Simon v. Cumba

District Court, S.D. California · 3:25-cv-00107 · 2025-02-24 · Unknown

Proceeding: district
Area: civil
On appeal: Simon v. Cumba (2026-02-20) — affirmed — the Ninth Circuit's later ruling on this docket
Panel: Cathy Ann Bencivengo (author)

Analysis

A model's reading — qwen3.8-27b, prompt own-v1, 2026-10-13T21:12Z · confidence high

Plaintiff filed a request for entry of default judgment against the Defendant. The court denied the request because the Defendant had filed a timely motion to dismiss, which constitutes an effort to defend the lawsuit under Rule 55(a).

What the court decided	The model
Denial of Plaintiff's request for entry of default judgment “Plaintiff's motion for default judgment is denied.”	agree with court The court correctly applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 55(a), which prohibits the entry of default if the party against whom default is sought has appeared or otherwise defended the action. The court cited Song v. Deeds, a Ninth Circuit precedent, to support the proposition that a motion to dismiss constitutes an effort to 'otherwise defend' the lawsuit. Since the record indicates the motion to dismiss was timely filed, the denial of the default judgment follows logically from the rule and the cited authority.

What the court decided

The model

Denial of Plaintiff's request for entry of default judgment

“Plaintiff's motion for default judgment is denied.”

agree with court
The court correctly applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 55(a), which prohibits the entry of default if the party against whom default is sought has appeared or otherwise defended the action. The court cited Song v. Deeds, a Ninth Circuit precedent, to support the proposition that a motion to dismiss constitutes an effort to 'otherwise defend' the lawsuit. Since the record indicates the motion to dismiss was timely filed, the denial of the default judgment follows logically from the rule and the cited authority.

The order itself: sound — The order is procedurally correct and relies on the appropriate rule and binding circuit precedent. It directly addresses the factual barrier to entry of default (the timely motion to dismiss) and applies the correct legal standard.

How this analysis was made · dispute it

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 PHILLIP W. SIMON, Case No. 3:25-CV-00107-CAB-MSB 12 Plaintiff, ORDER DISMISSING REQUEST 13 v. FOR ENTRY OF DEFAULT 14 DEBORAH A. CUMBA, [Doc. No. 13] 15 Defendant, 16 18 Plaintiff has filed a request for entry of default judgment against Defendant. [Doc. 19 No. 13.] But Defendant filed a timely motion to dismiss the complaint on Feb. 13, 2025. 20 [Doc. No. 10.] Defendant has clearly raised a defense before this Court. Fed. R. Civ. P. 21 55(a); see Song v. Deeds, 947 F.2d 951 (9th Cir. 1991) (explaining that a motion to dismiss 22 constitutes an effort to “otherwise defend” the lawsuit). 23 /// 24 /// 25 /// 26 28 l Plaintiff's motion for default judgment is denied. 2 3 Itis SO ORDERED. 4 5 || Dated: February 24, 2025 € 6 Hon. Cathy Ann Bencivengo 7 United States District Judge 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28