Family Law Tentative Rulings - Courtroom 20

The following Tentative Rulings will become the ruling of the Court unless a party desires to be heard. If you desire to appear and present oral argument as to any motion, it will be necessary for you to contact the Judicial Assistant by telephone at (707)-521-6836 by 4:00 p.m. on the day before the hearing. Any party requesting an appearance must notify all other opposing parties of their intent to appear.

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1. SFL089490, Homer Dissolution

            Motion for Protective Order and Sanctions is MOOT.  Sanctions are DENIED.

Facts

            Petitioner originally filed this action for legal separation on October 13, 2021, but on January 18, 2024, filed an amended petition for dissolution of marriage.  There are two children, one of whom is still a minor (the “Child”). 

            The matter is currently set for a review hearing on October 2, 2026, and an evidentiary trial regarding support, set for October 12 and 19, 2026.

Discovery

            As set forth in the Melissa Homer Declaration (the “Melissa Dec.”) attached to Respondent’s Request for Order (“RFO”) and Motion for Protective Order and Sanctions filed on July 1, 2026, Petitioner served Respondent on June 5, 2026, with unspecified discovery requests seeking financial documents and information dating back to January 2021.  The discovery was, as far as the court can discern from the information provided, intended to provide information relevant to the upcoming trial regarding support.  Despite some meeting and conferring regarding the propriety of the discovery, and Respondent’s request to limit the discovery to documents and information from January 2025 to the present, Petitioner refused to withdraw or narrow the requests.  Respondent provided some unspecified information going back to January 2025. 

Motion

            Respondent moves the court for a protective order limiting the temporal scope of the Discovery and relieving her of any duty to respond to Discovery for information or documents prior to the parties’ martial settlement agreement (“MSA”) of January 2025.  She also seeks monetary sanctions of $2,500.  She contends that the MSA established spousal support based on the parties’ financial circumstances of that time, rendering information prior to that date irrelevant.

            Petitioner opposes the motion.  He argues that the motion is moot since Respondent has already responded to the discovery and he is not going to file a motion to compel any responses.  He also argues that there is no basis for sanctions since Petitioner responded, he informed Petitioner that he would not bring a motion to compel, rendering the motion moot, and Respondent has no financial basis for the requested amount of sanctions.  He adds that Respondent never actually served him with an endorsed-filed copy of the filed motion, even though he has asked her to do so. 

Applicable Authority

            According to the Family Law Rules of the California Rules of Court (“CRC”) 5.2(d), and Family Code section 210, provisions applicable to civil actions generally apply to proceedings under the Family Code unless otherwise provided.  This includes the rules applicable to civil actions in the California Rules of Court (“CRC”) and the Code of Civil Procedure (“CCP”).  See, e.g., In re Marriage of Boblitt (2014) 223 Cal.App. 4th 1004, at 1022 (discovery).

            A party may obtain a protective order since the court “for good cause shown, may make any order that justice requires to protect any party... from unwarranted annoyance, embarrassment, or oppression, or undue burden and expense.”   CCP sections 2017.020; 2019.030; 2025.420; 2030.090; 2031.060; 2033.080(b).

CRC 3.1345 requires a separate statement of items in dispute on a discovery motion other than one where there has been no responses.  CRC 3.1345(a) expressly states, “Except as provided in (b), any motion involving the content of a discovery request or the responses to such a request must be accompanied by a separate statement.”  Subdivision (b) states that no such statement is required on a motion to compel where there has been no response, or where the court has allowed a party to submit a “concise outline” in lieu of a separate statement.  The separate statement must specifically set forth the full text of each request at issue; the full response, if any; the factual and legal reasons supporting the party’s argument; and other specified information as necessary.  Subdivision (d) adds, “A motion concerning interrogatories, inspection demands, or admission requests must identify the interrogatories, demands, or requests by set and number.”

