7 papers are, they could have been worse. This motion and its companions address only a 8 subset of Gonzalez discovery abuses, in part because her successful delaying tactics have 9 now run their course. Plaintiff was able to further reduce the number of requests on which 10 he must move by forcing Gonzalez to finally submit to a deposition (which was no small 11 feat!) and doing his best to gather information through that avenue. As the Court will see, 12 that Plaintiffs moving papers still run in the hundreds of pages is the result of the volume 13 of absurd objections Gonzalez continues to assert even after Plaintiffs herculean and 14 extremely accommodating meet and confer approach. There is simply no way to reduce the 15 size of a separate statement where the responding party rotely interposes, and refuses to 16 withdraw, every objection in the book. The Court will be justifiably angry at amount of the 17 judicial resources required to sort through this, which Plaintiff has minimized to the extent 18 he can. Needless to say, Plaintiff respectfully requests that the Court consider the amount 19 of, and needlessness of, the work that has gone into these papers when ruling on his 20 requests for sanctions. 21

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

22 his attorney David Alden Erikson, whose rate is $400 per hour, has worked 4.5 hours on 23 this motion, and 2 hours on the laborious meet and confer effort that preceded the motion 24 [Erikson Decl., 12.] for a total of $1,800; and because his attorney S. Ryan Patterson, 25 whose rate is $325 per hour, has worked 6 hours on this motion, and 4 hours on the 26 laborious meet and confer effort that preceded the motion [Patterson Decl., 12.] for a 27 total of $3,250. Plaintiffs costs incurred in the printing of the 432 pages of this motion and 28 10
MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

1 the related documents, totaling $43.20. Plaintiffs costs incurred in the filing of this motion 2 total $60. 3 DATED: February 23, 2013 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 11
MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (NO.1) TO REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

DAVID A. ERIKSON By: ________ David A. Erikson ______

Attorney for Plaintiff Aaron Beaulieu

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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

4 counsel of record for the Plaintiff Aaron Beaulieu (Beaulieu or Plaintiff) in this action. 5 I have personal knowledge of the matters contained in this declaration. If called upon as a 6 witness, I could and would competently testify to such matters. I make this declaration in 7 support of Plaintiffs motions to compel further discovery responses from Defendant 8 Simone Gonzalez (Gonzalez). 9

2.

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

10 Simone Gonzalez and Request For Production of Documents on counsel for Gonzalez. A 11 true and correct copy of such document is attached hereto as Exhibit A. 12

3.

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

13 Deposition of Simone Gonzalez and Request for Production of Documents from 14 Gonzalezs counsel, a true and correct copy of which is attached as Exhibit B. That 8215 page document contained numerous boilerplate objections, repeated again and again, with 16 respect to each document request. It contained no indication that any documents would be 17 produced. 18

4.

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

19 the form of a box containing two thousand pages of documents, the majority of which had 20 been produced previously. These documents were not accompanied by any formal written 21 response. Since searching through each document would have taken precious time away 22 from the long awaited deposition, Mr. Erikson inquired about whether specific documents 23 were included in the production, specifically emails and documents related to the finances 24 of Tied Concepts, Inc. With respect to emails, Gonzalezs counsel, Mr. Linzer, stated that 25 no emails had been produced because he believed that they had been previously produced 26 by Gonzalezs former counsel. With respect to the documents related to the finances of 27 Tied Concepts, Inc, Mr. Linzer stated that all profit-and-loss statements and all financial 28 1
DECLARATION OF S. RYAN PATTERSON RE DOCUMENT PRODUCTION

1 statements of Tied Concepts were included in the documents produced at the deposition. 2 Following the deposition, I spent several hours reviewing the two thousand pages of 3 documents, but I failed to uncover any of these promised items. As of the date of this 4 motion, I have not received copies of any of the requested correspondence or financial 5 documents. A true and correct copy of those pages of the transcript of Gonzalezs 6 deposition containing the statements made above are attached hereto as Exhibit C. 7

5.

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

8 started the process on December 21, 2012, by sending a letter to Rachel L. Shinoskie and 9 Kenneth Linzer, counsel for Gonzalez. A true and correct copy of the letter is attached 10 hereto as Exhibit D. For the same reasons that this motion requires so many pages (the 11 many boilerplate objections asserted with respect to virtually every request), my initial 12 letter was eight pages long. 13

6.

Following a thorough review of the documents produced at Gonzalezs

14 deposition, and having heard no response to my previous letter, I sent a further meet and 15 confer letter to Gonzalezs counsel on January 3, 2013. A true and correct copy of this 16 letter is attached hereto as Exhibit E. The second letter treated additional requests and 17 objections, and included further detail based on spending several more hours examining 18 the documents. Since this letter contained responses to even more boilerplate objections, it 19 totaled 35 pages in length. 20

7.

On January 3, 2013, I received a letter from Gonzalezs counsel in response

21 to my meet and confer letter of December 21, a true and correct copy of which is attached 22 hereto as Exhibit F. As the Court will see, this letter contained unsupported reassertions of 23 each and every one of Gonzalezs stock objections, followed by the conditional assurance 24 that she would produce responsive documents. As of the date of this motion, I have not 25 received a response to my meet and confer letter of January 3, 2013, nor any supplemental 26 documents responsive to our requests. 27 28 2
DECLARATION OF S. RYAN PATTERSON RE DOCUMENT PRODUCTION

8.

I responded to Gonzalezs counsels January 3 letter on Tuesday January 8,

2 2013, by sending an email to Rachel Shinoskie and Kenneth Linzer. In this email, I offered 3 to meet in person at Gonzalezs counsels office at their convenience to discuss the 4 ongoing discovery disputes in an effort to save time in light of the impending deadlines for 5 our motions to compel. On January 9, 2013, I received an email from Rachel Shinoskie 6 informing me that no one from Gonzalezs counsel would be able to meet with me for 5 7 days. 8

9.

On January 14, 2013, I received, via email, copies of Gonzalezs

9 verifications of her responses to Beaulieus Special Interrogatories, Form Interrogatories 10 and Requests for Admission. A true and correct copy of this email and the verifications 11 attached thereto is attached as Exhibit G. 12

10.

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

13 letter to Gonzalezs counsel. A true and correct copy of the letter is attached hereto as 14 Exhibit H. As of January 24, 2013, we have not received a response to this letter. 15

11.

On January 18, 2013, I spoke with Rachel Shinoskie of Gonzalezs counsel

16 and confirmed that the meet and confer process had reached its conclusion. I responded to 17 this phone call on January 21, by emailing Gonzalezs counsel to request Microsoft Word 18 files of their discovery responses in order to save time in preparing these motions. 19 Gonzalezs counsel sent the requested files that same day. A true and correct copy of this 20 email chain is attached hereto as Exhibit I. 21

12.

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

22 the extensive meet and confer process, aimed at arriving at an informal resolution. I will 23 bill a minimum of two hours to appear at the hearing on this Motion, for of at least 12 24 hours. My hourly fee is $325/hour. I will revise my request for sanctions based on further 25 work I will do if a Reply Memorandum is required. I repeatedly warned Defendants 26 counsel that my motion to compel would include a request for sanctions. 27 /// 28 3
DECLARATION OF S. RYAN PATTERSON RE DOCUMENT PRODUCTION

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

4 of California that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed this 24TH day of January 5 2013, at Los Angeles, California. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 4
DECLARATION OF S. RYAN PATTERSON RE DOCUMENT PRODUCTION

________________________________ S. Ryan Patterson