Anwari v. Momand

Background

The court considered three joint discovery letter briefs in this international child-custody case. The order addressed Sharifa Anwari’s requests to compel Ahmad Momand to respond to requests for production, interrogatories, and requests for admission.

General discovery instructions

The court struck portions of Momand’s discovery responses using “subject to and without waiving” language and any general objections because Momand had not shown that those formulations were proper. The court construed Momand’s statement that he had agreed to produce the requested documents as meaning that he was not withholding responsive documents based on general objections. Momand had to confirm that point to Anwari within five days.

For requests the court granted, Momand had to produce all responsive, non-privileged documents within seven days. He also had to produce or certify production of documents for requests Anwari identified as requests for production numbers 19–24, 29, 40–42, 46–47, 48–56, 59, and 68, because Momand had already promised to produce responsive documents. For requests denied without prejudice, Anwari had to make a compromise proposal within five days. If the parties could not resolve the dispute after meeting and conferring, they had to submit another joint letter brief addressing relevance and proportionality.

Requests for production

The court granted as unopposed requests concerning the child’s living situation in Germany and the conditions of the premises where the child lived or had lived in the United States. It also granted requests concerning court proceedings involving the parties, communications with Anwari’s counsel other than Jones Day, and people identified as confessors or witnesses to the parties’ marriage certificate. The court overruled Momand’s objections that certain information was equally accessible to Anwari, that the term “living situation” or “conditions” was vague, and that some requests were overbroad.

The court granted request 25 and overruled Momand’s equal-access objection. It granted request 28 as unopposed in part and denied it without prejudice otherwise, requiring Anwari to narrow the request concerning domestic-violence restraining orders. It did the same for requests concerning domestic-violence allegations and civil-harassment cases, allowing the portions Momand agreed to produce and denying the remaining portions without prejudice pending narrowing. The court also required Anwari to narrow a request concerning criminal cases because she had not sufficiently explained its relevance.

The court denied without prejudice requests concerning a third party’s health information, an original recording of an altercation, declarations and affidavits from court actions involving Momand or his family members, communications with three named individuals, a YouTube video, requests for admission responses, and visits to mental-health professionals. The reasons included insufficient explanation of relevance, failure to describe the underlying proceedings adequately, or failure to address whether service of requests for admission was timely and properly completed. The court denied request 61 because Momand stated that he had no responsive documents and Anwari’s objection to that response was not sufficient.

The court granted requests concerning rent withholding, black mold, firearms, and an incident in which Momand allegedly chased a vehicle while riding a bicycle with the child. It overruled objections that those requests were not reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence, explaining that this is no longer the discovery standard.

Interrogatories

The court granted interrogatories 7, 8, and 9, which sought information about firearms and their storage addresses. It overruled Momand’s privacy objections because privacy concerns could be addressed through a protective order. The court granted interrogatories 6 and 15 in part because Momand’s verified answers saying he did not recall were insufficient without an explanation of what he had done to try to answer. The court denied interrogatory 14 without prejudice because Anwari had not addressed Momand’s objection that the related requests for admission were served after the written-discovery deadline.

Requests for admission

For requests for admission 13 through 18 and 60 through 66, the court granted the requests if the child lived at 367 Santana Heights at the relevant time. Otherwise, the court denied them without prejudice, subject to a showing of relevance and proportionality. The court overruled Momand’s objections that these requests were irrelevant, embarrassing, called for legal or medical conclusions, or were unclear.

The court granted requests for admission 19 through 31. These requests concerned conditions at 367 Santana Heights, the child’s residence there, alleged habitability defects, rent withholding, alleged discrimination, lease consent, and a diversity-jurisdiction allegation. The court rejected Momand’s objections that the requests were outside proper discovery or called for legal conclusions.

The court denied without prejudice requests for admission 32, 33, and 39 through 59 because Anwari had not sufficiently shown relevance or proportionality. Those requests concerned alleged relationships, abuse, threats, harassment, arrests, assaults, and related conduct. The court also denied without prejudice requests 89 and 90 because redactions prevented it from ruling; the parties had not filed the required administrative motion to file documents under seal with an unredacted version.

Anwari represented that Momand had already agreed to comply with requests for admission 75 and 84. The court ordered him to comply within seven days if he had not already done so. For requests the court granted, Momand had to provide responses within seven days. For requests denied without prejudice, Anwari had to make a compromise proposal, after which counsel had to meet and confer and, if necessary, file another joint letter brief.

Privilege and protective order

Momand had to serve a privilege log within 14 days for documents withheld based on privilege. Within five days, lead counsel had to meet and confer about a stipulated protective order. If they could not agree, Anwari had to file the court’s model stipulated protective order, modified with case information, within seven days. Until a protective order was entered, produced materials had to be designated confidential or highly confidential attorneys’ eyes only, as appropriate.

Ruling

Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin resolved the discovery disputes through the request-by-request rulings above and entered the stated production, response, negotiation, privilege-log, and protective-order deadlines.