Fernando INFANZON, Plaintiff, v. ALLSTATE INSURANCE COMPANY et al., Defendants Case No. 2:19-cv-06483-JAK (SKx) United States District Court, C.D. California Signed May 15, 2020 Counsel Suzanne E. Rand-Lewis, Gary Rand and Suzanne Rand-Lewis PLCS, Sherman Oaks, CA, for Plaintiff. Scott R. Sveslosky, Jonathan Gregory Borle, Sheppard Mullin Richter and Hampton LLP, Los Angeles, CA, Peter H. Klee, Sheppard Mullin Richter and Hampton LLP, San Diego, CA, for Defendants. Kim, Steve, United States Magistrate Judge ORDER IMPOSING MONETARY SANCTIONS ON PLAINTIFF'S COUNSEL FOR DISCOVERY ABUSES I. INTRODUCTION *1 In March 2020, the Court ordered Plaintiff Fernando Infanzon and his attorney, Suzanne Rand-Lewis, to show cause why the Court should not impose monetary and evidentiary sanctions for discovery violations in this contract dispute with Allstate.[1] (ECF 51). By then, Ms. Rand-Lewis had flouted staid federal rules of discovery, failed to cooperate in good faith with opposing counsel, and paid little mind to the Court's three discovery orders. Her responses to the Court's show-cause order and opposition to Allstate's requested amount of monetary sanctions paint no different picture and, if anything, cast an even more damning light on Ms. Rand-Lewis' discovery mischief. Thus, the Court exercises its discretion to impose a monetary sanction on Ms. Rand-Lewis personally for her discovery abuses but declines to impose (for now) any sanction, including an evidentiary one, on Plaintiff himself. Within 14 days of this order, Ms. Rand-Lewis must pay Allstate $38,932 in reasonable attorneys' fees that it needlessly incurred to litigate this discovery dispute.[2] II. BACKGROUND This case is an insurance coverage dispute about how Allstate resolved Plaintiff's car accident claim for uninsured motorist benefits. (ECF 1, 31). While the parties settled for the policy limits, Plaintiff still sued Allstate in state court for unreasonably delaying payment of the uninsured-motorist policy benefits. (ECF 27; ECF 31 at 12-13). In July 2019, Allstate removed this action to federal court, after which the District Judge denied Plaintiff's motion to remand the case to state court. (ECF 27 at 1-2). The District Judge found that Plaintiff had fraudulently joined individual insurance agents to defeat diversity jurisdiction. (Id. at 5-7). Plaintiff then lost two motions to dismiss, leaving him only a single claim—for Allstate's alleged breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing—in his first amended complaint. (ECF 27, 31, 35, 67, 68). No trial date has been scheduled, but fact discovery now closes on August 1, 2020. (ECF 28, 62). Meanwhile, for many months during the initial fact discovery period, the parties disagreed about Allstate's first set of interrogatories and requests for production of documents. (ECF 39). According to Allstate, Ms. Rand-Lewis had served boilerplate objections, produced no documents or privilege log, and neglected Plaintiff's initial disclosures. (Id. at 9). She then ignored or cut off Allstate's counsel's efforts to meet and confer. (ECF 39-1 at 3, 63-67). Those disputes eventually led to Allstate's motion to compel discovery in January 2020. (ECF 39). Still, because it was the first discovery fight, the Court gave Ms. Rand-Lewis the benefit of the doubt, denying Allstate's motion—without prejudice—for inadequate pre-filing conference of counsel. (ECF 41). The Court ordered the parties to meet and confer in person within 14 days of its order to resolve or at least narrow the disputed discovery issues. (Id. at 1). *2 The Court also ordered Plaintiff to revise his written responses to Allstate's document requests before the in-person meeting of counsel to comply with the December 2015 amendments to Rule 34 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. (Id.). As the Court explained, these established amendments—now nearly five years old—prohibit general and boilerplate objections, require targeted objections to be stated with specificity, and compel an explanation of what documents are being withheld based on specific objections. (Id. at 1-2). And, as the Court also noted, the Federal Rules have long required the production of a privilege log when withholding responsive documents based on an asserted evidentiary privilege. (Id. at 2). So the Court ordered all these things to be done before the meet-and-confer so that the meeting would be productive. Though it did not need saying, the Court also warned counsel that failure to cooperate in discovery