YANG vs LOYA CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION, 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.

24CV008747: YANG vs LOYA CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION, et al. 01/22/2026 Hearing on Motion to Compel Further Special Interrogatory Responses from Defendant in Department 53

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 forward the form to the Court Reporter’s Office and an official reporter will be provided.

TENTATIVE RULING:

Plaintiff Yang’s motion to compel defendant Loya Casualty Insurance Company’s (“Loya”) further responses to Special Interrogatory Nos. 7 and 8 is DENIED, as follows.

*** If oral argument is requested, the parties must at the time oral argument is requested notify the clerk and the opposing party of the specific discovery requests that will be addressed at the hearing. The parties are also reminded that pursuant to local rules, only limited oral argument is permitted on law and motion matters. ***

Both moving and opposing counsel failed to comply with CRC Rule 3.1110(b)(4).

Factual Background

This action arises out of a 2018 motor vehicle accident in which plaintiff Yang was injured by a vehicle driven by Mr. Chavez, an insured of Loya. Plaintiff Yang subsequently demanded Mr. Chavez’s $15,000 policy limits and after trial in April 2023, plaintiff was awarded over $1.7 Million in damages. The total outstanding judgment is now claimed to exceed $2.5 Million. In 2024, Mr. Chavez assigned to plaintiff Yang all claims and causes of action he had based on Loya’s failure to settle plaintiff’s claims within his policy limits, including claims or causes of action for “insurance protection, indemnification, breach of contract, negligence, fiduciary breach, Consumer Protection Act violations, violations of the [sic], bad faith, and attorneys fees.” (Compl., ¶8.)

The Court granted Mr. Chavez’s motion to intervene in October 2025 but it appears he has not yet filed his proposed complaint in intervention, in which he seeks inter alia recovery of non-assignable claims for emotional distress and punitive damages. Trial is currently set for 7/28/2026.

On 5/7/2025, plaintiff propounded a second set of Special Interrogatories on defendant Loya, consisting of five (5) interrogatories, numbered 7-11. Defendant Loya served its responses on 7/8/2025 and on 8/6/2025, plaintiff sent an email which expressed a

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

24CV008747: YANG vs LOYA CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION, et al. 01/22/2026 Hearing on Motion to Compel Further Special Interrogatory Responses from Defendant in Department 53

desire to discuss Loya’s response to Interrogatory No.

7. In sum, plaintiff claimed that Loya’s objections based on Insurance Code §791.13, Code of Civil Procedure §1985.3, and constitutional privacy rights are “misplaced” and that plaintiff merely “seeks generalized information about cases where a judgment exceeded policy limits [,] all of which are matters of public record.” (Mov. Decl., Ex. Q, 8/6/2025 email.) Plaintiff added:

Some courts have noted that even entire claims files of other insureds may be discoverable if relevant to the subject matter of the action or reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence. [Citations omitted.] [I]nstances of alleged unfair settlement practices may also be highly relevant to plaintiff s claim for punitive damages. [Citations omitted.] Punitive damages must be based on a showing of 'oppression, fraud, or malice.' (Civ. Code, § 3294.) To be liable for punitive damages, defendant must act 'with the intent to vex, injure, or annoy, or with a conscious disregard of the plaintiff’s rights. [Citations.]' [Citations omitted.] These elements may be proven directly or by implication. [Citations omitted.] Here, we are seeking much less than an entire claim file, just the generalized information noted above. (Mov. Decl., Ex. Q, 8/6/2025 email.)

In its 8/20/2025 email response, defendant Loya stated “none of the authority you've cited supports that you're entitled to more;” “our objections and responses are proper;” and “[u]nless you can direct us to authority to the contrary, we are not in a position to grant a 14-day extension [but] we are willing to extend your motion to compel deadline to Monday, if necessary.” (Mov. Decl., Ex. Q, 8/20/2025 email.)

