Tag Archives: Discovery

The Story Of A Request For Emails From LAPD — And All The Ridiculous Reasons They Propounded For Not Producing — And How They Then Produced!

September 17, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

On January 13, 2019 I asked the Los Angeles Police Department for emails between CD13 staffer Dan Halden and any LAPD employee from January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2018. Yesterday, eight months later, they produced emails from October and November 2018 with the promise of more to come. How we got to this point is the subject of today’s post.¹ Here’s what the request said exactly:

Per my rights under the California Public Records Act, please provide all correspondence between anyone who works in the Los Angeles Police Department AND daniel.halden@lacity.org, for the time period of January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2018. Correspondence is defined as all emails, texts or other communications.

To be honest, when I made this request in January 2019 I was expecting LAPD to refuse to produce the records on technical grounds,² And on January 18, 2019 they did exactly that. They gave two separate and mutually contradictory reasons for refusing to produce.

First they told me that “[y[our request does not describe the records sought clearly enough to permit my staff to determine whether any responsive documents exist.” This claim is based on the CPRA at §6253(b), which requires of requests that they “reasonably [describe] an identifiable record or records”. LAPD’s second reason for refusing to produce was that it would be too much work:

A search of email communications and correspondence for “anyone who works in the Department” would be unduly burdensome for the Department as interpreted in the “public interest” provision of section 6255 of the Act, and would require a separate search of each individual email account of approximately 14,400 Department email accounts.

Continue reading The Story Of A Request For Emails From LAPD — And All The Ridiculous Reasons They Propounded For Not Producing — And How They Then Produced! →

Business Improvement Districts, Lawsuits, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Katherine McNenny And I Prevail Against Chinatown BID In Our California Public Records Act Lawsuit — George Yu Didn’t Participate At All — From Start To Finish No One From The BID Showed Up — Which Is Not Enough To Win This Kind Of Petition — We Still Had To Prove Our Case — Which We Did Of Course — But Yu’s Ostrichism Also Led The Judge To Deem That All Our Requests For Admission Were Admitted To — Which May Have Drastic Long-Term Consequences For The BID — Far Beyond Those Directly Associated With Our Victory — Its Very Existence May Be Threatened — Let’s Freaking Hope So, Eh?

July 27, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

As you probably know, last year Katherine McNenny and I were forced by the unhinged intransigent refusal of psychopathic rageball George Yu to comply with the California Public Records Act to file a lawsuit against his Chinatown Business Improvement District. For reasons known only to himself, George Yu not only refused to comply with the statute, he refused to participate in the lawsuit at all.

We were seeking a writ of mandate from the judge ordering Yu to hand over the documents. It turns out that, in California at least, courts are not allowed to issue such orders merely because the respondents don’t show up.³ It’s still required that the petitioners prove their case. Which, of course, we were able to do, because it was righteous. So last Wednesday, July 24, 2019, the trial was held, before which the judge issued a tentative ruling granting us our every wish.

The whole trial lasted about 30 seconds and consisted of the judge asking our lawyer if he wished to be heard on the tentative. He said that he did not. The judge adopted the tentative as final and told the lawyer we could have our notebook back. You can get a copy of the tentative ruling here and a copy of the minute order showing that it was adopted as final here.

There are a bunch more steps before everything’s done. We have to serve the final ruling on the BID, the judge has to sign the order, we have to file a motion to get paid, probably will have to file more stuff to enforce all that stuff. These wheels have been turning very slowly since August 2018 when we filed, and they continue to turn slowly, but they’re crushing everything in their path as they turn.
Continue reading Katherine McNenny And I Prevail Against Chinatown BID In Our California Public Records Act Lawsuit — George Yu Didn’t Participate At All — From Start To Finish No One From The BID Showed Up — Which Is Not Enough To Win This Kind Of Petition — We Still Had To Prove Our Case — Which We Did Of Course — But Yu’s Ostrichism Also Led The Judge To Deem That All Our Requests For Admission Were Admitted To — Which May Have Drastic Long-Term Consequences For The BID — Far Beyond Those Directly Associated With Our Victory — Its Very Existence May Be Threatened — Let’s Freaking Hope So, Eh? →

Business Improvement Districts, Lawsuits, Public Records Act Pragmatics

George Yu And The Chinatown Business Improvement District Continue To Refuse To Participate In Our CPRA Lawsuit Against Them — Motion To Compel Response To Discovery Filed Yesterday — Along With Ex Parte Motion To Set An Earlier Date For Hearing Motion To Compel — How Did Anyone Decide That This Whiny Little Poobutt Should Be In Charge Of A Multi-Zillion Dollar Publicly Funded Enterprise?!

