Southwest Law Center v. Perez CA2/5

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Southwest Law Center appeals from a summary judgment in favor of defendant Charles Perez. According to plaintiff, the trial court erred by failing to consider defamatory statements made after the filing of its complaint and abused its discretion by excluding testimony from an opposition declaration and facts from plaintiff’s supplemental interrogatory responses. We affirm.

II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. Parties’ Prior Relationship

Defendant was the president and sole shareholder of Medical Acquisition Company, Inc. (Acquisition), a lien management and medical funding company that purchased accounts receivable and associated lien rights of medical providers, hospitals, and surgery centers. Plaintiff was a law firm representing individual plaintiffs with personal injury claims against third parties. Since approximately 2008, Acquisition had physician clients who provided medical treatment to plaintiff’s personal injury clients. On December 19, 2014, Acquisition filed a complaint against plaintiff and others for breach of contract and common counts (Acquisition action). The operative second amended complaint asserted various…