Baker Farming Company, LLC v. United States

• Court: District Court, E.D. California
• Decided: May 22, 2025
• Docket: 1:24-cv-01120
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

7 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 8 9 EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 BAKER FARMING COMPANY, LLC, Case No. 1:24-cv-01120-SAB 11 Plaintiff, ORDER STAYING CASE AND SETTING 12 DEADLINE v. 13 AUGUST 29, 2025 DEADLINE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 14 Defendants. 15 16 Before the Court is the parties’ stipulated motion to stay this case in light of a pending 17 settlement agreement. The parties proffer that they have negotiated an agreement to resolve this 18 case and that counsel for the United States has recommended this agreement to the final 19 governmental decisionmaker. Once the agreement is approved, the parties state that they will 20 file dispositional documents. The parties propose a date of December 12, 2025, to file 21 dispositional documents or file a status report. 22 A district court “has broad discretion to stay proceedings as an incident to its power to 23 control its own docket.” Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 706 (1997), citing Landis v. North 24 America Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254 (1936). A stay is discretionary and the “party requesting a stay 25 bears the burden of showing that the circumstances justify an exercise of that discretion.” Nken 26 v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 433-34 (2009). “Generally, stays should not be indefinite in nature.” 27 Dependable Highway Exp., Inc. v. Navigators Ins. Co., 498 F.3d 1059, 1066-67 (9th Cir. 2007). Instead, district courts should “balance the length of any stay against the strength of the 1 | justification given for it.’ Young v. LN.S., 208 F.3d 1116, 1119 (9th Cir. 2000) (discussing that 2 | if a stay is especially long or its term is indefinite, a greater showing is required to justify it). 3 Upon review of the motion and the file in this case, the Court agrees that a stay is 4 | warranted here because the only remaining issue is for a final governmental decisionmaker to 5 | approve the settlement. However, the Court will not approve an indefinite stay. Instead, the 6 | Court will require that the parties either file dispositional documents by the end of August, or a 7 | status report with an accompanying request, supported by good cause, to continue the stay is this 8 | case two weeks prior. 9 Therefore, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that this matter is STAYED through August 29, 10 | 2025. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that all deadlines are VACATED. The parties shall have 11 | through August 29, 2025, to file dispositional documents. However, if the parties will not be 12 | able to file dispositional documents by August 29, 2025, the parties shall file a status report with 13 | an accompanying request, supported by good cause, to continue the stay in this matter by August 14 | 15, 2025. 15 16 IT IS SO ORDERED. FA. ee 17 | Dated: _ May 22, 2025 STANLEY A. BOONE 18 United States Magistrate Judge 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28