Less than an hour later, plaintiff accepted the “short extension” but “disagree[d] with [Loya’s] assessment of the authority we [sic] provided,” concluding with a request for Loya to “confirm we [sic] have met our obligation to confer in good faith so we [sic] can proceed with filing a motion to compel.” (Mov. Decl., Ex. Q, 8/20/2025 email.) On the following Monday, 8/25/2025, the present motion to compel was filed apparently without any further genuine meet-and-confer effort by plaintiff.

Moving Papers. Plaintiff moves to compel further responses to Special Interrogatory Nos. 7 and 8, which are described as “relat[ing] to common subject matter, specifically Loya’s claims handling pattern and practice.” More specifically, the moving points & authorities assert the following:

Plaintiff Yang allege[s] that the bad faith conduct at issue in this case was 'part of a repeated pattern of unfair practices and not an isolated occurrence' and the 'Defendant Loya has engaged in similar wrongful conduct as to other insureds.'

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Plaintiff Yang has answered Defendant Loya's specific discovery request regarding he [sic] basis of these claims, which included the identity of prior similar bad faith cases and the names of other lawyers who know of similar instances of Defendant Loya's bad faith conduct.

However, much of the information needed to examine Loya's 'pattern of unfair practices,' naturally must come from Loya itself. As such, Plaintiff Yang propounded Special Interrogatory No. 7, seeking basic factual information concerning whether Loya has previously suffered excess verdicts against its insureds, a matter directly relevant to (1) the reasonableness of Loya's claim- handling practices, (2) whether its conduct here was part of an institutional pattern of bad faith, and (3) punitive damages.

Loya refused to provide substantive information, lodging a series of boilerplate objections and offering only a vague statement that it had identified six 'low impact' claims from 2018 to 2023 where the amount paid exceeded the applicable policy limit. Loya then refused to disclose any details, objecting that the answer raised privacy concerns and was unduly burdensome. This refusal is improper. Plaintiff is entitled to a further response. (Mov. MPA, p.3:8-24.)

Plaintiff claims that she is entitled to further responses because the information sought by these two interrogatories is “directly relevant to [her] bad faith claims; and “Loya’s burden and overbreadth objections are meritless.” (Id., at p.8:7-p.10:15.) Additionally, plaintiff maintains that constitutional privacy rights and Insurance Code §791.13 do not bar discovery of public information especially when §791.13 “has litigation exceptions;” “[t]he majority of the requested information is not private;” and “[p]rotective measures suffice.” (Id., at p.10:16-p.11:13.)

Opposition. Defendant Loya opposes, arguing that plaintiff Yang failed to meet and confer in good faith and that this motion “is substantively meritless.” The opposition contends plaintiff Yang “seeks information about irrelevant other claims;” the interrogatories are “overbroad and unduly burdensome;” the evidence relating to “other claims” will trigger “a series of mini-trials;” and the information sought “implicates serious privacy concerns.” (Opp., pp.10-20.) Defendant includes a request for monetary sanctions against plaintiff and her counsel of $9,000.

Reply. In her reply, plaintiff Yang maintains that she satisfied the meet-and-confer requirement and defendant’s argument about burden and overbreadth “collapses” under plaintiff’s agreement to limit Special Interrogatories Nos. 7 and 8 to only those

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

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automobile accident claims arising within the last ten years. (Reply, p.2:8-p.3:23.) Plaintiff insists that defendant’s limitation to “low-impact” cases is “self-serving and improper” and that a showing of “identical claims” is not need to obtain “pattern-andpractice discovery.” (Id., at p.3:24-p.5:27.) According to the reply, defendant’s argument that plaintiff Yang cannot recover punitive damages here “misses the point” inasmuch as “Defendant’s pattern and practice of low-balling claims is directly relevant to [the] breach of contract and bad faith claims, regardless of punitive damages” and ignores the fact that Mr. Chavez “does have a punitive damages claim.” (Id., at p.6:1-9.) Finally, the reply contends the asserted privacy rights do not bar the disclosure of public records with case names, courts, and verdict information. (Id., at p.6:9-18.)

General Legal Standards for Discovery

“[A]ny party may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action or to the determination of any motion made in that action, if the matter either is itself admissible in evidence or appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” (Code Civ. Proc. §2017.010.) “In the absence of contrary court order, a civil litigant’s right to discovery is broad...[and] statutes governing discovery ‘must be construed liberally in favor of disclosure unless the request is clearly improper by virtue of well-established causes for denial.’ [Citation.]” (Williams v.

