*1 On June 12, 2021, plaintiff filed a motion to compel defendant County of San Bernardino to provide supplemental responses to Requests for Production of Documents Sets 2 and 3. Docket no. 191. Plaintiff's motion is supported by the declaration of plaintiff's counsel Stephen D. Daner (“Daner Decl.”) and exhibits thereto. Plaintiff filed a notice of non-opposition to the motion on June 23, 2021. On June 29, 2021, plaintiff filed a reply in support of her motion to compel, which is further supported by a declaration of plaintiff's counsel (“Daner Reply Decl.”). Plaintiff then filed a supplemental declaration of plaintiff's counsel (“Daner Supp. Decl. 1”) in support of her motion to compel on July 9, 2021, and a second supplemental declaration of plaintiff's counsel (“Daner Supp. Decl. 2”) on July 12, 2021.

The parties came before the court for a hearing via videoconference on July 13, 2021. After considering the arguments advanced and the record before it, the court now grants plaintiff's motion to compel for the reasons that follow.

Plaintiff Jennifer Gerrie, individually and as a personal representative of her deceased daughter Makayla Massey, filed the operative Second Amended Complaint (“SAC”) on February 18, 2020, alleging eight causes of action: (1) 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Unwarranted Seizure; (2) 42 U.S.C § 1983 Deception in the Presentation of Evidence; (3) 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Failure to Provide Minimally Adequate Care and Maintain Safety and Security; (4) Monell Related Claim; (5) Wrongful death; (6) Breach of Mandatory Duties; (7) Breach of Duties Imposed Under Special Relationship; and (8) Negligence.

A few weeks earlier, on January 23, 2020, plaintiff served her second set of Requests for Production of Documents (“RFPs”), containing RFP Nos. 45-61, on defendant County of San Bernardino. Daner Decl. ¶ 1, Ex. A. On March 20, 2020, in response to RFP Set 2, defendant refused to produce any electronically stored information (“ESI”). Id. ¶ 2, Ex. C. Instead, defendant only produced static PDF printouts of various documents, including but not limited to xerox copies of PowerPoint presentations. Id. ¶ 2. On April 28, 2020, in a meet and confer letter, plaintiff agreed to modify RFP Nos. 57-61, and limited these requests to January 2014 through May 2018. Id. Plaintiff served her third set of RFPs, containing RFP Nos. 62-99, on defendant on June 26, 2020. Id. ¶ 1, Ex. B.

On July 27, 2020, plaintiff's counsel sent a meet and confer letter requesting that defendant provide all responsive documents and ESI. Id. ¶ 4, Ex. E. On July 31, 2020, plaintiff spoke with defense counsel Mark Rudy and explained that no ESI had been produced, and that the policy handbooks that had been previously produced were incomplete and not responsive. Id. ¶ 5. In response, defense counsel promised to provide supplemental responses to RFP Set 2. Id., Ex. F. On August 20, 2020, defense counsel requested a one-week extension until August 28, 2020 to provide supplemental responses to RFP Set 2 and ESI. Id. ¶ 6. On August 28, 2020, plaintiff spoke with defense counsel regarding the status of defendant's supplemental responses to RFP Set 2 and he assured plaintiff that he was getting the responses and ESI together, but requested a brief extension until August 31, 2020, which plaintiff granted. Id., Ex. G. Defendant failed to fulfill its promise, and did not provide any ESI. Id. On August 31, 2020, defendant served its responses to RFP Set 3, in which defendant interposed objections and refused to provide any ESI. Id. ¶ 3, Ex. D. Although defendant promised to produce responsive documents, defendant again failed to fulfill its promise. Id.

*2 On January 19, 2021, plaintiff sent a follow up meet and confer letter, and again requested that defendant fulfill its promise and provide all responsive ESI in its native format for RFP Set 2. Id. ¶ 7, Ex. H. On February 2, 2021, defense counsel Jacqueline Shulman requested an extension until February 17, 2021 to respond to plaintiff's meet and confer letter. Id. ¶ 8. In response, plaintiff granted a one-time, and final extension, until February 10, 2021 to produce the promised supplemental responses and ESI. Id. Defense counsel Shulman explained that she was coordinating with defense counsel Rudy to fulfill defendant's promises to produce the responsive documents. Id., Ex. I. On February 16, 2021, defense counsel again promised to provide supplemental responses to RFP Set 2 and produce all ESI in its native format by February 18, 2021. Id. ¶ 9. On February 22, 2021, defendant served supplemental responses to plaintiff's RFP Set 2. Id. But defendant refused to produce ESI in its native format, and further failed to produce complete and responsive policy handbooks. Id., Exs. J-K. For example, the policy handbooks that defendant referenced in its supplemental responses were not in effect during the underlying events in May and June 2018, and instead they included revisions from November 2018. Id.