and comply with court orders could lead to sanctions. (Id.). Ms. Rand-Lewis, however, neither heeded the Court's instructions nor cared evidently about its warning. She served no revised written responses to Allstate's document requests and no privilege log even as Plaintiff continued to assert general privilege objections. (ECF 43 at 6-7; ECF 43-1 at 2-4). What's worse, Ms. Rand-Lewis made no good-faith effort to comply with the Court's order for an in-person conference of counsel to resolve outstanding discovery disputes. She ignored most of the emails from Allstate's counsel trying to schedule the required meet-and-confer. (ECF 43-1 at 6-10). When she did finally respond, she tersely emailed: “Wednesday possibly, I'm still doing my Calendar.” (Id. at 10). Relying on that equivocal response, Ms. Rand-Lewis—in an unsworn declaration—claimed that she had “advised defense counsel [she] could come to his office on January 22, 2020 to meet and confer.” (ECF 44 at 3). She doesn't stop there: she accuses Allstate's counsel of refusing to meet and confer with her, even though the only evidence of their communications shows that it was all but a one-way conversation by Allstate's counsel. (ECF 44 at 2-3; ECF 43-1 at 6-10). Indeed, when Allstate's counsel tried to pick a time on the “Wednesday” Ms. Rand-Lewis said she was “possibly” available, she again never responded. (Id. at 6-9). As a result, counsel never held their in-person conference as the Court had ordered, leading Allstate to ask the Court to reconsider its January 2020 discovery order. (ECF 43). The Court granted Allstate's request for reconsideration in February 2020. (ECF 45). In doing so, it observed that Ms. Rand-Lewis had “neither responded (with clarity and certainty) to Allstate's requests to meet in person as ordered” nor “attempted to revise [Plaintiff's] written responses” to Allstate's document requests as ordered. (Id. at 1). Even so, the Court gave Ms. Rand-Lewis a second chance to avoid sanctions. (Id.). In granting Allstate's motion to compel, the Court gave Plaintiff more time to serve compliant discovery responses, reminded Ms. Rand-Lewis that those responses had to comply with the December 2015 amendments to the Federal Rules, and extended the deadline for the in-person conference of counsel by another week. (Id.). It also invited counsel, as it had done in its January 2020 order, to use the Court's informal discovery conference procedure for disputes that remained outstanding after their in-person meeting. (Id.). And, for the second time in two months, the Court warned that failure to comply with discovery orders and cooperate as required could lead to sanctions. (Id. at 2). Yet the day before Plaintiff's deadline to serve revised written responses to Allstate's discovery requests, Ms. Rand-Lewis filed a last-minute ex parte application for more time to respond to discovery and meet with opposing counsel. (ECF 46). In her second unsworn declaration, Ms. Rand-Lewis claimed that she was “extremely ill, with Influenza type A, and [could] not work” because she “was taken off work by [her] doctor until February 14, 2020.” (Id. at 2). February 14 just so happened to be the deadline for the conference of counsel the Court had ordered in its February 2020 order. Still, the Court again gave Ms. Rand-Lewis the benefit of the doubt, granting her another ten days (from the date that her physician said she could return to work) to serve Plaintiff's amended discovery responses. (ECF 48). The Court also extended the deadline for the parties' conference to February 28, 2020. (Id.). But having again spared Ms. Rand-Lewis any sanction, the Court warned counsel that it would sanction failure to obey what was now the Court's third discovery order. (Id.). *3 But Ms. Rand-Lewis thumbed her nose at this order too. The amended discovery responses she served were not fully compliant with Rule 34. (ECF 50-1 at 11-18, 22-34). And even though she had confirmed the day before the February 28 conference that she would be attending, Ms. Rand-Lewis—with no notice—dispatched her husband, Timothy Rand-Lewis, instead. (ECF 50 at 3-4; ECF 50-1 at 3-4, 39, 41, 52; ECF 70-1 at 2-3). But Mr. Rand-Lewis, while an attorney, was not counsel of record, having never made an appearance in the case (which remains true to this day). So he was unprepared and unauthorized to resolve discovery disputes decisively at the meeting. (ECF 50 at 3-4; ECF 50-1 at 3-4). All he could do at the meeting was make a deferred commitment to consult with