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Covarrubias v. Walt Disney World Co.6/9/2003
xamination of plaintiff's samples revealed no slipping in the sleeve. Further, his inspection of the sleeves on Main Street the month before trial revealed no sinking. Moreover, one of defendant's employees responsible for inspecting Main Street testified that in eight years she had never seen a hole such as the one mother described, nor had any of her assistants reported that type of hole to her.
DISCUSSION
Discovery
Plaintiff served four sets of special interrogatories for a total of 251 questions and three demands for production requesting 110 categories of documents. He contends the court erred when it failed to compel defendant to provide answers or further answers to 89 interrogatories and 31 requests for production, most of which sought information about the alleged hole. We disagree.
"`Management of discovery lies within the sound discretion of the trial court. . . .'" (Save Open Space Santa Monica Mountains v. Superior Court (2000) 84 Cal.App.4th 235, 245.) We reverse the court's decision only when the challenging party establishes there was no legal basis for denial of the discovery. (Id. at pp. 245-246.) Here, plaintiff has not done so.
First, of the 89 interrogatories, defendant answered 51 of them, including 32 where it stated it was unaware of the alleged hole, to plaintiff's obvious frustration. But the fact that these answers were not the ones plaintiff wanted does not make them legally insufficient. In Holguin v. Superior Court (1972) 22 Cal.App.3d 812, the defendants responded to several interrogatories about an autopsy stating they could not answer because they were not present. The court denied a motion for further answers, stating: "We do not believe that plaintiffs had a right to different answers. . . . We know of no principle of discovery law which thus compels a party not only to prepare his opponent's case, but also to stipulate away his own. [Citations.]" (Id. at p. 821.)
Further, although plaintiff devotes 14 pages of the brief to a summary of the 43 categories of requested discovery and defendant's objections and answers, he does not point out why any particular objection was improper or why any specific answer was incomplete. Instead, plaintiff makes only the most general arguments, i.e., that defendant's objections were not appropriate for discovery, and that if the court deemed any request too broad as to time, it should have limited the scope rather than denying the discovery. But the rest of the discussion consists of only broad legal concepts, e.g., four-and- one-half pages of quoted material from Greyhound Corp. v. Superior Court (1961) 56 Cal.2d 355, almost two pages of which is reiterated in the reply brief.
Plaintiff repeats the exercise of summarizing the discovery in his reply, although the length is four pages shorter because only thirty-four categories are noted, and the summary of defendant's responses is more focused, directed toward defendant's unilateral limitation of the time and scope of its responses. But again, plaintiff has not told us why the court's failure to compel further responses was an abuse of discretion, as required. (Save Open Space Santa Monica Mountains v. Superior Court, supra, 84 Cal.App.4th at pp. 245-246.) To the extent plaintiff fails to make reasoned legal argument, we treat the issue as waived. (People v. Stanley (1995) 10 Cal.4th 764, 793.)
Jury Request
Plaintiff challenges the court's response to a question from the jury during deliberations, arguing it "effectively directed a verdict for [defendant]." Specifically, the jury asked, "Please clarify the meaning of `hole'[;] is a depression a hole?" After conferring with counsel
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