Morgan Lewis sanctioned $525K in Porter Ranch case

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, defense counsel in the Porter Ranch gas leak cases, were sanctioned $525,000 for discovery abuses Thursday, the second time they have been penalized for withholding documents based on vague privileges.

In a 27-page ruling that scolded counsel for Southern California Gas Co., Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl said the defense attorneys committed persistent discovery abuse by failing to provide substantive privilege logs regarding some 155,000 documents sought by plaintiffs regarding the gas well's integrity.

Kuhl, who is preparing the case for a June trial, said defendants have put plaintiffs at a disadvantage as depositions are sought on the eve of trial.

"The sheer number of privilege assertions that ultimately were unsupportable is evidence that defendants' conduct is the result of a concerted policy, and not the hapless mistakes of a few document review attorneys," said Kuhl in her ruling.

Litigation over the enormous 2015 gas leak has been four years in the making, comprising 36,000 plaintiffs represented by nearly 200 law firms. To date, nearly 100 depositions have been conducted and about 1.5 million documents have changed hands.

"We are pleased the court is enforcing the discovery laws. This is just the first step in obtaining justice for the Porter Ranch victims," said Brian J. Panish of Panish, Shea & Boyle LLP, co-lead trial plaintiffs' counsel. "We will not be deterred by Sempra Energy and SoCalGas' abuse of the discovery laws in this state in obtaining justice for the victims," said Panish, who is leading the plaintiffs' case with R. Rex Parris of the Parris Law Firm.

James J. Dragna, a Morgan Lewis partner who represents the utility, did not respond to a request for comment.

Plaintiffs sought nearly double the amount Kuhl approved, but she said they failed to offer a basis for awarding of sanctions for lost productivity.

This is the second time Kuhl has imposed sanctions against the utility's attorneys. Last year, she ordered the defense to pay $6,500 for failing to turn over hundreds of documents between the utility and engineering firm AECOM regarding work done before after the gas leak.

In that matter, Morgan Lewis claimed privilege as to 771 documents, but only six claims were sustained in the end. Kuhl said she asked for declarations stating defense counsel personally reviewed the documents and were familiar with relevant case law, something she said she never resorted to in her nearly 25 years on the bench. She cited three other matters where the utility could not support a privilege shield. Overall, claims of privilege were unsupportable or withdrawn 94% of the time, according to the judge.

"The intentionality of defendants' conduct in asserting unsubstantiated privilege claims and stonewalling plaintiffs' efforts to challenge those claims is evident from defendants' conduct (through its counsel) dating back to 2017," wrote Kuhl. Southern California Gas Leak Cases, JCCP4861 (L.A. Super Ct., filed Feb. 2, 2016).

The defense previously contended it was hard to comply with the court's "high standards" for claiming privilege and that it did not have clear guidance. Kuhl responded by saying when the defense did have clear guidance from a prior court order, it ignored those standards.

"In many ways, what is most upsetting about the litigation tactics of defendants is that they have only asserted good faith objections when threatened with sanctions or when this court required trial counsel to declare under penalty of perjury that there was a good faith basis for the privilege claims asserted," ruled Kuhl.