his wife and let defense counsel know if Plaintiff could serve his amended responses and produce responsive documents by March 3. (ECF 50-1 at 4-5, 52-54). Yet March 3 came and went with no response from Ms. Rand-Lewis. As a result, Allstate's counsel tried to obtain her agreement to ask the Court for an informal discovery conference. But Ms. Rand-Lewis rebuffed defense counsel, claiming that the March 3 agreement was “not strict” and that she was “unavailable and out of the office due to illness.” (Id. at 51). So Allstate—for the third time—sought the Court's intervention, this time with a detailed request for an informal discovery conference. (ECF 50). But given the history and pattern of Ms. Rand-Lewis' discovery conduct to that point, the Court dispensed with an informal remedy and issued the current order to show cause with a hearing set for the next week. (ECF 51). That hearing had to be postponed and then ultimately vacated, however, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, the Court ordered and received written responses to the show-cause order from Ms. Rand-Lewis and Allstate's counsel before submitting the matter for decision. (ECF 53, 56). In her responses, Ms. Rand-Lewis asserts that she has always cooperated in discovery and fully complied with all discovery obligations and court orders. (ECF 63 at 12; ECF 70 at 3-4). But it was only on the same day that she filed her first response to the Court's show-cause order—April 1, 2020—that Plaintiff finally served supplemental responses that substantially complied with the Federal Rules and produced responsive documents to Allstate. (ECF 63 at 12). That was enough, in Ms. Rand-Lewis' view, to prove that “there has been full compliance with the Court's discovery Orders.” (Id.). She also maintains that Plaintiff was substantially justified in opposing Allstate's discovery demands because Allstate had its own share of discovery violations. (Id. at 3-5, 8, 15-16). As Ms. Rand-Lewis describes them, Allstate served improper contention interrogatories, never served its revised interrogatories, and propounded premature discovery requests during the four months that its motion to dismiss was pending. (ECF 70 at 1-3). Yet she never explains why Plaintiff did not move for a protective order or seek a stay of discovery on these grounds. For its part, Allstate requests just over $40,000 in monetary sanctions reflecting the attorneys' fees it has incurred to litigate the discovery dispute to this point. (ECF 64 at 17; ECF 64-1 at 5-7). Allstate also seeks evidentiary sanctions precluding Plaintiff from offering at trial any fact, testimony, or document not disclosed in his responses and productions as of April 1, 2020. (ECF 64 at 17-18). While Ms. Rand-Lewis generally derides the total amount of Allstate's requested fees, she specifically challenges only 1.2 hours of billed work that she claims is duplicative or inaccurate. (ECF 70 at 4-5; ECF 70-1 at 3). The rest of the billed work, she proclaims without trying to prove, is either inflated or obscures time spent addressing Allstate's own discovery infractions. (ECF 70 at 5). Finally, Ms. Rand-Lewis opposes evidentiary sanctions primarily on the notion that Plaintiff's belated discovery responses and document productions served in April 2020 moot the preexisting discovery disputes. (Id. at 3, 6). III. DISCUSSION *4 Discovery between parties should be cooperative and largely unsupervised by the district court. See Sali v. Corona Reg'l Med. Ctr., 884 F.3d 1218, 1219-20 (9th Cir. 2018). When that cooperation breaks down, the district court has broad discretion to regulate discovery conduct and, if needed, impose a wide array of sanctions. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37; L.R. 37-4; Campidoglio LLC v. Wells Fargo & Co., 870 F.3d 963, 975 (9th Cir. 2017). When justified, discovery sanctions “must be applied diligently both to penalize those whose conduct may be deemed to warrant such a sanction, [and] to deter those who might be tempted to such conduct in the absence of such a deterrent.” Roadway Exp., Inc. v. Piper, 447 U.S. 752, 763-64, 100 S.Ct. 2455, 65 L.Ed.2d 488 (1980) (cleaned up). If there was ever an example of discovery violations deserving punishment and demanding deterrence, Ms. Rand-Lewis' abuses catalogued above fit the bill. A. Monetary Sanctions Are Mandatory Under Rule 37(a) First, monetary sanctions are authorized by Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a). If the Court grants a motion to compel, as it did here in February 2020, it must, “after giving an opportunity to be heard,” require the party, his attorney, or both “to pay the movant's reasonable expenses incurred in making the motion, including attorney's fees.