On March 2, 2021, plaintiff sent a meet and confer letter regarding defendant's responses to RFP Set 3, in which plaintiff requested that defendant withdraw its boilerplate objections and provide all responsive ESI. Id. ¶ 10, Ex. L. Plaintiff also agreed to modify RFP Nos. 84-99, and limited these requests to January 2014 through May 2018. Id. On March 17, 2021, plaintiff sent defendant another meet and confer letter regarding defendant's supplemental responses to RFP Set 2, and again requested that defendant fulfill its promise to produce all responsive ESI in its native format. Id. ¶ 11, Ex. M. Plaintiff spoke with defense counsel Rudy on March 24, 2021, and he promised to withdraw defendant's boilerplate objections and provide supplemental responses to RFP Sets 2 and 3 within 20 days, i.e. by April 13, 2021. Id. ¶ 12. But defendant again failed to fulfill its promise, and did not provide supplemental responses, the appropriate policies, or responsive ESI. Id. On April 29, 2021, plaintiff again demanded that defendant fulfill its promise to provide supplemental responses and produce the ESI by May 5, 2021, and stated that she would seek judicial intervention if defendant failed to comply. Id. ¶ 13, Ex. N.

On May 5, plaintiff spoke with defense counsel Shulman, and she explained that her co-counsel Rudy was in a deposition, and again requested a brief extension to provide the promised supplemental responses and ESI by May 7, 2021, which plaintiff granted. Id., Ex. O. But defendant again failed to produce the responsive supplemental responses and ESI by the May 7 deadline, or at all. Id. ¶ 15; Daner Supp. Decl. 1 ¶ 62. On June 4, 2021, plaintiff emailed defendant her portion of the joint stipulation, and requested that defendant provide its portion by June 11, 2021. Daner Decl. ¶ 16, Ex. P. Defendant failed to timely provide its portion of the joint stipulation. Id. Plaintiff proceeded with filing the instant motion on June 12, 2021.

On July 2, 2021, plaintiff received an email from defense counsel Rudy regarding plaintiff's motion to compel RFP Sets 2-3, in which Rudy requested that plaintiff continue the motion to compel and participate in an informal conference to resolve their issues. Daner Supp. Decl. 1 ¶ 70, Ex. V at 7. In response, plaintiff proposed a meet and confer on July 8, 2021. Id., Ex. V at 6. On July 6, 2021, defendant again proposed that plaintiff continue the motion to compel, and restart all meet and confer efforts. Id. ¶ 71. Plaintiff responded that the parties already met and conferred extensively on these issues, and defendant promised to produce responsive ESI. Id. ¶ 72. Nonetheless, on July 12, 2021, the parties participated in another meet and confer call, in which they discussed defendant's objections, and the production of responsive electronic PDFs and ESI in active native format. Daner Supp. Decl. 2 ¶¶ 2, 4.

As an initial matter, the instant motion was not filed in the form of a joint stipulation as required for all discovery motions under Local Rule 37-2. But that requirement is excused where a party has failed to provide its portion of the joint stipulation in a timely manner in accordance with Local Rule 37-2.2. L.R. 37-2.4. Here, plaintiff repeatedly met and conferred with defendant regarding the disputes at issue in this motion, and provided defendant with a proposed joint stipulation regarding the instant motion to compel on June 4, 2021, but defendant failed to respond. Daner Decl. ¶ 16, Ex. P; Daner Supp. Decl. 1 ¶¶ 51-52, 62. As such, plaintiff's failure to file a joint stipulation is excused. See L.R. 37-2.4.

A. Discovery Standards

*3 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b) permits “discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). To be relevant, the information sought “need not be admissible in evidence”; however, it must be “proportional to the needs of the case.” Id. In determining the needs of the case, the court “consider[s] the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties' relative access to relevant information, the parties' resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.” Id. A “relevant matter” under Rule 26(b)(1) is any matter that “bears on, or that reasonably could lead to other matters that could bear on, any issue that is or may be in the case.” Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 351, 98 S. Ct. 2380, 57 L. Ed. 2d 253 (1978). Relevancy should be “construed ‘liberally and with common sense’ and discovery should be allowed unless the information sought has no conceivable bearing on the case.” Soto v. City of Concord, 162 F.R.D. 603, 610 (N.D. Cal. 1995) (quoting Miller v. Pancucci, 141 F.R.D. 292, 296 (C.D. Cal. 1992)).

A party may request documents “in the responding party's possession, custody, or control.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a)(1). The responding party must respond in writing and is obligated to produce all specified relevant and nonprivileged documents, tangible things, or electronically stored information in its “possession, custody, or control” on the date specified. Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a). Alternatively, a party may state an objection to a request, including the reasons. Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(A)-(B).

B. Defendant Must Produce All Documents and ESI Responsive to RFP Sets 2-3

Plaintiff moves the court to compel defendant County of San Bernardino to produce supplemental responses to plaintiff's RFP Sets 2 and 3 (specifically to RFP Nos. 54-58, 61, and 68-99), to overrule defendant's boilerplate objections, and to order defendant to produce all responsive documents and ESI in its native format. RFP Sets 2 and 3 request, in large part, that defendant produce documents relating to its policies, procedures, and training, including all responsive ESI.

