Murschel v. Paramo
- Proceeding
- district
- Area
- civil
- Panel
- Andrew G. Schopler (author)
Analysis
The court ordered the parties to file a Joint Discovery Plan by November 17, 2020, and established a tentative schedule for discovery and pretrial proceedings. The court specifically directed that the plan include a schedule to adjudicate the defendants' exhaustion defense before general discovery proceeds.
| What the court decided | The model |
|---|---|
Order requiring parties to file a Joint Discovery Plan by November 17, 2020, and establishing a tentative schedule for discovery and pretrial deadlines.“By November 17, 2020, the parties must provide the Court with a Joint Discovery Plan.” | agree with court The order is a procedural scheduling directive. The court has inherent authority and Rule 16 authority to manage the case and set discovery schedules. The requirement to address exhaustion first is consistent with Ninth Circuit precedent regarding prisoner litigation. |
The order itself: sound — The order is a standard scheduling order that correctly applies the Albino v. Baca directive to prioritize exhaustion issues in prisoner civil rights cases. It sets reasonable deadlines and discovery limits. There are no legal errors in the procedural directives.
Opinion
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 Lance MURSCHEL, Case No.: 17-cv-1142-BTM-AGS 11 Plaintiff, ORDER REQUIRING JOINT DISCOVERY PLAN 12 v. 13 Daniel PARAMO, et al., 14 Defendants. 15 16 By November 17, 2020, the parties must provide the Court with a Joint Discovery 17 Plan. The JDP must be filed on the CM/ECF system and lodged with Magistrate Judge 18 Schopler by emailing it to efile_Schopler@casd.uscourts.gov. Because defendants raised 19 the issue of failure to exhaust, the Plan should offer a brief schedule to adjudicate that issue 20 before moving on to general discovery. See Albino v. Baca, 747 F.3d 1162, 1170 (9th Cir. 21 2014) (“Exhaustion should be decided, if feasible, before reaching the merits of a prisoner’s 22 claim.”). The JDP must identify if good cause exists to modify the Court’s tentative 23 schedule of deadlines, which is as follows: 24 25 26 27 28 1 Event Deadline 2 Defense Counsel Receiving and December 8, 2020 Serving All Grievances on File at 3 the Institution 4 Plaintiff’s Deposition, not limited By January 15, 2021 solely to issues of exhaustion 5 Any Motions Concerning January 29, 2021 6 Exhaustion or Requests for Albino Hearing 7 Motions to Amend February 16, 2021 8 Expert Witness Designations and April 30, 2021 9 Disclosures 10 Rebuttal Expert Witness May 28, 2021 Designations and Disclosures 11 Expert Discovery Completion June 25, 2021 12 Fact Discovery Completion June 25, 2021 13 MSC Briefs July 2, 2021 14 Mandatory Settlement Conference July 9, 2021, at 9:00 a.m. 15 Pretrial Motions July 26, 2021 16 Rule 26(a)(3) Disclosures October 1, 2021 17 Meet and Confer on the PTO October 8, 2021 18 Draft PTO to Defense Counsel October 15, 2021 19 Lodge PTO October 22, 2021 20 Final Pretrial Conference October 29, 2021, at 11:00 a.m. 21 Discovery Type Restriction 22 Depositions No more than 4 23 Requests for Admission No more than 15 24 Interrogatories No more than 15 25 Requests to Produce Documents No more than 15 26 27 28 1 Defense counsel is responsible for contacting plaintiff to prepare the joint discovery plan 2 should plaintiff be incarcerated at the relevant time, for ensuring □□□□□□□□□□□ 3 || participation in any telephonic or in-person hearings. 4 5 ||Dated: October 20, 2020 4 Hon. Andrew G. Schopler United States Magistrate Judge 8 9 10 1] 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28