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(5)(A). The award is mandatory unless the Court finds that the opposing party's position was “substantially justified” or that “other circumstances make an award of expenses unjust.” Id. The burden of establishing this substantial justification or special circumstances rests on the party being sanctioned. See Hyde & Drath v. Baker, 24 F.3d 1162, 1171 (9th Cir. 1994). The rule's purpose is “to protect courts and opposing parties from delaying or harassing tactics during the discovery process.”Cunningham v. Hamilton County, 527 U.S. 198, 208, 119 S.Ct. 1915, 144 L.Ed.2d 184 (1999). As detailed in the Court's January 2020 discovery order, Plaintiff's responses to Allstate's document requests flouted the December 2015 revisions to the Federal Rules. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(B)-(C) (Dec. 1, 2015). Plaintiff used prohibited general objections to all the requests and recited boilerplate objections to each of the individual requests. (ECF 50-1 at 11-18, 22-34). See Dao v. Liberty Life Assurance Co. of Boston, 2016 WL 796095, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 23, 2016) (“Rule 34 [ ] was amended on December 1, 2015 to require specific objections for requests for production.”). Even then, Plaintiff never stated whether responsive documents were being withheld based on the already improper boilerplate objections. See Grodzitsky v. Am. Honda Motor Co., 2017 WL 2616917, at *3 (C.D. Cal. June 13, 2017) (“The 2015 Amendment to Rule 34(b)(2)(C) requires the responding party to state whether any responsive materials are being withheld on the basis of a stated objection.”). And Plaintiff provided no privilege log for any responsive documents being withheld for a legitimately asserted evidentiary privilege. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5). The 2015 amendments to Rule 34 (and other related discovery rules) marked an intentional break from the discovery gamesmanship of the past and called on attorneys—as well as the federal courts—to adopt a more cooperative, transparent, and pragmatic approach. Before the amendments, for instance, counsel often argued incessantly about what documents were or were not being produced subject to general and boilerplate objections. They also tried to avoid accountability for producing documents late in the case, or for any other discovery violations, by claiming cover in the all-encompassing general and boilerplate objections. Rule 34 was amended precisely to rid federal discovery practice of these hide-and-seek games—to “end the confusion that frequently arises when a producing party states several objections and still produces information, leaving the requesting party uncertain whether any relevant and responsive information has been withheld on the basis of the objections.” 2015 Adv. Comm. Note to Fed. R. Civ. P. 34. That is why the Court went to great lengths—through three discovery orders—to stress that Plaintiff's responses to Allstate's document requests had to comply with amended Rule 34. If they had, the required conferences of counsel could have been more productive because the parties wouldn't be shooting in the dark. *5 Unsurprisingly, then, Ms. Rand-Lewis does not even try to argue that she served responses compliant with amended Rule 34 (at least any time before April 1). Instead, she tries to change the subject by claiming that the document requests were pointless to begin with while Allstate had a motion to dismiss pending. (ECF 70 at 3). But if she wanted that cover, Ms. Rand-Lewis should have sought a protective order or requested a stay of discovery pending resolution of a potentially dispositive motion. See Wood v. McEwen, 644 F.2d 797, 801-02 (9th Cir. 1981) (per curiam); Skellerup Indus. Ltd. v. City of Los Angeles, 163 F.R.D. 598, 600-01 (C.D. Cal. 1995). Otherwise, the “Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not provide for automatic or blanket stays of discovery when a potentially dispositive motion is pending.” Tradebay, LLC v. eBay, Inc., 278 F.R.D. 597, 600 (D. Nev. 2011). That Allstate later happened to prevail on its motion to dismiss, potentially mooting some of the discovery requests cannot—after the fact—justify Plaintiff's deficient responses at the time. It may mitigate the