Legal Question in Administrative Law in California

Serving RFA on ''any other party to the action''

I am a plaintiff in pro per in a civil case lawsuit. I sued the defendant for refusing to fix my unit that was heavily water damaged as a result of massive bathtub overflow from his unit. His insurance denied my claim by arguing that it was the defendant's girl friend who cause the incident. After my lawsuit, the defendant's insurance assumed his legal expenses. Based on my understanding of CCP Section 2033.010, I served RFA on the defendant's insurance claim representative who denied my claim. The defendant's counsel is now asking me to withdraw my RFA to the claim adjuster arguing that 1) my RFA are improper and not permitted under the CA Discovery Act, 2) Neither the insurance adjuster nor the defendant's insurance are parties to my lawsuit, 3) the court can not even admit that the defendant is insured or that his insurance denied my claim.

Please clarify if the defendant's counsel is right. I have also sent the defendant request for production of documents asking him to produce a complete copy of his insurance so that I can review the policy. Can the defendant's counsel refuse that too?

Thank you.


Asked on 1/25/08, 12:00 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Clayton Lee Russakow, Ryan & Johnson

Re: Serving RFA on ''any other party to the action''

As to 1) and 2) the defense attorney is correct. From the way you've stated the facts, it sounds like you've sued the unit owner/renter and not the insurance company. Therefore, the insurance company is not a party and cannot be made to respond to written discovery requests. The defense attorney does not, however, need to demand that you withdraw the RFA's. He or she and the adjuster can simply ignore them. As to 3), I'm not sure what you mean by "the court can not even admit...." If you want to get answers from the insurance company, you serve a subpoena on it for production of records that will get at the evidence you want, or you serve a deposition subpoena for the adjuster's deposition. You then take his deposition under oath and nail him on the issues of concern to you. Also, see if you can craft written discovery requests to the party defendant that might elicit the same evidence you're trying to get from the insurance company.

As to the Request for Production served on the party defendant, he has 30 days plus 5 (if the Requests served by mail) to respond. You will likely get some worthless objections and runaround, so you may need to bring a motion with the court to compel further responses. Just make sure to make an informal attempt at resolution of the disagreement beforehand. Call me if I can help.

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Answered on 1/25/08, 1:56 am


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