Carley v. Gentry

Opinion

Attorney General 2 CHRISTOPHER M. GUY (Bar No. 15239) Deputy Attorney General 3 State of Nevada Office of the Attorney General 4 555 East Washington Avenue Suite 3900 5 Las Vegas, Nevada 89101 (702) 486-3326 (phone) 6 (702) 486-3773 (fax) Email: cguy@ag.nv.gov 7 Attorneys for Defendants James Dzurenda, Charles Daniels, 8 Sheryl Foster, Jo Gentry, Tanya Hill, Gabriela Najera, Dwight Neven, Cynthia Ruiz, Kim Thomas, and Patrick Vejar 9 LISA A. RASMUSSEN, Esq. 10 Law Offices of Kristina Wildeveld & Associates 550 East Charleston Blvd. 11 Las Vegas, Nevada 89101 (702) 222-0007 (phone) 12 (702) 222-0001 (fax) Email: Lisa@veldlaw.com 13 Attorneys for Plaintiff 14 15 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 16 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 17 ELIZABETH CARLEY, Case No. 2:17-cv-02670-MMD-VCF 18 Plaintiff, J OINT STIPULATION AND ORDER 19 v. TO EXTEND THE J OINT PRETRIAL ORDER DEADLINE FROM J UNE 27, 20 JO GENTRY, et al., 2022, TO AUGUST 29, 2022 (Third Request) 21 Defendants. 22 Plaintiff Elizabeth Carley, by and through counsel, Lisa. A. Rasmussen, and 23 Defendants, Sheryl Foster, Patrick Vejar, Jo Gentry, James Dzurenda, Charles Daniels, 24 Gabriela Najera, Tanya Hill, Dwight Neven, Cynthia Ruiz, and Kim Thomas, by and 25 through counsel, Aaron D. Ford, Nevada Attorney General, and Christopher M. Guy, 26 Deputy Attorney General, of the State of Nevada, Office of the Attorney General, hereby 27 submit a Joint Stipulation And Order To Extend The Joint Pretrial Order Deadline From 28 June 27, 2022, to Monday, August 29, 2022. 2 The Parties hereby move to extend the Joint Pretrial Order deadline from June 27, 3 2022, to August 29, 2022 (63 days). Good cause exists in this case because the Parties have 4 resumed settlement discussions and may be able to resolve this matter without further 5 litigation. Additionally, both counsel for Plaintiff and Defendants assumed litigation 6 responsibilities for this matter post summary judgment briefing. Plaintiff’s counsel 7 appeared in this matter as recent as January 25, 2022, for the purpose of a settlement 8 conference.1 ECF No. 163. The Parties agree that additional time is necessary to review 9 the discovery records produced in this matter to submit a Joint Pretrial Order. 10 II. LAW AND ARGUMENT 11 A. Law 12 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(b)(1)2 provides: 13 (1) In General. When an act may or must be done within a specified time, the court may, for good cause, extend the time: 14 (A) with or without motion or notice if the court acts, or if a request is made, before the original time or its extension 15 expires; or (B) on motion made after the time has expired if the party 16 failed to act because of excusable neglect. 17 FED. R. CIV. P. 6(b)(1). 18 The United States Supreme Court has recognized, “Rule 6(b) gives the 19 court extensive flexibility to modify the fixed time periods found throughout the rules, 20 whether the enlargement is sought before or after the actual termination of the allotted 21 time.” Lujan v. Nat'l Wildlife Fed., 497 U.S. 871, 906 n. 7 (1990) (internal quotation marks 22 and citation omitted) (emphasis added); see also Perez-Denison v. Kaiser Found. Health 23 Plan of the Nw., 868 F. Supp. 2d 1065, 1079 (D. Or. 2012) (citing and quoting Lujan, 497 24 1 This settlement conference was more akin to a global settlement conference as two 25 of Plaintiff’s cases were at issue: the other case being 2:17-cv-02346-MMD-CLB. 2 LR IA 6-1(a): “A motion or stipulation to extend time must state the reasons for the 26 extension requested and must inform the court of all previous extensions of the subject deadline the court granted.” Further, a “stipulation or motion seeking to extend the time 27 to file an opposition or reply to a motion, or to extend the time fixed for hearing a motion, must state in its opening paragraph the filing date of the subject motion or the date of the 28 subject hearing.” LR IA 6-1(c). 2 liberally construed to effectuate the general purpose of seeing that cases (and other 3 disputed issues) are decided on the merits. Ahanchian v. Xenon Pictures, Inc., 624 F.3d 4 1253, 1258 (9th Cir. 2010). Regarding “Good cause,” it is a non-rigorous standard that has 5 been construed broadly across procedural and statutory contexts. Id. (citing several circuits 6 Venegas–Hernandez v. Sonolux Records, 370 F.3d 183, 187 (1st Cir.2004); Thomas v. 7 Brennan, 961 F.2d 612, 619 (7th Cir.1992); Lolatchy v. Arthur Murray, Inc., 816 F.2d 951, 8 954 (4th Cir.1987)). 9 Consequently, requests for extensions of time made before the applicable deadline 10 has passed should “normally ... be granted in the absence of bad faith on the part of the 11 party seeking relief or prejudice to the adverse party.” Ahanchian, 624 F.3d at 1259 12 (quoting 4B Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 13 1165 (3d ed. 2004). 14 B. Agreement 15 On June 23, 2022, the Parties meet and conferred about the status of the case. The 16 Parties renewed settlement discussions as Plaintiff’s circumstances have changed now that 17 she resides in transitional housing. The Parties agreed that Plaintiff’s new circumstance 18 should be considered for settlement purposes and present new opportunities for settlement 19 that were not considered at the March 24, 2022, settlement conference. The Parties do not 20 act in bad faith. They are evaluating the issues and settlement possibility in good faith. 21 Additionally, the Parties seek additional time to work together to draft the Joint 22 Pretrial Order. The Parties are working together to determine what records were produced 23 prior to counsels’ appearances in this matter. The additional time is necessary to the 24 drafting and agreement to a joint order. Thus, the Parties request an extension of the Joint 25 Pretrial Order deadline of June 27, 2022, to August 29, 2022. 26 /// 27 /// 28 /// 1 CONCLUSION 2 For the foregoing reasons, the Parties request an extension of the Joint Pretrial 3 Order deadline of June 27, 2022, to August 29, 2022. 4 5 DATED this 24th day of June 2022 DATED this 24th day of June 2022 6 7 By: /s/_Lisa A. Rasmussen By: /s/ Christopher M. Guy LISA A. RASMUSSEN, Esq. CHRISTOPHER M. GUY g Law Offices of Kristina Wildeveld & Deputy Attorney General Associates Office of the Nevada Attorney General 9 550 E. Charleston Blvd. 555 E. Washington Avenue, #3900 Las Vegas, Nevada 89101 Las Vegas, Nevada 89101 10 Attorneys for Plaintiff Attorneys for Defendants 11 12 IT IS SO ORDERED. 13 M4 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 15 DATE: 6-27-2022 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28