Superior Court (2017) 3 Cal.5th 531, 541; see also Greyhound Corp. v. Superior Court (1961) 56 Cal.2d 355, 378 [“disclosure is a matter of right unless statutory or public policy considerations clearly prohibit it”].) Nevertheless, while civil discovery is broad, it is not limitless. (Board of Registered Nursing v. Superior Court (2021) 59 Cal.App.5th 1011, 1039 [citing Calcor Space Facility v. Superior Court (1997) 53 Cal.App.4th 216, 223].) It cannot be based on pure speculation. (Digital Music News LLC v.

Superior Court (2014) 226 Cal.App.4th 216, 227.)

The party seeking to resist discovery based upon objections has the burden to justify its objections. (Fairmont Ins. Co. v. Superior Court (2000) 22 Cal.4th 245, 255 [citing Coy v. Superior Court (1962) 58 Cal.2d 220-221].) Indeed, in the discovery context, information is relevant “if it might reasonably assist a party in evaluating its case, preparing for trial, or facilitating a settlement. [Citations omitted.] Admissibility is not the test and information, unless privileged, is discoverable if it might reasonably lead to admissible evidence.” (Lipton v. Superior Court (1996) 48 Cal.App.4th 1599, 1611-1612 [emphasis in original].) “Any doubts regarding relevance are generally resolved in favor of allowing the discovery.” (Mercury Interactive Corp. v. Klein (2007) 158 Cal.App.4th 60, 98.)

Discussion

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Meet-and-Confer Requirement. Code of Civil Procedure §2030.300(b) expressly requires that a motion to compel further responses to interrogatories be accompanied by a meet-and-confer declaration pursuant to §2016.040. This latter provision states in its entirety:

“A meet and confer declaration in support of a motion shall state facts showing a reasonable and good faith attempt at an informal resolution of each issue presented by the motion.” (Underline added for emphasis.)

This meet-and-confer requirement is “designed ‘to encourage the parties to work out their differences informally so as to avoid the necessity for a formal order.’ [Citation.] This, in turn, will lessen the burden on the court and reduce the unnecessary expenditure of resources by litigants through promotion of informal, extrajudicial resolution of discovery disputes.” (Townsend v. Superior Court (1998) 61 Cal.App.4th 1431, 1435.) To satisfy this requirement, the moving party’s declaration must show “that he or she has made a serious attempt to obtain ‘an informal resolution of each issue.’” (Id.)

In the present case, plaintiff has not only failed to demonstrate that she actually engaged in a “good faith” meet-and-confer process but also failed to establish efforts were made to obtain an informal resolution of “each issue” presented by this motion,” as explicitly required by the Code and related case law. First, while Loya served its responses to the Special Interrogatories on 7/8/2025, plaintiff waited nearly one month just to commence the meet-and-confer process and even then, plaintiff’s 8/6/2025 email was insufficient to foster a productive dialogue relating to Interrogatory No. 7, the only one specifically mentioned in the 8/6/2025 email.

Instead, this 8/6/2025 email purported to address little more than Loya’s objections based on Insurance Code §791.13, Code of Civil Procedure §1985.3, and constitutional privacy rights, while failing to acknowledge or address the various other substantive objections made in response to Interrogatory No.

7. As such, plaintiff’s 8/6/2025 email clearly does not address, or even attempt to address, “each issue” now presented by this motion” but rather substitutes generalized statements on broad issues in place of meaningful discussion of specific concerns tied to plaintiff’s allegations in this case, effectively making a formal motion inevitable despite the express meet-and-confer requirement which is intended to minimize the number and scope of discovery disputes requiring judicial involvement. Moreover, aside from the limited scope of plaintiff’s 8/6/2025 email, a substantial portion thereof attempts to justify the information sought by Interrogatory No. 7 by reference to the prerequisites of a punitive damages award despite the fact that as explained below,

