Chavez

I. INTRODUCTION

The trial court granted defendants’1 motions for terminating sanctions based on plaintiffs’2 failure to comply with the court’s orders compelling responses to written discovery. On appeal, plaintiffs challenge the sufficiency of the evidence

Defendants are Dr. Muhammad Anwar (Dr. Anwar) and two corporations, Normandie/Wilshire Retirement Hotel, Inc., (Normandie/Wilshire) and Longwood Management Corp. (Longwood). According to the complaint, Normandie/Wilshire was a “24-hour skilled nursing facility” that was owned, operated, and managed by Longwood. Except when clarity requires separate reference to these two entities, they will be referred to collectively as Normandie.

Plaintiffs are four individuals—Arcelia Jimenez Chavez, Alicia, Antonio, and Guadalupe Jimenez (individual plaintiffs)— and the estate of Jose Maria Jimenez and Jose Maria Jimenez, individually, by and through his successor-in-interest, Arcelia Jimenez Chavez (estate plaintiffs). When necessary for clarity, we will refer to all the individual plaintiffs by their first names. We will refer to the decedent as Jimenez.

2 supporting the court’s findings and raise multiple claims of…