RINGGOLD vs BURGETT INC., et al.

A Stipulation and Appointment of Official Reporter Pro Tempore (CV/E-206) is required to be signed by each party, the private court reporter, and the Judge prior to the hearing, if not using a reporter from the Court’s Approved Official Reporter Pro Tempore list.

Once the form is signed it must be filed with the clerk. If a litigant has been granted a fee waiver and requests a court reporter, the party must submit a Request for Court Reporter by a Party with a Fee Waiver (CV/E-211) and it must be filed with the clerk at least 10 days prior to the hearing or at the time the proceeding is scheduled if less than 10 days away. Once approved, the clerk will be forward the form to the Court Reporter’s Office and an official reporter will be provided.

TENTATIVE RULING

***NOTICE: EFFECTIVE APRIL 13, 2026, THIS DEPARTMENT HAS MOVED TO THE TANI G. CANTIL-SAKAUYE COURTHOUSE LOCATED AT 500 G STREET SACRAMENTO, CA. ALL MOTIONS NOTICED FOR DEPARTMENT 28 WILL BE HEARD IN DEPARTMENT 8C OF THE NEW COURTHOUSE. ALL PAPERS FOR THIS DEPARTMENT MUST BE FILED AT THIS NEW LOCATION AND WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE. ALL HEARINGS WILL TAKE PLACE AT THIS NEW LOCATION***

Defendant Burgett Inc. dba Pianodisc’s (“Defendant”) motion for an order deeming matters admitted against Plaintiff in pro per Edward E. Ringgold (“Plaintiff”) is ruled upon as follows.

On July 2, 2026, the Court issued a tentative ruling granting Defendant’s motion. In its ruling, the Court stated:

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

23CV006400: RINGGOLD vs BURGETT INC., et al. 08/03/2026 Hearing on Motion for Order Deeming Requests for Admissions, Set One in Department 8C

In opposition, Plaintiff asserts that he served responses after the motion was filed. (See Ringgold Decl., ¶ 4.) However, Plaintiff does not specify the date that he served the responses, and the responses are not attached to Plaintiff’s opposition. In reply, Defendant’s counsel declares that Plaintiff has not served responses. (Rediger Decl. ISO Reply, ¶ 4.)

Here, there is no dispute that Plaintiff did not serve responses to Defendant’s Requests for Admissions, Set One by the statutory deadline and did not obtain an extension to serve responses. The evidence before the Court indicates that Plaintiff has not subsequently served responses. While Plaintiff asserts in his opposition that he served responses after this motion was filed, this is disputed by Defendant’s counsel. Even if the Court accepted Plaintiff’s assertion that he served belated responses, there are no responses before the Court, so there is no way for the Court to determine whether the responses are in substantial compliance with Code of Civil Procedure section 2033.220. Therefore, Defendant is entitled to an order deeming admitted the matters specified in Defendant’s Requests for Admissions, Set One.

Accordingly, Defendant’s motion for an order deeming matters admitted is GRANTED.

The Court is required to make this order deeming the requests for admissions admitted, unless Plaintiff serves on Defendant’s counsel and files with the Court, before the hearing on the motion, verified responses to the requests for admission that are in substantial compliance with Code of Civil Procedure section 2033.220.

(07/02/2026 Tentative Ruling, pp. 3-4, bold in original.)

At the hearing on July 6, 2026, Plaintiff maintained that he had served responses after the motion was filed. The Court thus continued the hearing to today’s date and directed Plaintiff to file a supplemental declaration with a copy of the responses by July 13, 2026. Defendant was given leave to file a reply by July 22, 2026.