overriding prejudice to Allstate, but it does not erase the stain of the discovery abuse in the first place. With no defense for her deficient responses to Allstate's document requests, Ms. Rand-Lewis fixates on the perceived problems with Allstate's interrogatories instead. (ECF 70 at 1-3, 5). But not only is this line of argument beside the point, since the Rule 34 violations are enough by themselves to support monetary sanctions, it lacks sound reasoning. For starters, even if some of Allstate's interrogatories were contention interrogatories, there is nothing intrinsically improper about that. See Kraft Ams., LP v. Oldcastle Precast, Inc., 2013 WL 12125759, at *8 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 18, 2013), aff'd, 641 Fed. App'x 718 (9th Cir. 2016); Nat'l Acad. of Recording Arts & Scis., Inc. v. On Point Events, LP, 256 F.R.D. 678, 682 (C.D. Cal. 2009). And even if they were improper, that cannot serve as a blanket reason to ignore or respond incorrectly to other properly propounded discovery requests. See In re Convergent Techs. Sec. Litig., 108 F.R.D. 328, 332-33 (N.D. Cal. 1985). Nor is there any merit to the suggestion that Plaintiff could ignore the amended interrogatories because they were never “formally” served. (ECF 63 at 5, 20; ECF 70 at 5). The lack of that formality, if it is even material, was of Ms. Rand-Lewis' own making because she needlessly quibbled with Allstate about the amended interrogatories and then effectively refused to accept service of them. (ECF 43-1 at 3-4, 6-9). Finally, Ms. Rand-Lewis spills lots of ink criticizing Allstate's discovery conduct in response to Plaintiff's discovery requests. (ECF 63 at 3-5, 8, 15-16; ECF 70 at 5). But those criticisms—even if legitimate—add up to neither substantial justification for Plaintiff's own discovery violations nor circumstances making a sanctions award unjust here. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(d)(3)(B) (“[D]iscovery by one party does not require any other party to delay its discovery.”); Liguria Foods, Inc. v. Griffith Labs., Inc., 320 F.R.D. 168, 186 (N.D. Iowa 2017) (“Rule 26(d)(3) also makes clear that ... a party cannot delay responding to discovery simply because the other party has not yet responded to its discovery.”); Fresenius Med. Care Holding Inc. v. Baxter Int'l, Inc., 224 F.R.D. 644, 653 (N.D. Cal. 2004) (party may not “condition its compliance with its discovery obligations on receiving discovery from its opponent.”); Pulsecard, Inc. v. Discover Card Servs., Inc., 168 F.R.D. 295, 308 (D. Kan. 1996) (“A party may not withhold discovery solely because it has not obtained to its satisfaction other discovery.”). Simply put, “discovery is not conducted on a ‘tit-for-tat’ basis.” On Point Events, LP, 256 F.R.D. at 680. “If the opposing party is recalcitrant in responding to discovery requests, the rules provide a mechanism for compelling responses and/or imposing sanctions. The rules do not authorize one party to withhold discoverable material in retaliation for the opposing party's withholding of discoverable material.” Lumbermens Mut. Cas. Ins. Co. v. Maffei, 2006 WL 2709835, *5 n.21 (D. Alaska Sept. 20, 2006). Counsel should need no reminding of the tenet that “wrongful conduct by one party, perceived or real, does not justify wrongful conduct by the other party and is not a defense.” MGA Entm't, Inc. v. Nat'l Prod. Ltd., 2012 WL 12883974, at *6 n.5 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 19, 2012). B. Monetary Sanctions Are Justified Under Rule 37(b) *6 Monetary sanctions are also compelled by Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b). This rule confers broad authority to impose sanctions as a remedy for noncompliance with discovery orders. See Piper, 447 U.S. at 763, 100 S.Ct. 2455. The term “order” is read broadly in this context to “include any order relating to discovery.” Sali, 884 F.3d at 1222. And sanctions available under this provision run the entire gamut, from ordering the “disobedient party” to pay “attorney's fees” to “treating as contempt of court the failure to obey any order.