Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. SC092451. Linda Lefkowitz, Judge.
Stephen Harris, in pro. per., for Plaintiff and Appellant.
McCune & Harber, Dana John McCune and Joseph W. Cheung, for Defendant and Respondent City of Culver City, erroneously sued as Culver City Bus Company.
Daniels, Fine, Israel, Schonbuch & Lebovits, Michael N. Schonbuch and Martin S. McMahan, for Defendant and Respondent Walton Auto Wrecking & Towing.
RUBIN, J.
After plaintiff and appellant Stephen Harris failed to comply with trial court orders to respond to discovery requests made by defendants and respondents City of Culver City (the city) and Walton Auto Wrecking & Towing (Walton), the trial court dismissed the action. Harris appeals from the order of dismissal. We affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
We glean the following facts from the unverified complaint and its attachments. On December 27, 2005, Harris was a passenger on a Culver City bus when that bus collided with a tow truck owned by Walton.
Harris filed a claim for damages with the city, which the city rejected. Harris refiled his claim on January 16, 2007. Attached to the second claim were: an undated summary describing treatment Harris received from the Los Angeles Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Surgery Medical Group on various dates from June through November 2006, a MyoVision Static Graphic from the office of Thomas Dickershaid (who is not identified on the document as a medical doctor), and a radiology report from the Veterans Administration hospital (VA).
On January 18, 2007, Harris filed a complaint for property damage and personal injury arising out of the incident. The refiled claim with its attachments were affixed to the complaint. On January 24, 2007, Harris filed with the trial court a list of his VA medical appointments. And on February 6, 2007, Harris filed a signed but unverified document captioned: “Declaration of Stephen Harris,” in which he stated that, at the time of the accident, Culver City buses “had a non-safe space between seats and the metal shrouds dangerously attached to the rear of each passenger seat! . . . [¶] . . . [¶] Since this accident, the metal shrouds have been removed from many of the Culver City bus seat backs.” (Underscoring omitted.) Both defendants filed answers.
A. The Discovery
On March 5, 2007, the city served Harris with form interrogatories; a set of 20 special interrogatories; collateral source interrogatories pursuant to Government Code section 985 et seq.; and a request for production of documents.
On March 20, 2007, Harris filed a document captioned: “Motion to Strike Defendants Counsel’s Interrogatories.” In it, he states: “Request that all defendant’s counsel’s unnecessary or held data requests be quashed! [¶] In other words the defendant has most of the data requested!”
On May 1, 2007, after Harris failed to respond to the city’s discovery and efforts to meet and confer were unsuccessful, the city filed motions to compel Harris’s response to the interrogatories and document production request. Harris did not file any opposition to the city’s motion to compel. Following a June 14, 2007 hearing, the trial court denied Harris’s motion to strike and granted the city’s motion to compel; it ordered Harris to file responses within 20 days and to pay $480 in sanctions.
Meanwhile, on May 1, 2007, Walton served Harris with form interrogatories, special interrogatories, and a document production request. After Harris failed to respond, Walton filed motions to compel. Thereafter, on July 18, 2007, Harris filed a document captioned “Motion to Strike . . . All Sanctions, Evidentiary and Monetary, where Justice is Obstructed and Due Process of Law is Grossly Deprived!” (Underscoring omitted.) The gist of this motion was that Harris had already served “Defendants with all information sought in Plaintiff’s possession . . . .”
On July 10, 2007, after Harris still had not responded to its discovery, the city filed a second motion to compel discovery responses and for sanctions, including terminating sanctions.
Walton’s first motion to compel, the city’s second motion to compel, and Harris’s motion to strike were all heard on August 23, 2007. The trial court denied Harris’s motion to strike, but declined to impose the terminating sanctions requested by the city. Instead, it ordered Harris to serve discovery responses within 15 days, and to pay sanctions in the amount of $750. It also granted Walton’s motions to compel; it ordered Harris to file responses within 20 days and to pay sanctions in the amount of $750.
B. Terminating Sanctions
Harris failed to comply with the August 23, 2007 order, and the city filed a motion for terminating sanctions. On October 5, 2007, Walton filed a similar motion.
We grant the city’s motion to augment the record with a copy of this motion.
On October 9, 2007, Harris filed a document captioned “Notice of Motion and Motion for: Removal of Sanctions; Striking of Interrogatories; El Stoppe Dismissal Summary Judgment.” The essence of Harris’s motion was that he “satisfied all Defendants with the required information when the complaint was filed.”
