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  • MARGARITA HERRERA VS. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO ET AL OTHER NON EXEMPT COMPLAINTS document preview
  • MARGARITA HERRERA VS. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO ET AL OTHER NON EXEMPT COMPLAINTS document preview
  • MARGARITA HERRERA VS. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO ET AL OTHER NON EXEMPT COMPLAINTS document preview
  • MARGARITA HERRERA VS. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO ET AL OTHER NON EXEMPT COMPLAINTS document preview
  • MARGARITA HERRERA VS. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO ET AL OTHER NON EXEMPT COMPLAINTS document preview
  • MARGARITA HERRERA VS. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO ET AL OTHER NON EXEMPT COMPLAINTS document preview
  • MARGARITA HERRERA VS. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO ET AL OTHER NON EXEMPT COMPLAINTS document preview
  • MARGARITA HERRERA VS. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO ET AL OTHER NON EXEMPT COMPLAINTS document preview
						
                                

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1 DENNIS J. HERRERA, State Bar #139669 City Attorney 2 KATHARINE HOBIN PORTER, State Bar #173180 ELECTRONICALLY Chief Labor Attorney F I L E D 3 ERIN KUKA, State Bar #275042 Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco Deputy City Attorney 4 Fox Plaza 06/17/2020 1390 Market Street, 5th Floor Clerk of the Court BY: RONNIE OTERO 5 San Francisco, California 94102-5408 Deputy Clerk Telephone: (415) 554-4229 6 Facsimile: (415) 554-4248 E-Mail: erin.kuka@sfcityatty.org 7 8 Attorneys for Defendant CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO 9 10 SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 11 COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO 12 UNLIMITED JURISDICTION 13 MARGARITA HERRERA, Case No. CGC-19-578026 14 Plaintiff, DISCOVERY 15 vs. DECLARATION OF ERIN KUKA IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANT CITY AND 16 CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO’S FRANCISCO, OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO 17 COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES TO Defendant. PLAINTIFF’S FIRST SET OF REQUESTS FOR 18 PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS, FIRST SET OF REQUESTS FOR ADMISSION AND FORM 19 INTERROGATORIES – EMPLOYMENT (SET ONE) AND FOR AN AWARD OF A 20 MONETARY SANCTION AGAINST DEFENDANT IN THE AMOUNT OF $2,597.50 21 Hearing Date: June 30, 2020 22 Hearing Judge: Hon. Ethan P. Schulman Time: 9:00 a.m. 23 Place: Dept. 302 24 Date Action Filed: July 30, 2019 Trial Date: January 25, 2021 25 26 27 28 1 KUKA DECL ISO CCSF’S OPPOSITION TO MOTION TO COMPEL n:\labor\li2019\200243\01453781.docx CASE NO. CGC-19-578026 1 I, ERIN KUKA, declare as follows: 2 1. I am a Deputy City Attorney and represent Defendant City and County of San 3 Francisco in this action. I have personal knowledge of the facts set forth in this declaration and, if 4 called to testify, I could and would testify competently to the following. 5 2. On October 8, 2019, I emailed Plaintiff’s counsel, Deborah Kochan. A true and correct 6 copy of the email is attached as Exhibit 1. 7 3. On February 12, 2020, I emailed Plaintiff’s counsel, Deborah Kochan responding to 8 Plaintiff’s February 11, 2020 email. A true and correct copy of the email is attached as Exhibit 2. 9 4. On March 4, 2020, I emailed Plaintiff’s counsel, Deborah Kochan responding to 10 Plaintiff’s March 4, 2020 email. A true and correct copy of the email is attached as Exhibit 3. 11 5. On March 5, 2020, I emailed Plaintiff’s counsel, Deborah Kochan responding to 12 Plaintiff’s March 5, 2020 email. A true and correct copy of the email is attached as Exhibit 4. 13 6. In early March, Deborah Kochan and I exchanged several emails about the timing of 14 further meet and confer. A true and correct copy of the email chain is attached as Exhibit 5. 15 7. On May 6, 2020, I emailed Plaintiff’s counsel, Deborah Kochan responding to her 16 email. A true and correct copy of the email is attached as Exhibit 6. 17 8. On May 19, 2020, I emailed Plaintiff’s counsel, Deborah Kochan regarding Plaintiff’s 18 forthcoming motion. A true and correct copy of the email is attached as Exhibit 7. 19 9. On and around February 13, 2020, I emailed Plaintiff’s counsel, Deborah Kochan about 20 a requested extension to Plaintiff’s deadline for discovery responses. A true and correct copy of the 21 February email chain attached as Exhibit 8, with confidential, irrelevant matters redacted. 22 10. A true and correct copy of Calcor Space Facility, Inc. v. Superior Court of Orange 23 County, 53 Cal.App.4th 216 (1997) is attached for convenience as Exhibit 9. 