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

24CV008747: YANG vs LOYA CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION, et al. 01/22/2026 Hearing on Motion to Compel Further Special Interrogatory Responses from Defendant in Department 53

plaintiff does not have a valid claim for punitive damages as against defendant Loya and while Mr. Chavez may indeed have such a claim, he did not propound the interrogatories at issue in this motion. Because plaintiff appears to have proceeded to file the present motion to compel on 8/25/2025 without any further genuine meet-andconfer attempt, this Court concludes that plaintiff has failed to comply with the requirements of Code of Civil Procedure §2030.300(b) and §2016.040 engage in a reasonable and good faith attempt to resolve each issue prior to filing this motion to compel and on this basis alone, the present motion to compel shall be denied.

Consequently, the Court need not proceed further but it does so in order to demonstrate additional reasons why the present motion to compel is subject to denial in any event.

Interrogatory No.

7. This asks defendant Loya to “[i]Identify each and every instance in which a trier of fact (including jury, judge, or arbitrator) awarded a verdict/judgment against one of your insured's [sic] for a sum in excess of the available policy limits.” The term “identify” calls for the (1) case name; (2) date lawsuit was initiated; (3) date verdict/judgment was entered; (4) county in which verdict/judgment was entered; (5) amount of coverage applicable to the underlying dispute; and (6) amount of excess verdict/judgment.

In response, defendant Loya asserted a number of objections including the attorneyclient privilege and/or the attorney work product doctrine as well as the following:

“[N]ot relevant nor reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence because (i) every claim is unique and handled on the facts and circumstances of that particular claim, and (ii) consistent with that, the mere fact that an excess verdict/judgment may have been entered against one of Loya's insured's does not mean that the claim was handled in bad faith;” “[O]verbroad, unduly burdensome, and oppressive because it is not limited in time or in scope to any of the issues in this case” since “the interrogatory is not limited to auto accident claims in the jurisdiction/venue at issue in this case and has no temporal limitation at all” and “is not limited to claims involving the type of injuries at issue in Plaintiff's underlying claim, including belated allegations of a traumatic brain injury:” “[C]ompound and also vague and ambiguous;” “[S]eeks information relating to the claims of non-party insureds that is protected from disclosure by Insurance Code section 791.13, Code of Civil Procedure section 1985.3, and their [constitutional] rights of privacy;” “[S]eeks information from the insurance claim records of non-party insureds, which are considered 'personal records of a consumer,' and Plaintiff has not complied

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with the pre-request notice provisions of Code of Civil Procedure section 1985.3;” and “[H]arassing and oppressive because Loya does not track, and thus is not able to readily determine, which claims in California resulted in a verdict/judgment against an insured for an amount above the applicable policy limits” and “would require a manual review of tens of thousands of claims to determine whether a verdict/judgment was entered and, if so, for what amount (not to mention how that amount was calculated). The immense burden of completing such a review, including the time and expense associated with the same, vastly outweighs the minimal, if any, probative value of the responsive information.”

Notwithstanding and subject to these objections, Loya responded as follows:

After a diligent search and reasonable inquiry, Loya was able to identify the California claims that were evaluated as 'low impact' where the amount paid exceeded the applicable policy limit. Specifically, from 2018 to 2023, of the over 80,000 total claims in California, only six claims that were evaluated as 'low impact' resulted in a final amount paid that exceeded the applicable policy limit. However, consistent with Insurance Code section 791.13, Loya cannot disclose any further information about those claims as that would amount to an unauthorized disclosure of protected and private 'personal information.'

The Court finds that as originally framed, this interrogatory is objectionable on various grounds including not being reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence and being unreasonably overbroad, unduly burdensome and oppressive given that Interrogatory No. 7 contains no meaningful limitations including but not necessarily limited to a limitation to a reasonable time period, a reasonable geographic region (e.g., State of California, northern California, etc.), and/or particular type(s) of underlying claim. Accordingly, defendant Loya was in this Court’s view substantially justified in asserting a variety of objections in response to Interrogatory No. 7 and declining to provide any substantive response. Nevertheless, defendant Loya voluntarily provided plaintiff with at least some of the responsive information.