April 30, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

I mean, at this point all these posts about our⁴ lawsuit against the Chinatown Business Improvement District are turning out about the same. We do something and he ignores it and doesn’t show up for court or file papers or do whatever he was supposed to do. And the last such item was the discovery we served on the BID in January. And he just wouldn’t answer!

Well, the trial is coming up on July 24 and our lawyers have to have the opening brief in on May 24. So yesterday we filed a motion to compel the BID to answer the discovery and also to pay $3,160 in costs incurred because of Yu’s intransigence. But there’s an extra problem, which is that there’s no room on the court’s calendar for hearing the motion until July.

This would leave no time to incorporate the discovery information into the opening brief, so we’re doing an ex parte application to hold the hearing on the motion to compel sooner.⁵ It’ll be heard this Thursday, May 2, at 8:30 am in Department 86 of the Mosk Courthouse. Turn the page for some excerpts from the lawyer’s declaration explaining what a bad, bad boy George Yu has been.
Continue reading George Yu And The Chinatown Business Improvement District Continue To Refuse To Participate In Our CPRA Lawsuit Against Them — Motion To Compel Response To Discovery Filed Yesterday — Along With Ex Parte Motion To Set An Earlier Date For Hearing Motion To Compel — How Did Anyone Decide That This Whiny Little Poobutt Should Be In Charge Of A Multi-Zillion Dollar Publicly Funded Enterprise?! →

Business Improvement Districts, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Psychopathic Rageball George Yu Of The Chinatown Business Improvement District Continues To Refuse To Participate In The Case Against Him — So We Slapped A Bunch Of Written Discovery On Him — Including A Set Of Requests For Admission — Which He’s Got To Answer Or Else Look Out George Yu! — Sample: “Admit that YOU have a pattern and practice of failing to lawfully respond to California Public Records Act” — Let’s See What You Make Of That, George Yu!

January 23, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

Let’s have a recap! In August of 2018 Katherine McNenny and I filed a petition against psychopathic rageball George Yu, the supreme leader of the Chinatown BID, for his failure to respond at all to a whole series of requests for records under the California Public Records Act. Then in September the BID failed to file a response to the petition before the deadline and in November no one from the BID showed up at the trial setting conference.

And to this very day George Yu has done nothing at all to even acknowledge that there’s this case pending against his damn BID. Of course a legal system isn’t a viable proposition if people can just ignore it. Obviously at some point they can be made to participate. And according to the lawyers,⁶ step one towards this end is to serve a bunch of discovery on them! And that is just what they did this very day! Today’s kind of discovery comes in three flavors, and here they are:

Requests for Admission — This kind of written discovery, as explained by the Wiki, is “a set of statements sent from one litigant to an adversary, for the purpose of having the adversary admit or deny the statements or allegations therein.” I find these super-entertaining, so there’s a transcription after the break.
Special interrogatories — This is a list of questions that the BID has to answer, like e.g. “Please state ALL actions YOU took prior to August 15, 2018 to locate ALL of the RECORDS that Petitioners requested.”
Requests for production of documents — Just like what it sounds like — Hand over the goodies, NOW!

