*1 On July 19, 2022, plaintiff C.B. filed a Motion to Compel Discovery and for Sanctions from defendant Moreno Valley Unified School District (“MVUSD”) (docket no. 137). Plaintiff asks the court to compel defendant MVUSD to promptly produce documents responsive to 110 Requests for Production (“RPFs”), as well as promptly conduct certain searches for emails and other electronically stored information (“ESI”) and produce responsive emails and “hits.” Plaintiff also asks the court to order defendant to pay $10,000 in sanctions due to defendant's months of delay in responding to the discovery requests, thus necessitating the instant motion.

The parties' positions are ostensibly set forth in a joint stipulation (“JS”), although defendant provided almost no explanation or support for its position (with spaces for its contentions frequently left blank), except to maintain the motion was unnecessary, since it is amenable to producing responsive documents and information. Plaintiff's position is supported by the declaration of his counsel David Clay Washington (“Washington Decl. 1”) and exhibits thereto, and by the declaration of his counsel Anna Rivera (“Rivera Decl.”) and exhibits thereto.

The parties came before the court for a hearing on August 9, 2022. As discussed further below, supplemental briefing and further telephonic conferences followed. After considering the arguments advanced and the record before it, the court now grants plaintiff's motion to compel and for sanctions for the reasons that follow.

A. The Case

Plaintiff C.B. is a Black, twelve-year-old student with disabilities. Compl. ¶¶ 1, 13. C.B. attended Landmark Middle School and Mountain View Middle School. Id. ¶ 16. At the time of the incidents at issue, C.B. was between ten and eleven years old, approximately 70 pounds, and in the sixth grade. Id. ¶ 13. C.B. has diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder, but his parents suspect that he may have additional undiagnosed emotional and behavioral issues. Id. ¶ 14. This action concerns four incidents where C.B. was handcuffed by Campus Security Officers and School Resource Officers over the course of four months.

Plaintiff initiated this action on February 2, 2022. In addition to defendant MVUSD, the named defendants include various MVUSD officials and employees, as well as the County of Riverside, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department (“RCSD”), and a Deputy Sheriff. The Complaint alleges twelve causes of action. Following a motion to dismiss, claims three and four remain against defendant MVUSD: (3) violations of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12132; and (4) violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, et seq. The following claims also remain against four individual defendants (among others) who worked for MVUSD as its Director of Safety and Security, a principal, and campus security officers: (1) unreasonable seizure and excessive force in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments under 42 U.S.C. § 1983; (8) intentional infliction of emotional distress; (9) false imprisonment; (10) battery; (11) assault; and (12) negligent supervision.

B. The Instant Discovery Dispute

*2 Plaintiff served his first set of Requests for Production on defendant MVUSD on November 24, 2021, containing 111 RFPs. Washington Decl. 1 ¶ 3. After defendant requested, and plaintiff granted, three extensions of time to respond, defendant served its responses on February 18, 2022. Id. ¶¶ 4-7, Exs. 2-5. Defendant did not produce any documents, but instead asserted virtually identical boilerplate objections to each RFP, stating the RFPs were vague and ambiguous, do not describe with reasonable particularity the matters requested, are overbroad and unduly burdensome, potentially call for production of confidential or private information, and are irrelevant. Id. ¶ 8, Ex. 5.

The parties met and conferred regarding the RFPs on May 11, 2022. Id. ¶ 10. Defendant said it would not produce any documents until a protective order was in place, but further stated that since the parties were finalizing a protective order, defendant would produce responsive documents and supplemental responses by June 1, 2022. Id. Indeed, defense counsel represented he had a stack of documents in his office ready to be produced once the protective order was finalized. Id. Plaintiff's counsel had in fact first proposed a protective order on June 17, 2021, but received no response from defendant MVUSD, despite following up several times, until April 8, 2022. Rivera Decl. ¶¶ 3-8, Exs. 4-11. The parties met and conferred about the protective order on April 14, 2022, and thereafter plaintiff's counsel emailed and called numerous times, with numerous failures to respond by defense counsel, until counsel for MVUSD finally consented to the protective order on June 2, 2022. Id. ¶¶ 9-17, Exs. 1-3, 12-16. The parties filed a stipulation for a protective order on June 2, and the court entered the protective order on June 8, 2022. Docket nos. 131, 132.

On June 9, 2022, the parties met and conferred once more, and defendant agreed to produce documents responsive to RFPs 1-110. Washington Decl. 1 ¶ 12, Ex. 8. As for RFP 111, which calls for emails and attachments transmitted from MVUSD's domain containing certain specified terms, on June 9 defendant agreed to provide plaintiff with all hits in its email system for plaintiff's surname, as well as the number of hits for the remaining terms so they could meet and confer to the extent the hits were excessive. Id. Although on June 2 defendant had stated it would produce responsive documents by June 10, at the June 9 conference defendant asked for more time to provide a production date, and after more delays on June 16 defendant promised production would occur by June 30, 2022. Id. ¶¶ 11-17, Exs. 7-14. Plaintiff demanded production by June 29; defendant did not respond to this demand, but on June 24 asked for an extension to July 19, 2022, which plaintiff did not grant. Id. ¶¶ 18-20, Exs. 15-17.