Although the moving separate statement indicates plaintiff “will limit the information she seeks to claims arising in the last ten years and only those claims related to motor vehicle accidents,” this does not render this interrogatory immune to objection insofar as the proposed limitation on this interrogatory still sets no reasonable geographic limitation and would by its own terms still require Loya to search its claim records for all motor vehicle accidents occurring anywhere in the country in the last ten years, including the roughly three years after the April 2023 trial which resulted in the

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underlying judgment in plaintiff’s favor. Thus, plaintiff’s belatedly proposed limitation remains insufficient in various respects and in any event, the Court rules upon this interrogatory as propounded.

Notably, even if this interrogatory had been propounded in a different form and was limited to only those motor vehicle accidents occurring in California in the last ten years, the Court is on the present record persuaded by the opposition’s contentions that (1) no two insurance claims are identical and each is fundamentally handled based upon its own unique facts and circumstances and (2) the mere fact an excess verdict/judgment resulted does not necessarily establish the existence of bad faith.

As such, a further response to this still unreasonably overbroad interrogatory will likely result in a variety of information which will provide little, if any, aid to plaintiff’s attempt at showing defendant Loya had while her claim was pending some “pattern and practice of low-balling claims” and assuming arguendo it resulted in the production of some information pertinent to plaintiff’s effort, this Court is not persuaded that such evidence is necessary to prove the breach of contract and/or bad faith claims which were assigned to plaintiff Yang.

These claims are likely to be proven, if at all, based on the information reflected in the claims file on the underlying lawsuit. While purported evidence of some “pattern and practice of low-balling claims” in theory might have an arguable basis for admissibility, and only for a limited purpose, such argument must be considered in relation to the objections to such discovery.

Moreover, while plaintiff desires to establish the existence of a “pattern and practice of low-balling claims,” the unreasonably broad array of evidence sought by this interrogatory would not be relevant to any punitive damages award to plaintiff Yang insofar as she her current claims against Loya are premised on the assignment of rights she received from Loya’s insured, Mr. Chavez, and California law holds that claims for punitive damages may not be assigned. (See, e.g., Murphy v. Allstate Ins.

Co. (1976) 17 Cal. 3d 937, 942; Smith v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. (1992) 5 Cal. App. 4th 1104, 1111 [courts have barred assignment of claims for punitive damages].) The reply’s assertion that Mr. Chavez “does have a punitive damages claim” (Reply, p.6:1-9 [italics in original]) misses the mark given that Mr. Chavez did not propound this interrogatory to defendant Loya and it currently appears that Mr. Chavez has not yet actually filed with the Court any complaint in intervention despite obtaining leave to amend back in October 2025.

In light of the limited benefit the information sought by this interrogatory is likely to provide, the declaration by Loya’s Casualty Department Manager, Christopher Bennett, becomes particularly significant here. According to this declaration, Loya does not have any readily available means of identifying any claims or lawsuits that would be

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

24CV008747: YANG vs LOYA CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION, et al. 01/22/2026 Hearing on Motion to Compel Further Special Interrogatory Responses from Defendant in Department 53

responsive to either of the interrogatories at issue in this motion given that “Loya does not track claims by those metrics.” (C. Bennett Decl., ¶4.) Loya can determine how much was paid on a given claim but it does not track whether a litigated claim ultimately resulted in a verdict or judgment against the insured, the amount of any verdict or judgment, nor whether a claim involved any allegation of failing to reasonably settle the claim, nor does Loya’s claims handling software have the ability to search for such claims. (Id.) Consequently, Loya would need to manually review individual claim files to determine if they matched the parameters set forth in plaintiff’s two interrogatories and involved any of the above-noted issues regardless of where the claim was located or whether it bore any similarities to the underlying case. (Id., ¶5.)

This declaration adds that just for the period from 2018 to 2023, more than 80,000 thirdparty bodily injury claims were presented to Loya in California alone and it would likely take at least 15-30 minutes for a qualified adjuster to review each claim to determine if that claim would be responsive to these interrogatories but could take more time in order to determine the policy limits; the communications sent by claimant; whether there a claim of unreasonable conduct; whether it went to trial and if so, what the outcome was; and then to compile the responsive information, but some case files would take substantially longer to accomplish these tasks. (C.