In his supplemental declaration, Plaintiff makes claims that differ slightly from his previous assertions. Plaintiff declares that he mistakenly believed his responses to the requests for admissions were included in responses to interrogatories that he served on January 16, 2026. (Ringgold Supp. Decl., ¶¶ 13, 16.) Plaintiff then declares that until the previous hearing on this matter on July 6, 2026, he “did not understand that Defendant maintained that it had never received Plaintiff’s responses to Defendant’s Requests for Admission, Set One.” (Ringgold

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

23CV006400: RINGGOLD vs BURGETT INC., et al. 08/03/2026 Hearing on Motion for Order Deeming Requests for Admissions, Set One in Department 8C

Supp. Decl., ¶ 17.) Plaintiff goes on to declare, “At the July 2026 hearing, the Court addressed the absence of the responses and directed Plaintiff to provide the Requests for Admission and responses [sic].” (Ringgold Supp. Decl., ¶ 18.) Plaintiff then declares, “Upon learning that Defendant maintained that the responses had not been received, Plaintiff promptly reviewed the matter and prepared substantive responses to each of Defendant’s Requests for Admission, Set One.” (Ringgold Supp. Decl., ¶ 19.)

Defendant’s counsel offers a different account of the events of the July 6, 2026 hearing:

At the hearing on Defendant’s Motion on July 6, 2026, Plaintiff claimed that he did not know when he was supposed to respond to Defendant’s served discovery.

At the hearing on Defendant’s Motion on July 6, 2026, when asked by this Court why Plaintiff did not file the January 16, 2026, responses that Plaintiff claimed were compliant as instructed by the Court’s tentative ruling, Plaintiff claimed that he did not know how to file the responses.

(Rediger Supp. Reply Decl., ¶¶ 3-4.)

Plaintiff’s supplemental declaration indicates that he just recently prepared responses after the July 6, 2026 hearing. (Ringgold Supp. Decl., ¶ 23.) These recently prepared responses are included with the supplemental declaration. (See Ringgold Supp. Decl., ¶ 24, Exh. A.) Plaintiff also suggests that he believed he had served responses to the requests for admission on January 16, 2026, but that realized he had not at the July 6, 2026 hearing. (See Ringgold Supp. Decl., ¶¶ 13, 16, 17.) Thus, if one were to only review Plaintiff’s supplemental declaration in relation to this motion, one would assume that Plaintiff actually did not prepare and serve any responses to Defendant’s requests for admission in January.

However, a review of Plaintiff’s supplemental declaration in relation to Defendant’s motion to compel responses to form interrogatories on today’s calendar reveals that on January 16, 2026, Plaintiff served partial responses to Defendant’s requests for admissions along with his responses to Defendant’s form interrogatories. (See Ringgold Supp. Decl. re: Motion to Compel Responses, Exh. A.) The requests for admissions responses only respond to Request Nos. 1-16, but the set of requests at issue in this motion includes 33 requests. (See Rediger Decl., Exh.

B.)

The Court finds that Plaintiff misrepresented to the Court, both in his opposition to the motion and at the hearing, that he had prepared and served complete responses to the requests for admission on Defendant. Indeed, on July 22, 2026, Plaintiff filed an omnibus opposition to this motion and Defendant’s motion to compel responses to form interrogatories and repeatedly asserted, both in his memorandum and in his declaration, that he had served responses to the

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

23CV006400: RINGGOLD vs BURGETT INC., et al. 08/03/2026 Hearing on Motion for Order Deeming Requests for Admissions, Set One in Department 8C

discovery at issue in both motions. (See Opp. Filed 06/22/2026, pp. 2:4, 2:8-9, 3:2, 4:7-12, and 4:24-27, Exhs. A-C.) Plaintiff’s supplemental declaration indicates that he learned at or after the hearing that the responses had not been served. However, Plaintiff had served partial responses, which he has produced with his supplemental declaration in relation to the motion to compel responses. Plaintiff’s supplemental declaration in relation to the present motion does not address the partially prepared responses or the fact that complete responses were not prepared and served in January as suggested by Plaintiff’s initial opposition to this motion.

