Thomas Knowlton vs. Henry Speeth

Superior Court of California, County of Tuolumne Consolidated Calendar Commissioner Steven Streger

Department 5 May 6, 2026 8:30 am DA Case # Date Filed

8 CV67334 Thomas Knowlton vs. Henry Speeth 06/11/2025

Thomas Knowlton Attorney: Colin Jones

Henry Speeth Attorney: Marissa Vandersluys Henry Speeth Attorney: Marissa Vandersluys Case Management Conference FURTHER - Zoom Approved 06/11/2025 Complaint File Tracking 07/22/2025 High Density

Case notes are not tentative rulings. Parties and counsel are expected to appear unless this note indicates that “no appearance is necessary.” Unless directed otherwise, all participants may appear via Zoom: https://tuolumne-courts-ca-gov.zoomgov.com/j/1615813960?pwd=NTRMT0NwMDg5cnlYdzZ6VnBXWWFsUT09. [Passcode: 123456]. All matters set for hearing in Department 5 are assigned to that department for all pre-trial purposes. Parties retain the right under Cal. Const. art VI §21 to decline consent to the Commissioner serving as a Judge Pro Tem. By participating in the first hearing, or electing not to attend after due notice, parties are deemed to have stipulated to the Commissioner serving as a Judge Pro Tem for the entire case. See CRC 2.816.

This is a personal injury action, arising out of an automobile accident. Before the Court this day is defendant’s unopposed motion to compel plaintiff’s attendance at an independent medical examination with a neuropsychologist. The parties do not disagree regarding the propriety of an IME in the abstract; rather, they apparently disagree over plaintiff’s right to audiotape the examination and/r receive copies of testing material. Of note, the court file does not contain any opposition from plaintiff, so the “disagreement” appears to be illusory. Moreover, the court file does not appear to house any protective order, so this Court cannot tell if it is “protective” enough.

This Court is aware of the holding in Randy’s Trucking. Inc. v. Superior Court (2023) 91 Cal.App.5th 818, and other cases. As noted last year by the Iowa Supreme Court in Burton v. West Bend Mutual Ins. Co., 17 N.W.3d 340, 345 (2025): “these cases allow disclosure based on a balancing of one party's need for the information against the ethical restraints imposed on licensed psychologists, the commercial interests of the testing companies, and the need to protect the scientific validity of the testing instruments – which could be impaired from wide disclosure of the testing material.” However, the holding of Randy’s is often overstated, as the Court itself observed (sat 848): “Defendants and amici curiae urge us to create a bright-line rule limiting transmission of neuropsychological and psychological testing materials and raw test data, as well as audio recordings of examinations, to licensed neuropsychologists or psychologists ... The Legislature, however, has not codified the expert-to-expert limitation advocated by defendants and amici curiae. On this writ, our role is simply to determine whether, based on the rules of evidence, the trial court abused its discretion in ordering transmission of these materials to plaintiffs' attorney subject to a protective order.”

The trial court in that case made a decision to permit the dissemination of a recording and testing data. Since plaintiff has not objected to defendant’s request for the opposite, Randy’s is not dispositive except to note that this is an issue vested with the trial court. This Court sees no reason to permit audio recording, or transmission of testing data, at all absent a specific request from the plaintiff, and so far the plaintiff has not made such a request.

4/30/2026 3:47 pm