Toukhlandjian v. Petrosian CA2/4

Opinion

Filed 8/19/26 Toukhlandjian v. Petrosian CA2/4 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FOUR

ARTHUR TOUKHLANDJIAN et al., B352437 Plaintiffs and Respondents, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. 20STCV39132) v.

MOUSHEKH PETROSIAN,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Michael Shultz, Judge. Affirmed. By the Law, Barzin Barry Sabahat, for Defendant and Appellant. AJK Law Firm, Ara Joe Keropian, for Plaintiffs and Respondents. INTRODUCTION Parties must provide meaningful answers to basic discovery requests if they wish to present their case at trial. Here, the trial court ordered defendant Moushekh Petrosian to serve substantive responses to form interrogatory 15.1, which asked him to identify the facts, witnesses, and documents that supported his defense. Petrosian failed to comply with the court’s order for two years, despite a verbal admonition from the court, for which he was personally present. On the eve of trial, with Petrosian’s responses still outstanding, plaintiff Arthur Toukhlandjian moved for terminating sanctions. After giving Petrosian a final chance to serve responses, and finding the responses Petrosian then served wholly inadequate, the trial court granted the motion for terminating sanctions and struck Petrosian’s answer. Petrosian now challenges that order on appeal. We affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Petrosian and Toukhlandjian were partners in a real estate business. Unfortunately, their partnership dissolved into a lawsuit; Toukhlandjian sued Petrosian in 2020, and Petrosian cross-complained in 2021.1 On September 16, 2021, Toukhlandjian served Petrosian with form interrogatory 15.1, asking Petrosian to “[i]dentify each denial of a material allegation and each special or affirmative defense in your pleadings and for each: (a) state all facts upon which you base the denial or special or affirmative defense, (b) state the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of 1 The complaint is not part of the record on appeal. The cross-complaint alleges causes of action for breach of contract, fraud, and conversion, among others.

2 all persons who have knowledge of those facts, and (c) identify all documents and other tangible things which support your denial or special or affirmative defense, and state the name, address, and telephone number of the person who has each document.” (Capitalization omitted). Petrosian’s initial response objected to the interrogatory as “premature” and claimed it violated the attorney-client privilege and attorney work product doctrine. Toukhlandjian filed a motion to compel further responses. Petrosian opposed. On March 2, 2023, the trial court granted the motion, but did not provide a deadline by which further responses would be due. A final status conference was held on July 2, 2024, and Petrosian still had not provided further responses to form interrogatory 15.1. The court verbally admonished counsel for Petrosian and warned him that responses must be served. Petrosian was personally present in court to hear the admonition. At some point, trial was rescheduled to summer 2025. As of April 29, 2025, approximately three months before trial was then scheduled to commence, Petrosian still had not served further responses to form interrogatory 15.1. Toukhlandjian moved for terminating sanctions. Petrosian opposed, arguing his failure to respond was the result of a mix-up that occurred when he hired new counsel in October 2024. Petrosian also complained that Toukhlandjian had waited years to take any steps to enforce the court’s order compelling further responses. He said he was ready to provide further responses if the court would allow. The court initially heard the motion for sanctions on May 27, 2025. Although the record contains no court order from that date, it appears the court continued the motion to give Petrosian his requested chance to serve further responses. On May 29, 2025, Petrosian did so. The new responses did not mention the denials made in Petrosian’s answer, instead proceeding 3 directly to the affirmative defenses. Petrosian waived certain defenses, but for the remainder, his responses were all identical. To the “state all facts” portion of the question, Petrosian said “[p]laintiff was just a hard-money lender who collected all the funds and interest thereto, which were paid to defendant.” To the “identify all witnesses” portion, Petrosian responded “Plaintiff herein, Defendant herein.” To the “identify all documents” portion, Petrosian said “[l]oan documents, escrow documents showing distribution of funds to Plaintiff . . . for each property.” On June 6, 2025, Toukhlandjian filed a supplemental reply complaining that the responses were inadequate. On June 10, 2025, Petrosian’s counsel filed a supplemental declaration in which he argued Toukhlandjian was “n[i]t picking” and suggested that if he wasn’t satisfied now, he never would be. On June 20, 2025, the motion came on for hearing again and this time the court granted it, striking Petrosian’s answer to the complaint. The terminating sanctions order did not extend to Petrosian’s cross-complaint. At some point, the record is not clear when or why, trial was continued again. On September 25, 2025, the court held a default prove-up hearing on the complaint and conducted a bench trial of the cross-complaint. On October 28, 2025, the court entered judgment for Toukhlandjian2 on both the complaint and the cross-complaint, awarding him $292,791. Petrosian timely appealed.

