Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
The following blog entry is written to illustrate a common motion filed during civil litigation. Reviewing this kind of filing should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in personal injury cases present such issues to the court.
(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this insurance bad faith lawsuit and its proceedings.)
Universal Street was damaged in 2007, shortly after a sale collapsed. There was no rental income of the property at the time. This is information is known to XYZ, that is why they are denying the claim. The Halls have provided documents showing a sale price for the house two months prior the fire. Since the fire, property values have dropped. This places a variable in the equation that is hard for plaintiffs to adequately calculate a hard figure. Plaintiffs are not required to submit expert opinions at this point, and to guess would not be fair.
Plaintiffs are under the belief that defendants are not willing to accept the amount that plaintiffs are requesting to settle this lawsuit for two reasons: One they want to establish that the plaintiffs damages are over $75,000 per recent Request for Admissions, in order that they may return to federal court, now that all state defendants have been dismissed. Two: they want to maintain the litigation while seeking to lock plaintiffs into a fixed figure before discovery is completed. If these motives are true, in fact, XYZ’s motion to compel was brought for improper reasons.
REQUEST FOR SANCTIONS ARE UNWARRANTED
Discovery sanctions should be appropriate to the dereliction, and should not exceed that which is required to protect the interests of the party entitled to but denied discovery … but the court may not impose sanctions which are designed not to accomplish the objects of discovery but rather to impose punishment, as quoted in Vallbona v. Springer, 43 Cal.App.4, 51 Cal Rptr. 2d 311.
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.
Plaintiffs have answered to the best of their ability and have asked for further clarification as to the documents they believe plaintiffs have that should be produced. Even if the Court should order compulsion, plaintiffs will still not be able to provide further documents.
CONCLUSION
Plaintiffs believe the motion to compel is unfounded and sanctions to be denied.
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.