Smith v. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center CA2/8

Filed 1/15/21 Smith v. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center CA2/8 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

BETTIE JOE SMITH, B297298

Plaintiff and Appellant, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BC680306) v.

CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER,

Defendant and Respondent.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Stephen I. Goorvitch, Judge. Reversed.

Bettie Joe Smith, in pro. per., for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Reback, McAndrews & Blessey, Robert C. Reback and Heather A. DeFalco for Defendant and Respondent.

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Bettie Joe Smith appeals from an order granting terminating sanctions. We reverse because the moving party did not, so far as the record shows, inform the trial court Smith claimed to have fired her lawyer for being unresponsive and swore she would cooperate with the discovery process as a self- represented litigant. I Smith filed her medical malpractice lawsuit against Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in October 2017. She claims she lost virtually all of her eyesight during several medical procedures between 2014 and 2017. She blamed negligence by Cedars and an associated doctor. Smith represented herself until April 2018, when she filed a substitution of attorney naming Franklin L. Ferguson, Jr. The next month, in May 2018, Cedars propounded discovery consisting of requests for production of documents, requests for admissions, and special and form interrogatories. Ferguson’s deadline for responding was June 25, 2018. Ferguson did not respond to the discovery. Instead he emailed Cedars that Smith’s “health challenges have temporarily preclude[d] her from assisting” with the discovery, so Cedars’s counsel gave Ferguson an extension to respond until July 30, 2018. Ferguson again missed this deadline. So in August 2018, Cedars filed motions to compel responses and a motion to deem admitted the requests for admission. Ferguson did not oppose the motions and did not appear at the October 2, 2018 hearing. At this hearing, the trial court granted the unopposed motions. The court ordered Smith was “deemed to have admitted