Legal Memo

Park v. Nazari (2023) 183 Cal.App.5th 1099. This is a SLAPP case. The moving party filed a SLAPP motion with respect to a lawsuit for fraudulent transfer, quiet title and declaratory relief with the motion being denied and the Court of Appeal upholding the trial court in that regard finding that the moving party failed to carry its burden to show that the acts complained of were protected under a statutorily defined category of protected activity. What moving the party had done was move to strike the entire complaint, and did not provide or identify individual claims or allegations that should be stricken even if the entire complaint were not. The complaint itself presented at least one claim that did not arise from SLAPP protected activity and therefore the motion as made was properly denied.

Pollock v. Superior Court (2023) 93 Cal.App.5th 1348. This is an action that imposed sanctions for misuse of the discovery process which was revered on appeal. The Court of Appeal reversed the sanctions finding that the response filed to the discovery document request (statement of compliance) did not itself have to identify documents which related to a particular request, and although the initial document production did not do that either, the responding party has subsequently provided a chart that identified what documents went with what request, and that was sufficiently responsive to comply with Code of Civil Procedures § 2031.210, § 2031.250 and § 2031.280. The court noted that the requirement to individually identify documents which are responsive to particular requests did not extend to having to identify those documents in the statement of compliance.

/blm