Plaintiff met and conferred with defendant over the past year regarding the discovery requests at issue, and defendant repeatedly promised to produce supplemental responses to RFP Sets 2 and 3, and to produce all responsive ESI in its native format. See Daner Decl. ¶¶ 3, 5-6, 8-9, 12-16. Despite these promises, defendant has failed to provide supplemental responses to RFP Sets 2 and 3 and all responsive ESI. Id.; Daner Supp. Decl. 1 ¶¶ 43, 47-50. Instead, defendant has provided only static PDF printouts of various documents, including PowerPoint presentations, Word printouts, and Policy Handbooks. See Daner Decl. ¶ 2. Further, defendant has failed to produce complete and responsive policy handbooks, because the ones defendant referenced in its supplemental responses were not in effect during the underlying events in May and June 2018, and instead they included revisions from November 2018. Id. ¶ 9, Exs. J-K.

Defendant appears to have withheld responsive ESI on the ground that plaintiff's request for ESI in its native format is overbroad and disproportionate to the needs of the case. But aside from its general boilerplate objections to the requests as overbroad, defendant failed to raise any specific objection to plaintiff's request for the production of ESI in its native format, either in its written responses or during the course of the parties' meet and confer efforts over the past year. See Daner Decl., Exs. C-D; Daner Supp. Decl. 1 ¶¶ 21, 38, 49. Defendant did not even raise the matter in an opposition to the instant motion to compel. The court thus finds defendant has waived any ground for objection to plaintiff's request for ESI in its native format. See Mancia v. Mayflower Textile Servs. Co., 253 F.R.D. 354, 363-64 (D. Md. 2008) (asserting only boilerplate, non-particularized objections waives any legitimate objection responding party may have had) (citation omitted).

*4 Indeed, since defendant entirely failed to oppose the instant motion to compel by the June 22, 2021 deadline (see L.R. 7-9), or at all, defendant has consented to the granting of this motion. See L.R. 7-12. Given that defendant never raised any issue with the scope of plaintiff's request for ESI during the parties' meet and confer efforts, refused to comply with its promise to supplement its responses to RFP Sets 2 and 3 and produce all responsive ESI despite being given substantial time to comply, and failed to oppose the instant motion, plaintiff's motion to compel is plainly justified. The court therefore overrules defendant's objections to the RFPs in question, and grants plaintiff's motion to compel in full.

Although plaintiff's need to file a motion to compel given defendant's failure to produce ESI as promised is plain, defendant did continue to discuss the production of ESI with plaintiff right up to the hearing on this motion, and defendant does not really dispute much of what plaintiff asks the court to order. See Daner Supp. Decl. 2. Yet at the hearing, defendant asked the court to narrow the time period for which defendant must produce requested training materials. This the court will not do. Defendant's request is untimely and improper; it should have been raised in a timely written response to the motion to compel, not at a hearing with plaintiff given no opportunity to properly respond. And in any event, plaintiff persuasively explained that she seeks five years of training materials since training is not always given yearly on each topic.

The only remaining issues are the timing and manner of production. Plaintiff asks the court to order defendant to produce all responsive ESI within 14 days, whereas defendant states it needs 60 days. Daner Supp. Decl. 2 ¶¶ 10-11. After such a long delay, plaintiff is right to want immediate production, but there is little point in the court issuing an order that cannot be met. Accordingly, the court will require defendant to complete its production of all responsive ESI within 45 days, but this must be a rolling production, with defendant producing responsive information as it is able to rather than waiting until the 45th day to produce everything.

As for the manner of production, plaintiff moves to compel defendant to produce ESI in native format, with responsive documents and information organized and labeled to correspond to the categories in the request. Defendant did not oppose the motion. Plaintiff also states it already met and conferred extensively with counsel Rudy about this issue, and there should be no dispute. That may be, but so that there is no confusion, the court orders the parties to confer further about the precise format for production. Plaintiff represents that she wants defendant to produce documents just as it has in other cases (see, e.g., Daner Supp. Decl. 1 ¶¶ 67-68, 72); this is reasonable. Accordingly, the court orders defendant to produce documents and information organized and labeled to correspond to the categories in the request, with ESI produced in native format. But so that there is no misunderstanding, the parties should confer to confirm precisely how the information will be produced. If there is some dispute about whether defendant is able to produce the information in question as plaintiff requests, or if some other dispute arises, the parties must meet and confer in an attempt to resolve the dispute. If they are unable to do so, they may seek the court's assistance by way of an informal telephonic conference if they believe it would be useful.

Based on the foregoing, it is hereby ordered that plaintiff's motion to compel defendant to provide supplemental responses to RFP Sets 2-3 (docket no. 191) is granted as set forth above. Defendant is ordered to produce all documents and ESI, in its native format, responsive to RFP Sets 2-3 by August 30, 2021, with production occurring on a rolling basis.