24 11. A true and correct copy of Obregon v. Superior Court, 67 Cal.App.4th 424 (1998) is 25 attached for convenience as Exhibit 10. 26 12. A true and correct copy of Mills v. U.S. Bank, 166 Cal.App.4th 871 (2008) is attached 27 for convenience as Exhibit 11. 28 2 KUKA DECL ISO CCSF’S OPPOSITION TO MOTION TO COMPEL n:\labor\li2018\171593\01387818.docx CASE NO. CGC-19-578026 1 13. A true and correct copy of Deyo v. Kilbourne, 84 Cal.App.3d 771 (1978) is attached for 2 convenience as Exhibit 12. 3 14. I worked in excess of 12 hours on the City’s Opposition Memorandum of Points and 4 Authorities, the three SSUFs, and this declaration. The City calculates the fair market value of an 5 attorney with my experience to be $400 per hour. Accordingly, the City seeks sanctions up to $4,800 6 for the preparation of this opposition. 7 I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed June 17, 8 2020 at San Francisco, California. 9 10 11 ERIN KUKA 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 3 KUKA DECL ISO CCSF’S OPPOSITION TO MOTION TO COMPEL n:\labor\li2018\171593\01387818.docx CASE NO. CGC-19-578026 EXHIBIT 1 EXHIBIT 1 From: Kuka, Erin (CAT) To: "dkochan@kochanstephenson.net" Subject: Herrera v. CCSF Date: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 12:02:20 PM Hello Ms. Kochan, I am representing the City in Ms. Herrera’s lawsuit. I have received the discovery served on the Mayor’s Office, apparently on October 1. (It took a few days for the mail to be routed to me; please see below for my direct contact info.) I am writing to request a 60-day extension on your RFP, RFA, and Form Rogs. I will be taking some intermittent leave in the coming month and will be out of the office from October 12th through the 20th, October 31st through November 5th, and November 15th through the 19th. 60 additional days should be sufficient to gather the requested documents and respond. Please let me know if you will agree to that timeline. I am also writing to meet and confer regarding the PMK deposition because I will be out on the date you selected. My preference would be to reset the deposition for after the document production is completed because the depo notice requests the same docs as the RFP and, given my calendar, I will need the extra time to gather everything. Are you agreeable to that? Thank you, Erin    Erin Kuka Deputy City Attorney Office of City Attorney Dennis Herrera 1390 Market Street, 7th Floor San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 554-4229 Direct www.sfcityattorney.org This message may be subject to the attorney-client privilege and/or may contain confidential attorney work product. If you have received this message in error, please delete it immediately and notify the sender. EXHIBIT 2 EXHIBIT 2 From: Kuka, Erin (CAT) To: "Deborah Kochan" Cc: Mathew Stephenson; Eliana Greenberg Subject: RE: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline Date: Wednesday, February 12, 2020 4:16:52 PM Hello Deborah, I have no problem extending the motion to compel deadline to March 10th. I will await your M&C letter. Regarding the stipulation: having not yet received your M&C letter, I do not know what the “dispute about the propriety of certain objections” is. Accordingly, I have to decline to enter into any sort of stipulation as to how that “dispute” should be handled. I remain hopeful that any dispute can be resolved through the M&C process. Best, Erin Erin Kuka Deputy City Attorney San Francisco City Attorney’s Office (415) 554-4229 Direct www.sfcityattorney.org This message may be subject to the attorney-client privilege and/or may contain confidential attorney work product. If you have received this message in error, please delete it immediately and notify the sender. From: Deborah Kochan Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2020 8:22 AM To: Kuka, Erin (CAT) Cc: Mathew Stephenson ; Eliana Greenberg Subject: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline Erin, I write to initiate the meet and confer process and to request an extension of the motion to compel deadline to March 10th. One of the several areas of concern we have with Defendant’s responses is the insertion of boilerplate objections in response to each and every request for production, request for admission, and special interrogatory. We will write under separate cover to address our remaining concerns but in the meantime wanted to get the process going in that such boilerplate objections are improper and not permitted by the Discovery Act in that, among other things, they render any commitment to produce documents and/or information ambiguous, at best. In order to address such problems and avoid the need of a discovery motion as to the objections we’ve developed a stipulation