Plaintiff filed the instant motion on July 19, 2022, and the court held a hearing on the motion on August 9, 2022. At that hearing, defendant's counsel David Faustino stated defendant had finally produced some documents the day before. Counsel Faustino also made certain other statements that indicated, at a minimum, a lack of preparation. For example, he contended the version of the joint stipulation filed was different than what he had sent plaintiff's counsel, but there is no evidence of this, particularly since the joint stipulation does contain certain paltry position statements by defendant. No legitimate reason for defendant's failure to properly and timely respond to the requests was offered at the hearing. Nonetheless, because some matters needed to be resolved, at the hearing the court ordered the parties to meet and confer in a good faith effort to resolve their disputes, and then submit supplemental briefing describing what, if anything, remains at issue, and their positions.

*3 The parties filed their supplemental memoranda as ordered on August 29, 2022, with plaintiff's supported by another declaration of counsel Washington (“Washington Decl. 2”) and exhibits. Although there are differences in the supplemental memoranda, the parties generally reported: during their meet and confer efforts the parties reached agreement on certain issues but not others; defendant agreed to produce a number categories of documents by September 20, 2022, while plaintiff asked the court to order an earlier production deadline; defendant is continuing to investigate whether it has documents responsive to certain requests; and they continue to meet and confer regarding production of ESI, but plaintiff suggested if defendant is truly unable to perform certain searches that it contract with a third party to conduct the searches.

In light of the supplemental memoranda, on September 22, 2022 the court ordered the parties to file further supplemental reports by September 28, 2022, updating the court on the status of defendant's production of documents and ESI since the last reports. Supported by another declaration of counsel Washington (“Washington Decl. 3”), plaintiff reported:

Defendant simply reported one of its three attorneys of record was medically unavailable, and asked for another week for counsel to confer with his client.

Given this response, the court held a telephonic conference on October 6, 2022, during which defense counsel reported on the status of defendant's efforts to gather and produce the requested discovery. Among other things, defense counsel reported he was still working with the IT department on searching for certain data, confirmed defendant could produce email it had retrieved containing “Birdo,” and was still searching for other requested documents. The court ordered that, by no later than October 14, 2022, defendant MVUSD was to: (1) complete its search for documents responsive to the outstanding RFPs, consistent with the parties' meet and confer discussions, and produce the responsive documents located; (2) where responsive documents, videos, or other information cannot be located after a diligent and complete search, provide supplemental verified discovery responses so stating; (3) produce the emails and documents already retrieved containing the term “Birdo”; and (4) determine its email search capabilities and communicate those to plaintiff. The court further ordered that, to the extent defendant was not able to complete its searches and production by October 14, then by October 17, 2022, defendant must file a further status report detailing what remains outstanding, what steps defendant is taking to complete its searches and production, and how much longer it will need to do so for each item.

*4 Defendants neither completed its searches and production by October 14 nor filed a further status report by October 17. On October 18, plaintiff filed another status report, again supported by a declaration of counsel Washington (“Washington Decl. 4”), reporting that defendant had not produced anything else to plaintiff, and had not communicated anything to plaintiff. The next day defendant filed a status report stating:

The court held another telephonic conference on January 5, 2023. There was some dispute between counsel as to whether defendant had produced any additional discovery since October 19, but there was no dispute that defendant still had not completed any of the four items the court ordered defendant to complete by October 14. When asked to explain why defendant was now reporting its “Birdo” search resulted in 20 gigabytes of emails when at the October 6 hearing defendant stated it had already retrieved “Birdo” emails it could readily produce, defendant stated it had in fact only done a spot check email search earlier. Defendant stated it could clarify what does and does not exist in response to most of the RFPs, but would need until January 19, 2023 to do so, since MVUSD was still on its winter break. In terms of ESI searches, defense counsel reported he had no idea what had been done to work with the vendor since October 19, and it appears there had been no further search efforts since October 19.

Based on this, the court ordered defense counsel to confer with his client, counsel for the parties to confer with each other, and defendant to produce verified supplemental responses by January 19, 2023, with a further telephonic conference set the next day. The court also asked plaintiff to provide the court with a supplemental declaration setting forth his expenses incurred on this discovery matter since the August 9, 2022 hearing. Plaintiff filed the requested supplemental brief, supported by another declaration of counsel Washington (“Washington Decl. 5”), on January 11, 2023. The court will address any failure to meet the January 19 deadlines at the January 20 conference, but now issues its order on plaintiff's motion to compel and for sanctions.