Bennett Decl., ¶6.) Still, “using the conservative estimate of 15-30 minutes per claim” and the approximately 80,000 litigated third-party bodily injury claims in California from 2018 to 2023 (which is far more limited than the originally propounded interrogatories containing no temporal limits at all and which is one-half of plaintiff’s subsequently proposed limitation to the last ten years), Mr. Bennett estimates it would take roughly 20,000-40,000 hours to search for and obtain any information potentially responsive to these interrogatories and performing such tasks would also be extremely disruptive to Loya’s business since adjusters would otherwise be limited in their ability to handle pending claims. (Id., ¶¶7- 8.)

Mr. Bennett also avers that retaining a third party to conduct this search would not only be expensive and inefficient but also necessarily result in the disclosure of otherwise private and sensitive information to the third party. (Id., ¶8.) The declaration concludes with an assertion that the time needed to respond to these two interrogatories as originally propounded (i.e., with no temporal or geographic limitation, so as to encompass claims made throughout the country during Loya’s 50-year history) “would likely double” (or more) the above estimates. (Id., ¶9.)

The Court finds the above-cited declaration by Mr. Bennett, to which no objections were asserted, is sufficient to establish that Interrogatory No. 7 is unduly burdensome in light of the minimal benefit plaintiff is likely to derive from a further response. Nor would this conclusion be different if plaintiff had instead propounded its proposed and slightly more limited version of this interrogatory (i.e., limited to the last ten years). The party

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

24CV008747: YANG vs LOYA CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION, et al. 01/22/2026 Hearing on Motion to Compel Further Special Interrogatory Responses from Defendant in Department 53

objecting to discovery bears the burden of justifying its objections (see, e.g., Fairmont Insur. Co. v. Superior Court (Stendell) (2000) 22 Cal.4th 245, 255) and one objecting to discovery based on undue burden and/or oppression must demonstrate that the amount of work required to respond to the discovery is so great while the utility of the information sought is so minimal that it would be unjust to require the objecting party to respond. (West Pico Furniture Co. v. Superior Court (Pacific Finance Loans) (1961) 56 Cal.2d 407, 418-419; see also, Columbia Broadcasting Sys., Inc. v.

Superior Court (Rolfe) (1968) 263 Cal.App.2d 12, 19.) The above-cited declaration by Mr. Bennett meets this burden by averring facts tending to show the inordinate amount of time necessary to prepare a response to the two interrogatories propounded by plaintiff even if these interrogatories were otherwise limited to just those third-party bodily injury claims presented to Loya in California between 2018 and 2023, estimated to exceed 80,000, would take roughly 20,000-40,000 hours. As there have been no objections to the admissibility of this declaration or any portion thereof, it may be properly considered by the Court here.

Weighing against the substantial burdens established by the Bennett Declaration is plaintiff’s stated objective of proving that defendant Loya had at the time her own personal injury claim was pending (i.e., 2018-2023) a “pattern and practice of low-balling claims.” As discussed earlier, the objections are well-founded.

As discussed above, this Court is on the present record persuaded that (1) no two claims are identical and each is fundamentally handled based upon its unique facts and circumstances and (2) the mere fact an excess verdict/judgment resulted does not necessarily establish the existence of bad faith. Consequently, compelling a further response to this interrogatory (even if, as proposed by plaintiff, ‘limited’ to all motor vehicle accident claims presented to Loya anywhere in the country over the last ten years) is likely to yield a large variety of information which will ultimately have limited benefit to plaintiff’s attempt at showing defendant Loya acted unreasonably and in bad faith in handling her own personal injury claim.

It is worth reiterating here that plaintiff’s intention to prove some “pattern and practice” on the part of Loya will have no bearing on her ability to obtain punitive damages since she does not have a legal right to recover such damages in this case.

