Houston Casualty Company v. Cibus US LLC

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 HOUSTON CASUALTY COMPANY, Case No.: 19cv828-BAS-LL 12 Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART JOINT MOTION 13 v. TO AMEND SCHEDULING ORDER 14 CIBUS US LLC, [ECF No. 23] 15 Defendant. 16 17 Currently before the Court is the Parties’ “Joint Motion to Amend Scheduling 18 Order.” ECF No. 23. The Parties request a 120-day extension of all remaining pre-trial 19 deadlines. Id. at 4. In support, the Parties state Defendant’s offices in San Diego and North 20 America “have been closed for over two months due to the COVID-19 pandemic” and 21 employees in these offices “have been subject to various local orders that have limited their 22 productivity and access to necessary information” which has decreased Defendant’s ability 23 to “identify and gather the full set of documents” responsive to Plaintiff’s document 24 requests. Id. at 3. 25 Defendant specifically notes that further responsive documents may include 26 “voluminous” e-mails “which span the accounts of several” employees “and are estimated 27 to exceed 90 GB of material.” Id. Defendant additionally states it has identified over 50,000 28 separate documents that still require review. Id. Given the above, Defendant states it “does 1 not anticipate” being able to complete its document production until “approximately mid- 2 August” and the Parties therefore request an 120-day extension in order to facilitate their 3 ability to conduct depositions and expert discovery. Id. This is the Parties’ second request 4 to continue deadlines in this case. See ECF Nos. 21, 22. 5 ANALYSIS 6 Once a Rule 16 scheduling order is issued, the dates set forth therein may be 7 modified only “for good cause and with the judge’s consent.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4); see 8 also ECF No. 15 at 7 (“The dates and times set forth herein will not be modified except for 9 good cause shown.”). The Rule 16 good cause standard primarily focuses on the diligence 10 of the moving party. Johnson v. Mammoth Recreations, Inc., 975 F.2d 604, 609 (9th Cir. 11 1992). Essentially, “the focus of the inquiry is upon the moving party’s reasons for seeking 12 modification.” Id. If the moving party “was not diligent, the inquiry should end.” Id. 13 Here, the Court does not find good cause to extend the pre-trial deadlines for the 14 length of time requested. From the record, Plaintiff propounded its First Set of Requests 15 for Production on January 16, 2020. See ECF No. 23-2 at 2. Plaintiff propounded a Second 16 Set of Requests for Production on March 25, 2020. Id. 17 Defendant therefore appears to have had over six months to gather documents in 18 response to Plaintiff’s First Set of RFPs and almost three months to gather documents in 19 response to Plaintiff’s Second Set of RFPs. Although the Court is sympathetic to logistical 20 issues Defendant may have encountered given the current COVID-19 public health 21 emergency, the Court is unable to determine how this emergency fully accounts for 22 Defendant’s inability to complete its document productions within the Court’s deadline. 23 The Court is also not particularly reassured by Defendant’s current representation 24 that despite its “best efforts” it does not “anticipate” being able to complete its document 25 production until “approximately” mid-August. ECF No. 23-1 at 2. A scheduling order “is 26 not a frivolous piece of paper, idly entered, which can be cavalierly disregarded by counsel 27 without peril.” Johnson, 975 F.2d at 610. 28 The Court is mindful however that the procedural rules governing civil actions are 2 to be construed to achieve the just determination of every action. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 1; 3 Rodgers v. Watt, 722 F.2d 456, 459 (9th Cir. 1983) (“It is well settled that the Federal 4 || Rules of Civil Procedure are to be liberally construed to effectuate the general purpose of 5 seeing that cases are tried on the merits and to dispense with technical procedural 6 problems.” ). 7 In balance, in order to effectuate the general purpose of seeing that this case is 8 decided on the merits, the Court GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART the Parties’ 9 || Joint Motion as follows: 10 | ermoae [Newe 14 Designations/ Defendant’s 15 Expert Designations Designations "

Conference 1:30 p.m. 9:30 a.m.

24 Conference Briefs 2 27 Contentions of Fact and Law 28 | Local Rule 16.1.f.4.a January 4, 2021 March 1, 2021 2 Requirements 3 Proposed Pretrial Order January 11, 2021 March 8, 2021 4 Lodging of Pretrial Order January 19, 2021 March 15, 2021 5 Pretrial Conference February 1, 2021 at 11:00 | March 29, 2021 at 11:00 6 a.m. a.m. February 15,2021) Apail 12,2021 g March 1, 2021 April 26, 2021 Limine 9 10 Trial Documents Deadline March 1, 2021 April 26, 2021 11 Final Exhibit and Witness March 15, 2021 May 18, 2021 Lists 12 Motions in Limine Hearing | March 22, 2021 at 10:30 May 17, 2021 at 10:30 13 a.m. a.m. Trial March 30, 2021 at 9:00 | May 25, 2021 at 9:00 15 a.m. a.m. 16 The Parties are advised that no further extensions will be granted □□□□□□ 17 exceptional circumstances. 18 IT IS SO ORDERED. 19 29 Dated: June 22, 2020 KO LL 21 JW Te) Honorable Linda Lopez United States Magistrate Judge 23 24 25 26 27 28