Discussion

            According to the evidence before the court, the motion is moot, as Petitioner argues, and has been since at least August 4, 2026.  Petitioner states that Respondent already served responses to the discovery and Respondent herself states this in her motion.  Although the responses appear to have been limited to information from January 2025 to the present, Petitioner states that he informed Respondent on August 4, 2026, that he would not bring a motion to compel further responses or production, so that there would be no need for a protective order. 

            Additionally, the court has insufficient evidence to determine the validity of the motion, anyway.  Neither party provides a separate statement of items in dispute, or copies of the discovery, so the court has no information about what the discovery requests specifically seek.  Without this, the court cannot properly gauge the propriety of the discovery.  The parties indicate that they entered into the MSA, but, while the court record contains some indications of a settlement and various stipulations, the MSA has never been entered as an order as part of a judgment, and the court is not aware of any specific record of it or its terms in the court record.  The court therefore also has no information regarding the specific terms of the MSA.  Absent the above information, even if the court were to find matter not to be moot, the court would be unable to address the merits of the motion.

            The court finds the motion to be MOOT and that if it were not, the court could not in any case grant the motion based on the information provided. 

Sanctions

            CCP section 2017.020(b) states that on a motion for a protective order the court “shall” impose monetary sanctions on the losing party pursuant to CCP section 2023.010, et seq., unless that party acted with substantial justification or other circumstances make sanctions unjust.  In order to obtain sanctions, the moving party must state in the notice of motion that the party is seeking sanctions, identify against whom the party seeks the sanctions, and specify the kind of sanctions.  CCP section 2023.040.  Sanctions are limited to the “reasonable expenses” related to the motion.  Ghanooni v. Super Shuttle of Los Angeles (1993) 20 Cal.App.4th 256, 262.

The sanctions which pro-per, or self-represented, litigants may recover is limited to out-of-pocket costs such as paying for legal research, copies, transportation, and the like.  Argaman v. Ratan (1999) 73 Cal.App.4^th 1173, 1179.

            Fam. Code section 271 broadly authorizes the court to make an award of attorney’s fees and costs “in the nature of a sanction,” and “[n]otwithstanding any other provision of this code,” based on “the extent to which the conduct of each party or attorney furthers or frustrates the policy of the law to promote settlement of litigation and, where possible, to reduce the cost of litigation by encouraging cooperation between the parties and attorneys.”  The party requesting an award of attorney’s fees and costs on this basis is not required to demonstrate any financial need for the award.

            Respondent has demonstrated no basis for the sanctions.  First, as explained above, the motion is moot because Respondent served at least partial responses and Petitioner informed her that he would not bring a motion to compel further responses.  Although Petitioner indicates that he informed Respondent of this after she filed the motion, the circumstances lack sufficient information for the court to find that Petitioner acted without substantial justification or in any manner which would warrant sanctions as misuse or abuse of the discovery procedures.  The evidence in fact indicates that Petitioner acted reasonably in accepting the responses provided and seeking nothing more, even if the discovery initially was overly broad, a fact which this court is unable to determine.  Therefore, the court can find no basis for sanctions pursuant to the Discovery Act.  Similarly, nothing indicates that Petitioner has done anything to frustrate settlement or acted uncooperatively to warrant sanctions under Fam. Code section 271.  Finally, as explained above, self-represented litigants seeking discovery sanctions may only obtain actual out-of-pocket expenses regarding the discovery at issue, such as the filing fee for the motion.  Respondent, which is self-represented, has no basis for attorney’s fees and has provided no evidence or explanation which could warrant sanctions of $2,500, even if the court were to find sanctions to be warranted.

            The court DENIES the sanctions request.

Conclusion

            The motion is MOOT.  The court DENIES the request for sanctions.  Petitioner shall prepare and serve a proposed order consistent with this tentative ruling within five days of the date set for argument of this matter. The opposing party shall inform the preparing party of objections as to form, if any, or whether the form of order is approved, within five days of receipt of the proposed order. The preparing party shall submit the proposed order and any objections to the court in accordance with California Rules of Court, Rule 5.125.