that we’ve used many times over the years. This stipulation has been endorsed by many defense counsel as a means of clearing up any ambiguity created by the interjection of objections. Please let us know if you have any questions. I’ve attached the document in Word so that you can suggest changes. If you do, please track them. Thank you, Deborah Deborah Kochan Kochan & Stephenson 1680 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, CA 94709 Tel: (510) 649-1130 Fax: (510) 649-1131 dkochan@kochanstephenson.net www.kochanstephenson.com EXHIBIT 3 EXHIBIT 3 From: Kuka, Erin (CAT) To: "Deborah Kochan" Cc: Mathew Stephenson; Eliana Greenberg Subject: RE: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline Date: Wednesday, March 4, 2020 9:08:45 AM Thanks for the reminder – I’ve been jammed up. I’m slammed today but will have a response for you tomorrow. I am sure we can work it out without motion practice. Best, Erin Erin Kuka Deputy City Attorney San Francisco City Attorney’s Office (415) 554-4229 Direct www.sfcityattorney.org This message may be subject to the attorney-client privilege and/or may contain confidential attorney work product. If you have received this message in error, please delete it immediately and notify the sender. From: Deborah Kochan Sent: Wednesday, March 4, 2020 6:47 AM To: Kuka, Erin (CAT) Cc: Mathew Stephenson ; Eliana Greenberg Subject: Fwd: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline Good Morning Erin - I’m following up on the below email I sent last Friday. While we hope we can resolve these issues informally, if we cannot we need to get going on preparing Plaintiff’s motion to compel given next Tuesday’s deadline. Thanks, Deborah Deborah Kochan Kochan & Stephenson 1680 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, California 94709 (510) 649-1130 www.kochanstephenson.com dkochan@kochanstephenson.net Begin forwarded message: From: Deborah Kochan Date: February 28, 2020 at 10:50:16 AM PST To: "Kuka, Erin (CAT)" Cc: Mathew Stephenson , Eliana Greenberg Subject: FW: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline  Erin, I’m writing as a follow up to my previous email about Plaintiff concerns about Defendant’s deficient discovery responses. As you know, earlier this month I forwarded you a proposed stipulation to address Defendant’s insertion of boilerplate objections in response to each and every request for production, request for admission, and special interrogatory. As I explained, in order to address such problems and avoid the need of a discovery motion as to the objections we’ve developed a stipulation that we’ve used many times over the years. This stipulation has been endorsed by many defense counsel as a means of clearing up any ambiguity created by the interjection of objections. General objections to the entire set of discovery are unauthorized, constitute discovery abuse and can subject the objecting party to sanctions. See Korea Data Systems Co. Ltd. V. Sup.Ct. (Amazing Technologies Corp.) (1997) 51 CA4th 1513; 1516. That is because in interjecting boilerplate objections and making each response subject to those objections, the responding party is not providing a clear communication as to the information/documents it will and will not provide. Indeed, such objections allow the responding party to withhold information and documents subject to those objections and the receiving party has no way of knowing whether information and documents have been withheld, much less the reasons why such information and/or documents were withheld. The proposed stipulation works to remove any such ambiguity. Requests for Production In addition to the interjection of boilerplate, improper objections Defendant’s qualified responses to most of the requests for production is improper. I will address those issues in the order they appear in Defendant’s responses. With respect to Request Nos. 2-3, Defendant limits it production to the communications it itemizes between Plaintiff and Karen Cohn/Haroon Ahmad. But as you know, Plaintiff’s demand was not limited to just those communications itemized by Defendant. Rather, Plaintiff asked for all communications for a specific reason. Plaintiff is alleging that Ms. Cohn (and by proxy her subordinate Haroon Ahmad), treated her in a different manner and handled virtually each and every issue with Plaintiff differently because of her protected status and previous lawsuit. Thus, all of the communications between the Ms. Herrera and Cohn as well as all communications between Plaintiff and Ahmad are relevant and may lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. With respect to Request Nos. 4-6, Defendant has also improperly qualified its response. Plaintiff is entitled to all communications as between Cohn and Ahmad as