Case Number: BC656333 Hearing Date: June 28, 2018 Dept: 51
Defendants’ motion to compel further responses to special interrogatories, set one is GRANTED. Code-compliant responses are ordered within 21 days. No sanctions.
***
Regarding defendant’s motion to compel depositions, the Court’s view is that the parties should meet and confer at the courthouse before this hearing and agree on dates for depositions of five of the six deponents, which the Court will order and take the deposition motion off calendar.
Depositions of Ricardo Saravin and Debbie Islas were canceled the day before, due purportedly to the flu and a jaw injury. This is not sufficient basis for sanctions on the plaintiffs.
The parties should address Sophie Saravia at the hearing. There apparently is a dispute as to whether she is currently four years and eleven months (Plaintiffs’ Opposition at 2) or five years and five months (Defendants’ Reply at 9). Regardless, she is approximately five years old and apparently witnessed the fire when she was approximately two years old, and the “bedbugs” apparently were experienced when she was an infant.
The Court is reluctant to order the deposition of a witness that age, including a plaintiff, without exhaustive conferring by the parties about the scope of the child’s testimony, an agreement as to that scope, and, possibly, more extensive briefing than is provided here. The commentary to Evidence Code section 700 cites somewhat-dated case law suggesting a voir dire examination to determine a child’s competency to testify.
Apart from compelling a five-year-old to testify at all about recent matters, there is a question as to the reliability (even potentially) of a five-year-old recollection of matters when she was one or even two years old.
The Court’s view, however, is that if Sophie is to testify at trial, she must sit for a deposition that covers the same scope.