Friday, August 21, 2026
Page 4
Court of Appeal:
Striking Answer Proper Without Trying Lesser Sanctions
Defendant, Over Two-Year Period, Failed to Provide Meaningful Response to Form Interrogatory 15.1
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal for this district has held that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge did not abuse his discretion in striking the answer of a defendant who, over a two-year period, failed to provide meaningful answers to Form Interrogatory 15.1 seeking identification of facts and witnesses supporting his position, with the justices declaring that, under the circumstances, lesser sanctions need not have been tried first.
Those circumstances included repeated cajoling by the judge to provide meaty responses, with opportunities to comply afforded.
Justice Helen Zukin of Div. Four authored the unpublished opinion, filed Wednesday. It affirms a $292,791 judgment awarded by Judge Michael Shultz to the plaintiff, Arthur Toukhlandjian, following a prove-up hearing.
Challenging the striking of his answer is defendant Moushekh Petrosian. In a brief prepared by San Jose attorney Barzin Barry Sabahat, he argued:
“California courts have consistently held that before imposing terminating sanctions, the trial court must consider whether lesser sanctions would be effective to secure compliance….The inquiry is not whether discovery violations occurred, but whether the violations were so willful and persistent that they rendered any fair trial impossible.”
Justice’s Response
Zukin responded that Petrosian “does not explain what lesser sanctions would have been effective,” pointing out:
“The form interrogatory at issue seeks the most basic information a defendant plans to use in response to the plaintiffs complaint. When the defendant refuses to provide meaningful answers for two years and despite multiple court interventions, the court is not required to stop short at monetary sanctions. Nor may the court reasonably tailor evidentiary or issue sanctions under these circumstances. Evidentiary sanctions would exclude every meaningful piece of evidence, and issue sanctions would eliminate every issue. Had the court chosen to employ such sanctions, the result would be practically indistinguishable from terminating sanctions.”
In the trial court, Petrosian’s then-counsel, Ali R. Moghaddami, in a declaration, accused the plaintiff of “neat picking,” apparently meaning “nitpicking.” On appeal, Petrosian contended that there had been no “willful misconduct.”
Disagreeing, Zukin remarked that Petrosian “failed to comply with a court order to serve responses for over two years, ignored a court admonition to comply, at last produced only partial, boilerplate, evasive responses, and finally took the position that any issue with those responses was mere ‘n[i]tpicking.’ ”
‘Trap’ Alleged
Complaining of the plaintiff having waited until shortly before trial before bringing his motion for terminating sanctions, without meeting ad conferring, the appellant quoted a 1978 Court of Appeal opinion from this district’s Div. Two as saying:
“It is fundamental that the only objective of the pretrial discovery rules is to allow a party to obtain all of the facts relative to a claim or defense. Neither party may employ the discovery rules with the long-range objective of trapping the other party into the imposition of sanctions, especially the imposition of the most severe sanction — dismissal.”
Zukin wrote that “if this was a trap, it was a trap Petrosian could have avoided at any point by complying with the court’s order and serving further responses.”
The case is Toukhlandjian v. Petrosian, B352437.
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