Plaintiff moves the court to order defendant to produce supplemental responses without objection to RFPs 1-110, to produce all documents responsive to RFPs 1-110, and to conduct the agreed-upon searches for ESI in response to RFP 111 and produce the responsive ESI. Plaintiff also seeks sanctions for defendant's months of delay in providing substantive discovery responses.

*5 Rule 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).

A. Motion to Compel

As set forth above, defendant initially responded to plaintiff's 111 RFPs with virtually identical boilerplate objections, asserting the RFPs are vague and ambiguous, do not describe with reasonable particularity the matters requested, are overbroad and unduly burdensome, potentially call for production of confidential or private information, and are irrelevant. Because Rule 34 requires that objections be stated with specificity, boilerplate assertions of any type, including assertions of confidentiality, are improper in federal court. See, e.g., Walker v. Lakewood Condo. Owners Ass'n, 186 F.R.D. 584, 587 (C.D. Cal. 1999) (“Boilerplate, generalized objections are inadequate and tantamount to not making any objection at all.”); A. Farber & Partners, Inc. v. Garber, 234 F.R.D. 186, 188 (C.D. Cal. 2006) (“[G]eneral or boilerplate objections such as ‘overly burdensome and harassing’ are improper – especially when a party fails to submit any evidentiary declarations supporting such objections .... Similarly, boilerplate relevancy objections, without setting forth any explanation or argument why the requested documents are not relevant, are improper.”); Duran v. Cisco Sys., Inc., 258 F.R.D. 375, 379 (C.D. Cal. 2009) (“[U]nexplained and unsupported boilerplate objections are improper.”); Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. U.S. Dist. Court, 408 F.3d 1142, 1147 (9th Cir. 2005) (boilerplate privilege assertions are ineffective, and a failure to properly assert a privilege may “waive or otherwise abandon the privilege”). As such, defendant's objections are overruled.

Defendant does not in fact stand on its boilerplate objections. Instead, it has repeatedly promised to produce all responsive documents. But it has also repeatedly failed to do so, and repeatedly failed to follow through on its promises to conduct searches. Given this, plaintiff was well justified in bringing this motion.

Since the August 9 hearing on this motion, defendant has promised and been ordered by the court to complete searches, provide verified responses, and produce existing responsive documents, and it has failed to meet these deadlines as well. Accordingly, the court now grants plaintiff's motion to compel, and makes explicit (to the extent it was not already) its orders at earlier conferences and hearings:

1. Defendant MVUSD shall produce all documents, items, and other information in its possession, custody, and control, including ESI, that are responsive to RFP Nos. 1-110.

2. Defendant shall conduct the agreed-upon searches for emails and other ESI in response to RFP No. 111 (as well as RFP Nos. 1-110), and produce all responsive documents and information for those terms and connectors resulting in fewer than 5,000 hits, and meet and confer with plaintiff regarding those with more than 5,000 hits, including “Birdo.”

3. Defendant shall produce all responsive documents and information retrieved to date by January 19, 2023, and defendant shall complete its search apart from ESI by that date.

*6 4. As to ESI, by January 19, 2023, defendant shall have determined its ESI search capabilities and communicated those capabilities to plaintiff along with the status of its search efforts and any problems encountered. Defendant shall work with plaintiff on this matter, including permitting plaintiff's representative to look at the ESI searches, speak with those conducting the searches, and confer regarding what has been done to resolve any issues.

5. By January 19, 2023 defendant shall produce verified supplemental responses to RFP Nos. 1-111 either: (a) confirming it has completed its search and produced all responsive documents, information, and items; (b) where responsive documents, items, or information cannot be located after a diligent and complete search, stating this; or (c) where a search for responsive ESI is ongoing, describing the status of those efforts.

The court will discuss these matters and defendant's compliance with counsel at the January 20, 2023 telephonic conference. To the extent either side believes this order needs to be modified in some fashion, that may be raised at the conference.

B. Motion for Sanctions

Plaintiff asks the court to order defendant MVUSD to pay $10,000 in sanctions for its discovery failures, on three bases: (1) for defendant's issuing boilerplate responses to the RFPs inconsistent with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(g)(3); (2) to plaintiff as the prevailing party on this motion that was necessitated by defendant's failures, under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(5); and (3) for defendant's willful or bad faith conduct, under the court's inherent authority. JS at 18. Although defendant's boilerplate objections were improper, the court will not sanction defendant simply based on those objections; however, the court considers them in the context of defendant's conduct as a whole.