well as between Cohn and DPH and Ahmad and DPH in that that all of these communications that relate to Ms. Herrera are relevant and may lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Defendant’s responses to Request Nos. 8-10 are problematic for the same reasons as the above referenced responses. That is, Defendant does not commit itself to producing all non-privileged responsive documents and instead qualifies its response despite the fact that Plaintiff’s work performance, complaints she made, and any complaints made about her are at issue is this case. With respect to Defendant’s responses to Request Nos. 13-18, as above Defendant qualifies its responses and does not commit to producing all responsive documents. The documents sought in response to each request could not be more centrally relevant to Plaintiff’s claims and Defendant’s failure and/or refusal to provide an unqualified commitment to produce all non-privileged documents is unacceptable. Employment Form Interrogatories In addition to the interjection of boilerplate, improper objections Defendant also failed to provide proper, substantive responses to Plaintiff’s Form Interrogatories, despite the fact that Plaintiff granted Defendant’s request for a lengthy extension of time within which to respond. I will address those issues in the order they appear in Defendant’s responses. With respect to Interrogatory Nos. 204.3, 204.6, 204.7, 207.1, and 207.2, rather than respond to the specific questions posed Defendant improperly refers Plaintiff to the entire set of documents Defendant produced and leaves it to Plaintiff to figure out the specific communications, person and documents that answer the questions posed. This is clearly improper in that it is not really an answer at all. As you may know, the Discovery Act requires that the answer be “as complete and straightforward as the information reasonably available to the responding party permits.” CCP 2030.220. “Parties must state the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in answering interrogatories.” Scheiding v. Dinwiddie Const. Co. (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 64, 76. Moreover, it is not proper to answer by reference to other documents. If the question requires reference to some other document, it should be identified and its contents summarized so that the answer by itself is fully responsive to the interrogatory. Deyo v. Kilbourne (1978) 84 Cal.App.3d 771, 783-784. With respect to Interrogatory Nos. 215.1 and 215.2, Defendant fails to state whether or not it interviewed any witnesses and/or obtained statements other than to state it won’t provide information regarding any investigation the City Attorney’s office did. But of course the interrogatories are not limited to just any investigations the City Attorney’s office may have done thus the responses will need to be amended to either state that no investigation was conducted other than that conducted by the City Attorney’s office or Defendant will have to provide the information regarding any other investigations it did. With respect to Interrogatory No. 217.1, Defendant fails to provide any substantive response whatsoever, despite the fact that it denied all of Plaintiff’s requests for admission. As you may know, the purpose of Plaintiff requests for admission and corresponding employment form interrogatories was to see if the issues could be narrowed and to potentially streamline the deposition discovery which is to commence shortly. But Defendant has obstructed Plaintiff’s legitimate discovery claiming, among other things, that Plaintiff’s discovery is premature because discovery has just commenced. Such statements ignore the fact that virtually all of the witnesses and documents necessary to formulate a response are within Defendant’s control, and that Plaintiff provided Defendant two additional months within which to respond. Moreover, as explained above, it is not proper to answer by reference to other documents. If the question requires reference to some other document, it should be identified and its contents summarized so that the answer by itself is fully responsive to the interrogatory. Deyo v. Kilbourne (1978) 84 Cal.App.3d 771, 783-784. Please let us know whether you would like to set up time to meet and confer about the above by phone or in person. We need to get all of the above resolved in order to keep this case on track. Thank you, Deborah Deborah Kochan Kochan & Stephenson 1680 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, CA 94709 Telephone: (510) 649-1130 Facsimile:    (510) 649-1131 dkochan@kochanstephenson.net www.kochanstephenson.com From: Deborah Kochan Date: Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at 8:21 AM To: "Kuka, Erin (CAT)" Cc: Mathew Stephenson , Eliana Greenberg Subject: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline Erin, I write to initiate the meet and confer process and to request an extension of the motion to compel deadline to March 10th. One of the several areas of concern we have with Defendant’s responses is the insertion of boilerplate objections in response to each and every request for production, request for admission, and special interrogatory. We will write under separate cover to address our remaining concerns but in the meantime wanted to get the process going in that such boilerplate objections are improper and not permitted by the Discovery Act in that, among other things, they render any commitment to produce documents and/or information ambiguous, at best. In order to address such problems and avoid the need of a discovery motion as to the objections we’ve developed a stipulation that we’ve used many times over the years. This stipulation has been endorsed by many defense counsel as a means of clearing up any ambiguity created by the interjection of objections. Please let us know if you have any questions. I’ve attached the document in Word so that you can suggest changes. If you do, please track them. Thank you, Deborah Deborah Kochan Kochan & Stephenson 1680 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, CA 94709 Tel: (510) 649-1130 Fax: (510) 649-1131 dkochan@kochanstephenson.net www.kochanstephenson.com EXHIBIT 4 EXHIBIT 4 From: Kuka, Erin (CAT) To: "Deborah Kochan" Cc: Mathew Stephenson; Eliana Greenberg Subject: RE: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline Date: Thursday, March 5, 2020 3:38:35 PM Hi, Thanks for your message. I’m sorry to report that I’m not feeling well, and I’m going to be out tomorrow attending some necessary appointments. Let’s extend your deadline a week to the 17th, which will give us time to connect early next week. Thanks, Erin Erin Kuka Deputy City Attorney San Francisco City Attorney’s Office (415) 554-4229 Direct www.sfcityattorney.org This message may be subject to the attorney-client privilege and/or may contain confidential attorney work product. If you have received this message in error, please delete it immediately and notify the sender. From: Deborah Kochan Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2020 2:38 PM To: Kuka, Erin (CAT) Cc: Mathew Stephenson ; Eliana Greenberg Subject: Re: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline Importance: High Erin, Thank you for getting back to me. While I too am hopeful we can work this out so as to avoid the need for a motion, even if your client agrees to amend its responses to cure the defects we’ve itemized, in the interim we’re going to need an extension on the motion to compel deadline. Please confirm an extension of that deadline today otherwise we’re going to need to begin to prepare our motion tomorrow. Thanks, Deborah Deborah Kochan Kochan & Stephenson 1680 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, CA 94709 Telephone: (510) 649-1130 Facsimile: (510) 649-1131 dkochan@kochanstephenson.net www.kochanstephenson.com From: "Kuka, Erin (CAT)" Date: Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 9:08 AM To: Deborah Kochan Cc: Mathew Stephenson , Eliana Greenberg Subject: RE: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline Thanks for the reminder – I’ve been jammed up. I’m slammed today but will have a response for you tomorrow. I am sure we can work it out without motion practice. Best, Erin Erin Kuka Deputy City Attorney San Francisco City Attorney’s Office (415) 554-4229 Direct www.sfcityattorney.org This message may be subject to the attorney-client privilege and/or may contain confidential attorney work product. If you have received this message in error, please delete it immediately and notify the sender. From: Deborah Kochan Sent: Wednesday, March 4, 2020 6:47 AM To: Kuka, Erin (CAT) Cc: Mathew Stephenson ; Eliana Greenberg Subject: Fwd: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline Good Morning Erin - I’m following up on the below email I sent last Friday. While we hope we can resolve these issues informally, if we cannot we need to get going on preparing Plaintiff’s motion to compel given next Tuesday’s deadline. Thanks, Deborah Deborah Kochan Kochan & Stephenson 1680 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, California 94709 (510) 649-1130 www.kochanstephenson.com dkochan@kochanstephenson.net Begin forwarded message: From: Deborah Kochan Date: February 28, 2020 at 10:50:16 AM PST To: "Kuka, Erin (CAT)" Cc: Mathew Stephenson , Eliana Greenberg Subject: FW: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline Erin, I’m writing as a follow up to my previous email about Plaintiff concerns about Defendant’s deficient discovery responses. As