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b)(2)(A), (C). “Willfulness, fault[,] or bad faith is not required for the imposition of monetary sanctions under” this rule. In re NCAA Student-Athlete Name & Likeness Licensing Litig., 2012 WL 5372477, at *6 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 30, 2012). So when counsel's conduct crosses those lines—as Ms. Rand-Lewis' has here—sanctions under Rule 37(b) become virtually automatic. See Hyde & Drath, 24 F.3d at 1171. To recap: Ms. Rand-Lewis ignored the instructions in the Court's January 2020 discovery order to get Plaintiff's discovery responses in line with amended Rule 34. She flouted the Court's order to meet and confer in person at Allstate's counsel's office within 14 days of that order. Even after the Court, on reconsideration, granted Allstate's motion to compel, Plaintiff still did not shed his general and boilerplate objections, produce any documents, or provide a privilege log. On top of all that, Ms. Rand-Lewis did not show up to the long-delayed meet-and-confer, sending instead someone who had never appeared—and still has not appeared—as counsel of record for Plaintiff. So she violated the Federal Rules, stonewalled opposing counsel's efforts to meet and confer, and paid no mind to the Court's instructions and warnings in at least three orders. If that were not enough on its own, Ms. Rand-Lewis doubles down in her responses to the Court's order to show cause. She argues that the Court's January 2020 order cannot be used to support Rule 37(b) sanctions because the order technically denied Allstate's motion to compel. (ECF 63 at 4, 19). Never mind that the purpose of that disposition was to give Ms. Rand-Lewis the benefit of the doubt, which she only repaid by brushing aside the obligations that order placed on her—obligations, by the way, that were no more than those required under amended Rule 34. What's worse, she asserts that she was the one who “requested defense counsel clear the following Wednesday for a mutual meet and confer” and that she in fact agreed to meet in person. (ECF 63 at 4, 5, 7, 19-20). But saying that “Wednesday possibly, I'm still doing my Calendar,” created an ironclad agreement to meet does not pass the straight-face test. And this retconned story is as imaginary as it is misleading because the attorneys never talked to each other that day, and Allstate's counsel asked Ms. Rand-Lewis at least four times by email before January 22 what time she would be available to talk that day—but she never responded. (ECF 43-1 at 6-10). Even Ms. Rand-Lewis' definition of compliance with the Court's orders is disingenuous. She asserts that the she “fully complied” with those orders “by serving [Plaintiff's] responses on February 21, 2020, and thereafter, on February 28, 2020, meeting and conferring in person with defense counsel[.]” (ECF 63 at 12; ECF 70 at 3-4). But those responses still skirted amended Rule 34. And even though her husband was unfamiliar with the pertinent discovery issues, she still sent him to the February 28 conference of counsel—to resolve discovery issues. While she quibbles with Allstate about whether her husband was prepared for that meeting (ECF 64-1 at 4; ECF 70-1 at 2), what is beyond debate is that it was unproductive and resolved no substantive dispute between the parties. Finally, Ms. Rand-Lewis emphasizes that Plaintiff eventually fell into “full compliance with the Court's discovery Orders” after serving his supplemental responses on April 1. (ECF 63 at 12; ECF 70 at 4). But these belated responses were served eight months after Allstate's discovery was first served, two months after the Court had compelled it, and only after a coercive order to show cause issued. That hardly cleans the slate. No wonder, then, that “[b]elated compliance with discovery orders does not preclude the imposition of sanctions.” N. Am. Watch Corp. v. Princess Ermine Jewels, 786 F.2d 1447, 1451 (9th Cir. 1986). C. Monetary Sanctions in the Amount of Allstate Counsels' Reasonable Attorneys' Fees is Proper *7 The relevant question, then, is not whether Ms. Rand-Lewis deserves to be sanctioned but what the right sanction is. For starters, Allstate requests $40,743 in monetary sanctions, representing the attorneys' fees it incurred to obtain, and enforce compliance with, the Court's discovery orders. “The calculation of the amount of a ‘reasonable attorney's fee’ is not a precise science.” Green v. Baca, 225 F.R.D. 612, 614 (C.D. Cal. 2005). Still, a “strong presumption exists that the lodestar figure represents a reasonable fee.” Jordan v. Multnomah County, 815 F.2d 1258, 1262 (9th Cir. 1987) (cleaned up). The lodestar method multiplies the number of hours counsel “reasonably expended on the litigation ... by a reasonable hourly rate.” Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). The Court should, however, exclude time that is “excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary.” Id. at 434, 103 S.Ct. 1933. To begin with, defense counsels' hourly rates are reasonable. Lead counsel's hourly rate was $480 in December 2019 and rose to $575 beginning in January 2020. (ECF 64-1 at 6, 17, 30, 38, 49). His associate's hourly rate ranged from $380 to $400 between December 2019 and March 2020. (Id.). These rates are reasonable. See, e.g., Perfect 10, Inc. v. Giganews, Inc., 2015 WL 1746484, at *15-*20 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 24, 2015) (billing rates of $750-930 for senior partner, $610-$750 for junior partner, and $350-$690 for associates reasonable), aff'd, 847 F.3d 657 (9th Cir. 2017); Eastwood Ins. Servs., Inc. v. Titan Auto Ins. of N.M., Inc., 2010 WL 11595919, at *3 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 23, 2010) (hourly rates of $775 for a partner and $550 for an associate are “consistent with the market rate for large, well-respected law firms in Southern California”). Indeed, Ms. Rand-Lewis says nothing to the contrary. Next, to arrive at the lodestar amount, the Court scrutinized the declarations and fee statements submitted by Allstate's counsel. SeeJordan, 815 F.2d at 1263 n.8. Based on that review, Allstate should receive its reasonable attorneys' fees incurred for the following work: (1) $10,150 for 22.4 hours spent preparing its motion to compel; (2) $7,495 for 17.6 hours spent preparing its reconsideration motion; (3) $2,347.50 for 5.3 hours spent preparing its response to Plaintiff's ex parte application to continue dates; (4) $4,460 for 10.3 hours spent preparing its request for an informal discovery conference; (5) $7,232 for 13.9 hours spent preparing its response to the Court's order to show cause; and (6) $7,247.50 for 15.8 hours spent trying to secure Ms. Rand-Lewis' compliance with the Court's discovery orders, including its orders for counsel to meet and confer in person. One set of Allstate's claimed fees, however, should be excluded: $1,811 for 4.2 hours spent trying to meet and confer with Plaintiff's counsel before filing Allstate's original motion to compel. Courts are divided on the compensability of such tasks, but the prevailing view is that they are not. See Dish Network L.L.C. v. Jadoo TV, Inc., 2019 WL 7166067, at *4 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 8, 2019) (“Courts in this district have reasoned that this language does not include time spent by counsel in meet and confer efforts as compensable under Rule 37(a)(5)(A).”); but see DCD Partners, LLC v. Transamerica Life Ins. Co., 2018 WL 6252450, at *3 (C.D. Cal. June 13, 2018) (highlighting conflict and finding award including time spent meeting and conferring appropriate). The Court sees no reason to depart from that prevailing view here. None of Ms. Rand-Lewis' arguments opposing the lodestar fee amount, however, are convincing. First, she points to one set of potentially duplicative time entries totaling 0.4 hours spent by more than one attorney reviewing pleadings. (ECF 70 at 5). But “the participation of more than one attorney does not necessarily constitute an unnecessary duplication of effort.” Kim v. Fujikawa, 871 F.2d 1427, 1435 n.9 (9th Cir. 1989). Some “necessary duplication” of efforts will always be present, but that “is no reason why the lawyer[s] should perform this necessary work for free.” Moreno v. City of Sacramento, 534 F.3d 1106, 1112 (9th Cir. 2008). Second, she claims that the conference of counsel—which she didn't even attend—lasted “approximately” a half hour instead of the 0.8 hour that Allstate's counsel recorded. (ECF 70-1 at 3). But the Court has no reason to discredit defense counsel's recorded time entry, nor any need to second-guess it given the de minimisdifference it makes. Finally, she protests that the efforts to meet and confer were as much about Allstate's own discovery violations as Plaintiff's. But that argument ignores that the Court gave Ms. Rand-Lewis three chances to avoid any sanctions at all. And the Court intended for counsel to use their meet-and-confers productively to air and hopefully resolve all discovery disputes between the parties—no matter their origin. So the time spent in these discussions is properly compensable as time spent to comply with the Court's discovery directives. *8 Finally, Allstate also seeks evidentiary sanctions against Plaintiff. “Sanctions may be warranted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(b)(2) for failure to obey a discovery order as long as the established issue bears a reasonable relationship