Anyway, one hopes that this will get things moving over at the BID. George Yu can’t go on ignoring the situation forever, and there’s no such thing as a psychopathic rageball defense, at least not in a civil matter. The next step is a motion to compel, and after that, who freaking knows?! What we really want here is the records and to establish a viable workflow for future requests. If there’s a grownup in the room over in Chinatown, now would be the time to put them in charge. Turn the page for a transcription of (most of) the requests for admission.
Continue reading Psychopathic Rageball George Yu Of The Chinatown Business Improvement District Continues To Refuse To Participate In The Case Against Him — So We Slapped A Bunch Of Written Discovery On Him — Including A Set Of Requests For Admission — Which He’s Got To Answer Or Else Look Out George Yu! — Sample: “Admit that YOU have a pattern and practice of failing to lawfully respond to California Public Records Act” — Let’s See What You Make Of That, George Yu! →

Cory Spencer v. Lunada Bay Boys

Lunada Bay Boys Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver Recommends That Because Defendant Brant Blakeman Failed To Preserve Text Messages After He Became Aware Of The Lawsuit He Must Pay Attorneys’ Fees And Costs For Motion For Sanctions And Cover Costs Of Additional Deposition On Subject Of What Happened To The Damn Text Messages!

December 14, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

For background take a look at this excellent article from the Times on this lawsuit. Also see here to download all pleadings in this case. You can also read all my posts on the case.

At this point the Lunada Bay Boys discovery-related complaints, cross-complaints, bitching, cross-bitching, moaning, cross-moaning, and so on and on and on have gotten so tortuously complexicated that there’s essentially no way to summarize them any longer. However, I will remind you all that there was a hearing on December 6 before Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver on spoliation of evidence by the City Defendants⁷ and most rapiest Bay Boy defendant Sr. Brant Blakeman.

At issue were some text messages that Blakeman failed to preserve. The texts were on a phone issued to him by the City of PVE, which is why they were involved. The plaintiffs asked Oliver to find that Blakeman and the City not only had a duty to preserve the texts but that they had been so adversely affected by their destruction that the court ought to make Blakeman and the City pay fines, pay fees, pay costs, their motions for summary judgment ought to be denied out of hand, and an instruction to the jury stating that they should draw an adverse implication from the destruction of the texts. Blakeman and the City argued that they didn’t do anything wrong at all because they had no duty to preserve anything. Just yesterday Magistrate Judge Oliver issued her report and recommendations on the issues raised during the hearing.

With respect to the City, Oliver found that while they did have a legal obligation to preserve evidence starting earlier than they claimed, no evidence was lost specifically due to the City’s inaction, so she declined to recommend any sanctions against the City. Blakeman, on the other hand, did a few bad things, according to the Magistrate Judge.

First of all, he did have a duty to preserve the text messages. Also he failed to take reasonable steps to preserve them. Finally, the text messages were lost because of his inaction, and this prejudices the plaintiffs’ case. However, Oliver declines to find that Blakeman did it on purpose,⁸ and so she declines to recommend the most harsh sanctions possible.

Basically, she’s recommending that Blakeman have to pay the plaintiffs’ attorneys for their costs and fees in bringing the motion for sanctions against him, and that he submit to an additional deposition that he pay for on the subject of what happened to the text messages. Additionally she recommends that the plaintiffs be allowed to present evidence to the jury about his failure to preserve and that if Judge Otero thinks it’s justified at trial, he consider allowing an instruction to the jury on what kind of inferences they can draw from Blakeman’s actions. Finally, she declined to recommend that Blakeman’s motion for summary judgment be dismissed a priori. Turn the page for transcribed selections.
Continue reading Lunada Bay Boys Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver Recommends That Because Defendant Brant Blakeman Failed To Preserve Text Messages After He Became Aware Of The Lawsuit He Must Pay Attorneys’ Fees And Costs For Motion For Sanctions And Cover Costs Of Additional Deposition On Subject Of What Happened To The Damn Text Messages! →

Cory Spencer v. Lunada Bay Boys

Lunada Bay Boys Magistrate Judge Oliver Files Amended Recommendation For Sanctions Against Sang Lee And Some Ferraras, Plaintiffs Respond To Blakeman’s and City’s Oppositions To Their Motions For Sanctions In Preparation For Tomorrow’s Hearing Before Oliver

December 5, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

For background take a look at this excellent article from the Times on this lawsuit. Also see here to download all pleadings in this case. You can also read all my posts on the case.