DISCUSSION Petrosian challenges only the trial court’s decision to grant terminating 2 Toukhlandjian’s company, AIAA Home Holdings, LLC, was also a plaintiff and is therefore also a party to the judgment and a respondent in this appeal.

4 sanctions on the complaint. We review that decision for abuse of discretion. (Van Sickle v. Gilbert (2011) 196 Cal.App.4th 1495, 1516.) The trial court found Petrosian willfully failed to respond to form interrogatory 15.1, observing that Petrosian was ordered to provide further responses in March 2023, was verbally admonished to provide further responses in July 2024, and yet still had not complied when the motion for sanctions was made in April 2025. The court noted that when Petrosian finally did provide responses, they were incomplete — as they discussed his affirmative defenses but not his denials of the allegations in the complaint — and unusable. Finally, the court pointed to Petrosian’s argument that the responses need not be improved. The court awarded terminating sanctions because, more than two years after the responses were ordered and with trial scheduled to commence in one month, Toukhlandjian was no better informed about Petrosian’s position than he had been before. This was not an abuse of discretion. Petrosian argues there was no evidence to support the court’s finding that his failure to respond was willful.3 But there was: he 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 3 Petrosian claims his changes of counsel after the court’s March 2023 order “preclude” any finding that his behavior was willful. He supports this argument only with a citation to Lopez v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York, Inc. (2016) 246 Cal.App.4th 566, a case that does not discuss substitutions of counsel. The sanction was imposed on Petrosian, not his counsel. Toukhlandjian points out that the knowledge of each counsel is imputed to Petrosian. (Roche v. Hyde (2020) 51 Cal.App.5th 757, 797–798 (Roche).) And Petrosian was personally present in July 2024 when the court admonished his counsel to respond.

5 was mere “n[i]tpicking.” Petrosian also argues the trial court should have considered lesser sanctions first. Yet he does not explain what lesser sanctions would have been effective. The form interrogatory at issue seeks the most basic information a defendant plans to use in response to the plaintiff’s 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. Next, Petrosian complains that the motion for terminating sanctions was a trap, and suggests the doctrine of unclean hands should have prevented Toukhlandjian from waiting until the last moment to bring a sanctions motion without any attempt to meet and confer.4 This argument fails for several reasons.5 One, 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. Two, once the court ordered further responses, Toukhlandjian had no obligation to meet and confer; the onus was on 4 Petrosian contends that proximity to trial alone is insufficient to justify terminating sanctions. Whether he is correct or not, proximity to trial was not the sole basis for the court’s order.

5 Petrosian relies on Fladeboe v. American Isuzu Motors Inc. (2007) 150 Cal.App.4th 42 and Kendall-Jackson Winery, Inc. v. Superior Court (1999) 76 Cal.App.4th 970, but neither case supports his position. Neither case applied the unclean hands doctrine in a discovery context, much less as a defense to a motion for terminating sanctions.

6 Petrosian to comply. Three, the court gave Petrosian a chance to serve responses even after the motion for terminating sanctions was filed. The responses he served then were clearly inadequate, and when the inadequacies were pointed out, Petrosian chose to argue that they were insignificant rather than offer to correct them. Finally, Petrosian claims the trial court violated his due process rights by treating him differently than it treated Toukhlandjian.6 He explains that in September 2025, just prior to trial, Toukhlandjian attempted to voluntarily dismiss another defendant (not party to this appeal) but his counsel’s office made a clerical error that resulted in the dismissal of the entire complaint. Toukhlandjian’s motion to vacate the dismissal was granted. Petrosian complains that “if [r]espondent’s [sic] attorney’s failure to review a filing before submission constituted excusable neglect . . . then [a]ppellant’s third counsel’s lack of notice regarding the March [2], 2023 minute order . . . surely warranted at minimum a continuance or an opportunity to provide further supplemental responses.” There is no double standard here. The court did give Petrosian an opportunity to provide further supplemental responses, and the responses he provided were insufficient. Further, Petrosian’s arguments repeatedly treat counsel as the primary actors in this dispute, as if separated from the parties they represent. But counsel are merely agents; the parties are the principals. (Roche, supra, 51 Cal.App.5th at pp. 797–798.) We do not view them independently from one another. (Ibid.) And there is nothing unfair about 6 We have considered Petrosian’s argument that, apart from his disparate treatment claim, imposing terminating sanctions on a defendant in his circumstances violates constitutional due process protections. The argument has no merit.

7 permitting one side to correct a clerical error while imposing sanctions on the other for two years of failure to provide basic discovery.

DISPOSITION The judgment of the trial court is affirmed. Respondents shall recover their costs on appeal.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

ZUKIN, P. J.

We concur:

TAMZARIAN, J.

DAUM, J.