Plaintiff also misrepresents the basis for the Court’s continuance of this matter. The Court’s continuance was based on the representation by Plaintiff that he had already prepared and served responses and that he had failed to file them because of a lack of technical knowledge and ability. The Court’s continuance was not an authorization for Plaintiff to prepare belated responses after the original hearing date.

Code of Civil Procedure section 2033.280(c) provides that a court shall grant a motion to deem matters admitted “unless it finds that the party to whom the requests for admission have been directed has served, before the hearing on the motion, a proposed response to the requests for admission that is in substantial compliance with Section 2033.220.” (Code Civ. Proc. § 2033.280(c), emphasis added.) Based on the events described above, the Court finds that Plaintiff did not serve proposed responses to the requests for admission in substantial compliance with section 2033.220 before the original hearing on the motion, contrary to Plaintiff’s representations to the Court.

Rather, Plaintiff appears to have served only partial responses before the original hearing and he did not prepare or serve responses to all requests for admission until after the original hearing on this motion. The purpose of the continuance was to allow Plaintiff leave to file the responses he claimed he had served in January 2026 so the Court could determine whether they were in substantial compliance with Code of Civil Procedure section 2033.220. This assumed that Plaintiff had actually prepared and served such responses, which he had not.

Nor do the responses to Request Nos. 1-16 served in January satisfy section 2033.280(c). In reviewing a proposed response under section 2033.280(c), the Court is required to “evaluate qualitatively the proposed response to RFAs in toto to determine whether it substantially complies with the code.” (St. Mary v. Superior Court (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 762, 780, emphasis added; see Katayama v. Continental Investment Group (2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 898, 908 [noting that a proposed response under section 2033.280(c) is to be “assess[ed] as a collective whole”].) Here, assessing Plaintiff’s proposed response served in January as a collective whole compels the conclusion that it does not substantially comply with section 2033.220, since more than half of the requests were not answered.

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

23CV006400: RINGGOLD vs BURGETT INC., et al. 08/03/2026 Hearing on Motion for Order Deeming Requests for Admissions, Set One in Department 8C

Accordingly, Defendant’s motion to deem matters admitted is GRANTED. The matters specified in Defendant’s Requests for Admission, Set One, are deemed admitted.

Plaintiff’s supplemental declaration includes assertions that his failure to serve timely responses was due to mistake, inadvertence, or excusable neglect. (See Ringgold Supp. Decl., ¶¶ 22, 27, 28.) To the extent Plaintiff is seeking relief from waiver of objections or to withdraw the deemed admissions, the request is denied without prejudice to Plaintiff filing a separately noticed motion for relief from waiver of objections or to withdraw admissions. (See Code Civ. Proc. §§ 2033.280(a) [authorizing trial court to relieve waiver of objections “on motion”], 2033.300(a) [authorizing a party to withdraw an admission “only on leave of court granted after notice to all parties”].)

In its July 2, 2026 tentative ruling, the Court granted Defendant’s sanctions requests and imposed sanctions in the amount of $1,410.00, representing 3.0 hours at $450.00 per hour and the $60.00 filing fee. Defendant’s counsel declares that she spent an additional 1.5 hours reviewing Plaintiff’s supplemental declaration and drafting Defendant’s supplemental reply, resulting in $675.00 in additional fees. Sanctions are mandatory even if the motion to deem matters admitted had been denied under section 2033.280(c). (See Katayama, supra, 105 Cal.App.5th at p. 909.)

The Court finds the additional $675.00 to be reasonable. Thus, Defendant’s request for monetary sanctions is GRANTED in the amount of $2,085.00, representing 4.5 hours at $450.00 per hour and the $60.00 filing fee. Sanctions shall be paid by no later than August 17, 2026, and if not paid by that date, Defendant may prepare for the Court’s signature a formal order granting the sanctions, which may then be enforced as a separate judgment. (Newland v. Superior Court (1995) 40 Cal.App.4th 608, 615.)

This minute order is effective immediately. No formal order or other notice is required. (Code Civ. Proc. § 1019.5; Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.1312.)