In the end, because this Court finds the amount of time and effort needed for defendant Loya to further respond to this interrogatory to substantially outweigh the likely benefit of this discovery to plaintiff, defendant Loya’s objections based on overbreadth, undue burden and oppression shall be sustained and no further response to Interrogatory No. 7 is warranted.

In light of the foregoing, the Court need not proceed further but it nevertheless does so in order to explain at least one other separate and independent reason for denying a

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

24CV008747: YANG vs LOYA CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION, et al. 01/22/2026 Hearing on Motion to Compel Further Special Interrogatory Responses from Defendant in Department 53

further response to Interrogatory No.

7. As noted above, defendant Loya timely objected to this interrogatory based in part of the protections afforded under Insurance Code §791.13, Code of Civil Procedure §1985.3, and the constitutional rights of privacy. By its own terms, Insurance Code §791.13 generally prohibits “[a]n insurance institution, agent, or insurance-support organization from “disclos[ing] any personal or privileged information about an individual collected or received in connection with an insurance transaction unless” certain conditions exist.

While the Reply correctly asserts that the provisions of this statute do not “create an absolute bar to discovery” and the suggests disclosure of the information sought by this interrogatory is permitted “when required by law or pursuant to court order” (Reply, p.6:16-17), this conclusory argument is insufficient. Plaintiff has failed to provide any authority demonstrating that the “disclosure” sought by Interrogatory No. 7 is “required by law” and there currently exists no “court order” compelling defendant Loya to provide a further response thereto.

For this reason as well, the Court declines to compel a further response to Interrogatory No.

7.

Interrogatory No.

8. Similar to the preceding one, this interrogatory seeks to have defendant Loya “[i]Identify each and every claim/lawsuit in which the claimant/plaintiff has alleged that Loya failed to reasonably settle a claim with the applicable available policy limits.” The term “identify” calls for the (1) case name; (2) date claim/lawsuit was initiated; (3) if claim/lawsuit was resolved, date of resolution; 4) county in which claim/lawsuit was litigated; (5) amount of coverage applicable to the underlying dispute; and (6) if applicable, amount of excess verdict/judgment.

In response, defendant Loya asserted essentially the same objections as it did in response to Interrogatory No. 7 but unlike its response to the preceding interrogatory, no responsive information was provided.

The Court will deny plaintiff’s motion to compel a further response to Interrogatory No. 8 for the same reasons discussed above in connection with Interrogatory No. 7, which are equally applicable here.

Additionally, although not necessary to this disposition of this motion, the opposition contends that plaintiff never actually met-and-conferred with respect to Interrogatory No. 8 but then “inexplicably included [it] in her motion.” (Opp., p.9:21-22.) This contention appears to be borne out by the 8/6/2025 email from plaintiff’s counsel in which the latter asks to “discuss [Loya’s] objection in response to Special Rog #7,” with no mention of Interrogatory No. 8. (Mov. Decl., Ex. Q, p.5.) While the Reply does generally contend plaintiff satisfied the meet-and-confer requirements prior to filing this motion, plaintiff nowhere points to any evidence which contradicts defendant Loya’s claim that plaintiff

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

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actually met-and-conferred on Interrogatory No. 8, separate and apart from No. 7, before filing this motion. The Court construes plaintiff’s failure to specifically address the opposition’s contention as a concession of its merits. (See, e.g., D.I. Chadbourne, Inc. v. Superior Court (1964) 60 Cal.2d 723, 728, n.4.) Therefore, on this ground as well, the present motion to compel a further response to Interrogatory No. 8 shall be denied.

Disposition

For the reasons explained above, plaintiff Yang’s motion to compel defendant Loya’s further responses to Special Interrogatory Nos. 7 and 8 is DENIED in its entirety. This ruling, however, is without prejudice to plaintiff’s right to propound more carefully crafted, narrowly tailored interrogatories.

Defendant Loya’s request for monetary sanctions is denied because the amount requested appears unreasonably excessive, the present motion appears to have been substantially justified, and the imposition of sanctions would be unjust under the circumstances here.

This minute order is effective immediately. No formal order or other notice is required. (Code Civ. Proc. §1019.5; CRC Rule 3.1312.)