On November 6, 2007, the trial court denied Harris’s motion and granted the city’s and Walton’s respective motion for terminating sanctions. According to the minute order: “The court has repeatedly advised Plaintiff that while he has a right to self-representation, he must comply with discovery obligations as would a represented plaintiff. The court has advised him that the inclusion of medical papers in the court file does not excuse a refusal to participate in the discovery process . . . . The court has repeatedly urged him to speak to attorneys and paralegals employed in the court’s self-help center, some 300 feet from the courtroom, or to seek out free advice from the various bar associations and legal aid offices in the general area. The court is not aware whether he has or has not done so. The court even offered to vacate evidentiary sanctions imposed subsequent to a request by [the city], if plaintiff would respond to the form interrogatories and request for production of documents he has not done so and again in current motions refuses to do so. . . . Accordingly, the court here has attempted escalating sanctions and now determines that in light of plaintiff’s continued intransigence, there is no sanction short of the terminating sanction of dismissal available, and the action is dismissed. [Citations.]” The clerk served a notice of entry of the minute order that same day.
On November 13, 2007, Harris filed a notice of appeal from the November 6, 2007 order of dismissal. Judgment was entered on November 26, 2007.
An order of dismissal entered following an order granting terminating sanctions for discovery abuse is appealable. (Mileikowsky v. Tenet Healthsystem (2005) 128 Cal.App.4th 262, 264 (Mileikowsky).)
DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
We review a trial court’s order imposing discovery sanctions under the deferential abuse of discretion standard. (Karlsson v. Ford Motor Co. (2006) 140 Cal.App.4th 1202, 1217 [affirming evidence preclusion sanction].) We “presume the court’s order is correct and indulge all presumptions and intendments in its favor on matters as to which the record is silent. [Citation.]” (Ibid.) We will affirm unless the order is arbitrary, capricious, or demonstrates a manifest abuse exceeding the bounds of reason. (In re Marriage of Chakko (2004) 115 Cal.App.4th 104, 108.)
B. Dismissal Was Not an Abuse of Discretion
As we understand Harris’s contention, it is that the trial court abused its discretion in ordering the action dismissed as a sanction for Harris’s misuse of the discovery process. He argues that this is because the information the city and Walton sought through discovery “was served/given . . . to [the city and Walton] with the initial complaint!” We find no abuse of discretion.
The Civil Discovery Act (Code Civ. Proc., § 2016.010 et seq.) provides that any party may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the subject matter of the litigation. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2017.010.) Among the authorized forms of discovery are written interrogatories (Code Civ. Proc., § 2030.010 et seq.) and demands for inspection and production of documents (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.010 et seq.).
Failing to respond to an authorized method of discovery and disobeying a court order to provide discovery are both misuses of the discovery process. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2023.010, subds. (a), (d) & (g).) The statutory sanctions which a trial court may impose for a misuse of the discovery process range from monetary sanctions to evidence preclusion, issue preclusion and, finally, “terminating sanctions” such as dismissal of the action. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2023.) “A decision to order terminating sanctions should not be made lightly. But where a violation is willful, preceded by a history of abuse, and the evidence shows that less severe sanctions would not produce compliance with the discovery rules, the trial court is justified in imposing the ultimate sanction. [Citation.]” (Mileikowsky, supra, 128 Cal.App.4th at pp. 279-280.)
Here, the record supports the trial court’s finding that Harris willfully disobeyed multiple orders to respond to discovery without objection. The trial court had previously imposed monetary sanctions, but these had not produced Harris’s compliance with the court’s prior orders. Under these circumstances, the trial court was justified in imposing the ultimate sanction of dismissal.
The result is the same if we treat Harris’s motions to strike as motions for protective orders. The gravamen of each motion was that Harris should not be required to respond to discovery because the requested information had been provided to the city and Walton in the form of attachments to the unverified complaint and in miscellaneous court filings. But Harris has not shown that providing the requested information in formal discovery responses would have caused him unwarranted annoyance, embarrassment, oppression or undue burden and expense, which is the showing necessary to warrant a protective order. (See 2 Witkin, Cal. Evidence (4th ed. 2000) Discovery, § 114, p. 954 [interrogatories] and § 135, p. 971 [document inspection].)
DISPOSITION
The order of dismissal is affirmed. Respondents shall recover their costs on appeal.
WE CONCUR: COOPER, P. J., BIGELOW, J.