you know, earlier this month I forwarded you a proposed stipulation to address Defendant’s insertion of boilerplate objections in response to each and every request for production, request for admission, and special interrogatory. As I explained, in order to address such problems and avoid the need of a discovery motion as to the objections we’ve developed a stipulation that we’ve used many times over the years. This stipulation has been endorsed by many defense counsel as a means of clearing up any ambiguity created by the interjection of objections. General objections to the entire set of discovery are unauthorized, constitute discovery abuse and can subject the objecting party to sanctions. See Korea Data Systems Co. Ltd. V. Sup.Ct. (Amazing Technologies Corp.) (1997) 51 CA4th 1513; 1516. That is because in interjecting boilerplate objections and making each response subject to those objections, the responding party is not providing a clear communication as to the information/documents it will and will not provide. Indeed, such objections allow the responding party to withhold information and documents subject to those objections and the receiving party has no way of knowing whether information and documents have been withheld, much less the reasons why such information and/or documents were withheld. The proposed stipulation works to remove any such ambiguity. Requests for Production In addition to the interjection of boilerplate, improper objections Defendant’s qualified responses to most of the requests for production is improper. I will address those issues in the order they appear in Defendant’s responses. With respect to Request Nos. 2-3, Defendant limits it production to the communications it itemizes between Plaintiff and Karen Cohn/Haroon Ahmad. But as you know, Plaintiff’s demand was not limited to just those communications itemized by Defendant. Rather, Plaintiff asked for all communications for a specific reason. Plaintiff is alleging that Ms. Cohn (and by proxy her subordinate Haroon Ahmad), treated her in a different manner and handled virtually each and every issue with Plaintiff differently because of her protected status and previous lawsuit. Thus, all of the communications between the Ms. Herrera and Cohn as well as all communications between Plaintiff and Ahmad are relevant and may lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. With respect to Request Nos. 4-6, Defendant has also improperly qualified its response. Plaintiff is entitled to all communications as between Cohn and Ahmad as well as between Cohn and DPH and Ahmad and DPH in that that all of these communications that relate to Ms. Herrera are relevant and may lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Defendant’s responses to Request Nos. 8-10 are problematic for the same reasons as the above referenced responses. That is, Defendant does not commit itself to producing all non-privileged responsive documents and instead qualifies its response despite the fact that Plaintiff’s work performance, complaints she made, and any complaints made about her are at issue is this case. With respect to Defendant’s responses to Request Nos. 13-18, as above Defendant qualifies its responses and does not commit to producing all responsive documents. The documents sought in response to each request could not be more centrally relevant to Plaintiff’s claims and Defendant’s failure and/or refusal to provide an unqualified commitment to produce all non-privileged documents is unacceptable. Employment Form Interrogatories In addition to the interjection of boilerplate, improper objections Defendant also failed to provide proper, substantive responses to Plaintiff’s Form Interrogatories, despite the fact that Plaintiff granted Defendant’s request for a lengthy extension of time within which to respond. I will address those issues in the order they appear in Defendant’s responses. With respect to Interrogatory Nos. 204.3, 204.6, 204.7, 207.1, and 207.2, rather than respond to the specific questions posed Defendant improperly refers Plaintiff to the entire set of documents Defendant produced and leaves it to Plaintiff to figure out the specific communications, person and documents that answer the questions posed. This is clearly improper in that it is not really an answer at all. As you may know, the Discovery Act requires that the answer be “as complete and straightforward as the information reasonably available to the responding party permits.” CCP 2030.220. “Parties must state the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in answering interrogatories.” Scheiding v. Dinwiddie Const. Co. (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 64, 76. Moreover, it is not proper to answer by reference to other documents. If