to the subject of discovery that was frustrated by sanctionable conduct.” Navellier v. Sletten, 262 F.3d 923, 947 (9th Cir. 2001). Generally, that means evidentiary “sanctions are appropriate only in extreme circumstances and where the violation is due to willfulness, bad faith, or fault of the party.” Fair Hous. of Marin v. Combs, 285 F.3d 899, 905 (9th Cir. 2002) (cleaned up). There is no evidence to suggest, however, that Plaintiff himself is to blame for the discovery wrongdoing of his attorney. On the other hand, “[l]esser sanctions and other measures are generally more appropriate than evidence preclusion when the [discovery responses are] provided during the discovery period and the delay can be remedied during the existing discovery period or with a limited and brief extension of discovery.” K.D. v. United Airlines, Inc., 2018 WL 6028694, at *3 (D. Nev. Nov. 16, 2018). As the case stands now, only one of Plaintiff's claims remains for fact adjudication, and fact discovery has been extended to August 2020. So once it has been made reasonably whole for the fees expended in this protracted discovery dispute, Allstate will suffer little future prejudice from the delays and problems caused by Ms. Rand-Lewis' past discovery misdeeds. See Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, Inc. v. Perkin-Elmer Corp., 190 F.R.D. 644, 648 (N.D. Cal. 2000). IV. CONCLUSION For these reasons, Ms. Rand-Lewis must be held personally liable under Federal Rules 37(a) and 37(b) for the $38,932 in reasonable attorneys' fees Allstate needlessly incurred as a result of her discovery abuses. She is ordered to pay the sanction to Allstate within 14 days of this order. Allstate's request for evidentiary sanctions, however, is denied without prejudice to renewing if Plaintiff commits any more discovery violations or disobeys a court order.[3] IT IS SO ORDERED. Footnotes [1] Although Allstate Northbrook Indemnity Company was the Defendant who propounded the disputed discovery requests, there is no relevant distinction between the Allstate entities for the purpose of this order, so the Court refers to all Defendants collectively as “Allstate.” [2] Because of how she conducted herself in response to the first show-cause order, the Court had to issue a second order to show cause why the Court should not refer Ms. Rand-Lewis to the California State Bar for misleading the Court. (ECF 52). With reservations, that order is discharged for now as noted in the final footnote of this order. [3] The Court's order to show cause why Ms. Rand-Lewis should not be reported to the California State Bar is—reluctantly—discharged. The public record reveals a troubling pattern of behavior in both federal and state courts. As another judge of this Court remarked when denying a suspect ex parte application from Ms. Rand-Lewis, her excuses were “at best implausible” and “[a]t worst, her actions violated Rule 11.” Nisbet v. Am. Nat'l Red Cross et al., No. 2:16-cv-7342-GW (ECF 120, 136). The California state appellate courts are no strangers to Ms. Rand-Lewis' habits either. See De La Cruz v. El Pollo Loco, Inc., 2016 WL 230572, at *4-5 (Cal. Ct. App. Jan. 19, 2016) (“Ms. Rand-Lewis' declaration [that she was ill and bedridden] lacked key information and was contradicted by other communications”); Foss v. San Antonio Cmty. Hosp., 2015 WL 4555377, at *3-5 (Cal. Ct. App. July 28, 2015) (Ms. Rand-Lewis' declaration that she was “off work per doctor's orders” lacked “any documentation from [her] doctor confirming the injury and off-work order”); Jangozian v. Farmers Ins. Exch., 2015 WL 3417549, at *22-24 (Cal. Ct. App. May 28, 2015) (sanctions proper against plaintiffs represented by Ms. Rand-Lewis given her “disregard for the trial court's orders,” “repeated failures to meet and confer,” and “failure, when faced with terminating sanctions, even to attempt to justify their disregard of the trial court's most recent order”); Pers. Court Reporters, Inc. v. Rand, 205 Cal. App. 4th 182, 193, 140 Cal.Rptr.3d 301 (2012) (sanctioning Ms. Rand-Lewis, her husband, and her father for filing baseless appeal “for the purpose of delaying this matter”). And Ms. Rand-Lewis has been disciplined before by the California State Bar for submitting a false declaration. (ECF 65 at 4-13). Thus, although the Court discharges the second show-cause order, it reserves the option to report Ms. Rand-Lewis for any new apparent ethical lapses that come to its attention in this or any other case—now or later—filed in this federal district.