You probably remember that a few weeks ago Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver set a hearing for tomorrow, Wednesday, December 6, 2017 at 1:30 p.m. in her courtroom on the ninth floor of the Spring Street Federal Courthouse. The subject of the hearing is sanctions for Brant Blakeman and the City defendants for allegedly destroying or failing to preserve relevant evidence. They filed oppositions to the plaintiffs’ motions a few days ago, and yesterday the plaintiffs filed responses to these oppositions:

They’re both interesting, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of new material there. They’re quite plainly spoken as to the failures of defendants to preserve evidence. There’s a transcription of the response to Blakeman’s reply after the break.

Also recall that in late October, Rozella Oliver filed a report making various recommendations for sanctions against Sang Lee and Charlie and Frank Ferrara for their failure to preserve evidence. Last week she filed an amended version of this report softening some of her recommendations.
Continue reading Lunada Bay Boys Magistrate Judge Oliver Files Amended Recommendation For Sanctions Against Sang Lee And Some Ferraras, Plaintiffs Respond To Blakeman’s and City’s Oppositions To Their Motions For Sanctions In Preparation For Tomorrow’s Hearing Before Oliver →

Cory Spencer v. Lunada Bay Boys

Lunada Bay Boys Case: Magistrate Judge The Honorable Rozella Oliver Recommends Sanction-Slaps For 67% Of The Ferrara Defendants, Additional Depositions Concerning Discovery Shenanigans Of Those Same Ferraras And Sang “Friend N A Pirate” Lee, Allowing Plaintiffs To Argue Inferences From Missing Evidence Before Jury!

October 23, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

For background take a look at this excellent article from the Times on this lawsuit. Also see here to download all pleadings in this case. You can also read all my posts on the case.

Perhaps you recall that on Thursday, October 12, the plaintiffs and defendants Charlie and Frank Ferrara and Sang “Friend N A Pirate” Lee appeared before Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver to discuss the plaintiffs’ motion that these defendants be sanctioned for destroying a bunch of obviously incriminating text messages.

Today Oliver issued a Report and Recommendation on Motion for Sanctions. The document is well worth reading, as it summarizes the entire background of discovery disputes between the plaintiffs and these three defendants in a comprehensive, comprehensible style.

This paper is in the form of a recommendation to Judge Otero rather than an order. I don’t know for sure why this is, but I’m guessing it’s because this matter is beyond the traditional powers of Magistrates and Oliver is allowed to deal with it because Otero specifically granted her the authority to do so. His having done so, I’m guessing, makes it pretty likely that he’ll accept her recommendations, especially given their prudent, moderate nature.

In particular, she says that there’s no evidence showing that Sang Lee spoiled evidence on purpose when he had a duty to preserve it. She does recommend that the plaintiffs be allowed to depose Lee again to explore the issue of evidence. To emphasize that she’s not punishing him she recommends that he and the plaintiffs split the cost of his depo. The Ferraras, that is, Charlie and Frank, come off quite a bit worse, and you can turn the page to learn their fate and read a teensy bit of the document itself.
Continue reading Lunada Bay Boys Case: Magistrate Judge The Honorable Rozella Oliver Recommends Sanction-Slaps For 67% Of The Ferrara Defendants, Additional Depositions Concerning Discovery Shenanigans Of Those Same Ferraras And Sang “Friend N A Pirate” Lee, Allowing Plaintiffs To Argue Inferences From Missing Evidence Before Jury! →

Cory Spencer v. Lunada Bay Boys

Lunada Bay Boys Case: Charlie And Frank Ferrara Withdraw Motion For Summary Judgment, City Of PVE Releases A Bunch Of Formerly Confidential Material Proving Among Other Things That Former Police Chief Jeff Kepley Wanted To Charge Bay Boys As A Gang, More Papayans Text Messages, Powerful Plaintiffs’ Opposition To City Defendants’ Motion

October 18, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

For background take a look at this excellent article from the Times on this lawsuit. Also see here to download all pleadings in this case. You can also read all my posts on the case.

There’s so much going on right now that I barely have time to list the recent paper filed in the Lunada Bay Boys case, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff here.