the question requires reference to some other document, it should be identified and its contents summarized so that the answer by itself is fully responsive to the interrogatory. Deyo v. Kilbourne (1978) 84 Cal.App.3d 771, 783-784. With respect to Interrogatory Nos. 215.1 and 215.2, Defendant fails to state whether or not it interviewed any witnesses and/or obtained statements other than to state it won’t provide information regarding any investigation the City Attorney’s office did. But of course the interrogatories are not limited to just any investigations the City Attorney’s office may have done thus the responses will need to be amended to either state that no investigation was conducted other than that conducted by the City Attorney’s office or Defendant will have to provide the information regarding any other investigations it did. With respect to Interrogatory No. 217.1, Defendant fails to provide any substantive response whatsoever, despite the fact that it denied all of Plaintiff’s requests for admission. As you may know, the purpose of Plaintiff requests for admission and corresponding employment form interrogatories was to see if the issues could be narrowed and to potentially streamline the deposition discovery which is to commence shortly. But Defendant has obstructed Plaintiff’s legitimate discovery claiming, among other things, that Plaintiff’s discovery is premature because discovery has just commenced. Such statements ignore the fact that virtually all of the witnesses and documents necessary to formulate a response are within Defendant’s control, and that Plaintiff provided Defendant two additional months within which to respond. Moreover, as explained above, it is not proper to answer by reference to other documents. If the question requires reference to some other document, it should be identified and its contents summarized so that the answer by itself is fully responsive to the interrogatory. Deyo v. Kilbourne (1978) 84 Cal.App.3d 771, 783-784. Please let us know whether you would like to set up time to meet and confer about the above by phone or in person. We need to get all of the above resolved in order to keep this case on track. Thank you, Deborah Deborah Kochan Kochan & Stephenson 1680 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, CA 94709 Telephone: (510) 649-1130 Facsimile: (510) 649-1131 dkochan@kochanstephenson.net www.kochanstephenson.com From: Deborah Kochan Date: Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at 8:21 AM To: "Kuka, Erin (CAT)" Cc: Mathew Stephenson , Eliana Greenberg Subject: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline Erin, I write to initiate the meet and confer process and to request an extension of the motion to compel deadline to March 10th. One of the several areas of concern we have with Defendant’s responses is the insertion of boilerplate objections in response to each and every request for production, request for admission, and special interrogatory. We will write under separate cover to address our remaining concerns but in the meantime wanted to get the process going in that such boilerplate objections are improper and not permitted by the Discovery Act in that, among other things, they render any commitment to produce documents and/or information ambiguous, at best. In order to address such problems and avoid the need of a discovery motion as to the objections we’ve developed a stipulation that we’ve used many times over the years. This stipulation has been endorsed by many defense counsel as a means of clearing up any ambiguity created by the interjection of objections. Please let us know if you have any questions. I’ve attached the document in Word so that you can suggest changes. If you do, please track them. Thank you, Deborah Deborah Kochan Kochan & Stephenson 1680 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, CA 94709 Tel: (510) 649-1130 Fax: (510) 649-1131 dkochan@kochanstephenson.net www.kochanstephenson.com EXHIBIT 5 EXHIBIT 5 From: Kuka, Erin (CAT) To: "Deborah Kochan" Cc: "Mathew Stephenson"; "Eliana Greenberg" Subject: RE: Herrera v. CCSF - m &C and mtn compel deadline Date: Monday, March 16, 2020 3:51:46 PM Hi again Deborah, Just writing with an update. SF declared a shelter in place today and that’s taken me away from my usual work, so I haven’t had a chance to get back to the Herrera case. I anticipate that things will calm down in a few days. Meanwhile, thank you for your patience; I simply have to prioritize that work right now over civil discovery. I will be in touch tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest with an update. Thank you for understanding. Erin From: Kuka, Erin (CAT) Sent: Friday, March 13, 2020 5:52 PM To: 'Deborah Kochan' Cc: 'Mathew Stephenson' ; 'Eliana Greenberg'