Rule 37(a)(5) provides that the prevailing party on a discovery motion is entitled to an award of its reasonable expenses incurred in bringing or opposing the motion, including attorney's fees, except no payment should be ordered if: (1) the motion was filed before the moving party made a good faith effort to resolve the dispute; (2) the losing party's position was substantially justified; or (3) other circumstances make award of expenses unjust. Plaintiff is the prevailing party on this motion, and as set forth above, this motion and all the efforts that followed it have been entirely necessitated by defendant's utter and abject failure to attend to its discovery obligations. Plaintiff made repeated efforts and accommodations for defendant to try to resolve this matter. Defendant repeatedly promised production by various dates, but only produced its first documents after this motion was filed, the day before the August 9 hearing. Defendant's only response to the sanctions request was to argue the motion was unnecessary (JS at 22), but it plainly was not. Indeed, to date the motion has not been enough, since defendant still has not complied as ordered and as it has promised.

Under these circumstances, an award of expenses under Rule 37(a)(5) is entirely justified. In the joint stipulation, plaintiff stated its reasonable attorney's fees on this matter to date were $4,750 for ten hours expended. JS at 22. Given the work recounted leading up to the motion, this is plainly a conservative estimate of time expended. In plaintiff's supplemental filing on January 11, 2023, plaintiff's counsel Washington confirmed his hourly rate is $475, and that since the filing of the joint stipulation he has spent an additional 28.8 hours on supplemental briefing, preparing for and engaging in further hearings on the matter, and in preparing for and engaging in further meet and confer. Washington Decl. 5 ¶¶ 3-8. A few of these hours would likely have been expended in any event in trying to resolve defendant's ESI issues. But it is fair to say that at least 23.5 of these hours were spent due to defendant's ongoing disregard of its discovery obligations. As such, the court could reasonably order defendant to pay $15,912.50 in expenses to plaintiff just under Rule 37(a)(5).

*7 Plaintiff also asks the court to sanction defendant for its bad faith in failing to comply with its discovery obligations. “Federal courts possess certain ‘inherent powers’ ” to manage their cases, which include “ ‘the ability to fashion an appropriate sanction for conduct which abuses the judicial process.’ ” Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Haeger, 581 U.S. 101, 107, 137 S. Ct. 1178, 197 L. Ed. 2d 585 (2017) (citations omitted). One such “permissible sanction” is an order “instructing a party that has acted in bad faith to reimburse legal fees and costs incurred by the other side.” Id. Such fee award may “shift only those attorney's fees incurred because of the misconduct at issue.” Id. at 108.

As set forth above, defendant has exhibited extreme bad faith in failing to comply with its discovery obligations. Defendant first obtained three extensions of time to respond to the RFPs at issue, only to then serve nothing but boilerplate objections. After meeting and conferring, defense counsel represented he had a stack of documents ready to produce once a protective order was in place, but then missed promised production dates in June and July, and only produced documents after the instant motion was filed. After further meet and confer following the August 9 hearing, defense counsel promised to produce more documents by September 20, but did not, and failed to consult with his client regarding efforts to retrieve ESI. At an October 6 conference, defendant represented it could produce “Birdo” emails already retrieved, only to later acknowledge it had in fact conducted only spot checks and a fuller search retrieved too many such emails. The court ordered certain production and other actions by October 14, but defendant not only failed to meet that deadline, it also failed to file a status report advising the court of this failure as ordered. Between October 19, 2022 and January 5, 2023, defendant essentially ignored its discovery obligations once again and made no further effort to search for ESI despite the outstanding orders from the court.

The only excuse defendant has offered is that as a school district, it is difficult to accomplish certain tasks while school is not in session. That does not begin to excuse its conduct here, particularly given the many months school has been in session while this discovery dispute has dragged on. Accordingly, defendant's bad faith conduct is another reason why defendant should be ordered to pay plaintiff for its attorney's fees that would not have been incurred but for defendant's bad faith discovery conduct, which, as set forth above, reasonably amount to at least $15,912.50.

Although the court would be well justified in ordering defendant to pay that amount, the court now orders defendant to pay plaintiff only the $10,000 plaintiff originally requested in the joint stipulation on this motion. The court does not order the full $15,912.50 in recognition of the fact that defendant has made some strides in responding to the RFPs and has to some extent been overwhelmed in trying to solve its ESI problems. This also recognizes that defendant's ESI work is not done, and defendant will likely need to expend more money in that effort. But the court cautions defendant that further disregard of its discovery obligations may subject it to additional sanctions.

For the foregoing reasons, plaintiff's Motion to Compel Discovery and for Sanctions (docket no. 137) is granted. Defendant MVUSD is ordered to search for and produce documents, items, information, and ESI responsive to RFP Nos. 1-111, and produce verified supplemental responses to the same, as set forth above. Defendant MVUSD is also ordered to pay plaintiff sanctions in the amount of $10,000.00 toward its attorney's fees incurred in connection with this motion.