• First of all, recall that during last week’s hearing on sanctions against defendants Charlie Ferrara, Frank Ferrara, and Sang Lee, magistrate judge the honorable Rozella Oliver strongly hinted to the Ferraras’ attorney, Alison K. Hurley, that she really ought to consider withdrawing her clients’ motion for summary judgment. Well, I suppose that when judges hint, smart people listen, and, additionally, it seems that Alison K. Hurley does as well. Thus on Monday the Ferraras filed this notice of withdrawal of their previous motion.

• Next we have the Plaintiffs’ supplemental brief in opposition to City defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The overarching issue is that the City of PVE has been so remiss in its duties to release documents that they’ve made it impossible for the plaintiffs to respond effectively to this motion for summary judgment. This is worth reading, and there’s a partial transcription at the end of this post.

• Also, this item comes with a statement of supplemental facts and a bunch of exhibits. These contain tons of super-interesting, formerly confidential, documentary evidence. The point is to enumerate all the ways in which the City defendants failure to provide this new evidence, some of it obtained as recently as yesterday, hindered the plaintiffs’ response. The new evidence is fascinating. There’s a list of links and descriptions after the break.

• Finally, there’s a supplemental brief in opposition to the individual defendants’ motions for summary judgment, which plays a role parallel to the analogous document for the City defendants. This too is well worth your attention, and there’s a partial transcription after the break. This also comes with a statement of supplemental facts, also worth reading, with lots of new creepy Bay Boy texts and so on.
Continue reading Lunada Bay Boys Case: Charlie And Frank Ferrara Withdraw Motion For Summary Judgment, City Of PVE Releases A Bunch Of Formerly Confidential Material Proving Among Other Things That Former Police Chief Jeff Kepley Wanted To Charge Bay Boys As A Gang, More Papayans Text Messages, Powerful Plaintiffs’ Opposition To City Defendants’ Motion →

Cory Spencer v. Lunada Bay Boys

Lunada Bay Boys Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver Rules That Mostly Plaintiffs Can File Supplemental Oppositions To Individual Defendants’ Motions For Summary Judgment But Not In The Case Of City Defendants For Some Damn Reason

October 3, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

For background take a look at this excellent article from the Times on this lawsuit. Also see here to download all pleadings in this case.

The discovery problems in this case are getting exceedingly hard to follow. At this point they seem to be divisible into two main categories. There are the motions for sanctions, which are set for a hearing next week. And then there is the plaintiffs’ motion for administrative relief, which is based on the various and sundry motions for summary judgment filed by the various and sundry defendants in combination with the fact that those various and same defendants have not been forthcoming with discovery materials. The argument is that without access to the discovery material the plaintiffs haven’t been able to adequately respond to the motions for summary judgment.
Continue reading Lunada Bay Boys Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver Rules That Mostly Plaintiffs Can File Supplemental Oppositions To Individual Defendants’ Motions For Summary Judgment But Not In The Case Of City Defendants For Some Damn Reason →

Cory Spencer v. Lunada Bay Boys

Lunada Bay Boys News Roundup: More Discovery Matters, October 12 Hearing Set Before Rozella Oliver — Tiffany Bacon Withdraws As Attorney To Ferraras — Plaintiffs File Memorandum Supporting Discovery Request For Work-Related Texts From PVEPD Officers’ Personal Cell Phones

September 23, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

For background take a look at this excellent article from the Times on this lawsuit. Also see here to download all pleadings in this case.

The latest episode in the ongoing nightmare that is the discovery process in this case is summarized in this minute order setting the schedule for dealing with the plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions against Charlie and Frank Ferrara and Sang Lee. You can read a transcription after the break to get the details, but essentially everyone has to meet and confer and a strict briefing schedule is set. There is an in-person hearing scheduled for October 12 at 10 a.m. in Courtroom F on the ninth floor of the Spring Street Federal Courthouse.

And turn the page for the story on the other items mentioned in the headline!
Continue reading Lunada Bay Boys News Roundup: More Discovery Matters, October 12 Hearing Set Before Rozella Oliver — Tiffany Bacon Withdraws As Attorney To Ferraras — Plaintiffs File Memorandum Supporting Discovery Request For Work-Related Texts From PVEPD Officers’ Personal Cell Phones →