Carr v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

138 F.R.D. 80, 1991 WL 142667
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Louisiana
DecidedJuly 29, 1991
DocketCiv. A. No. 91-0006-A
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 138 F.R.D. 80 (Carr v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Carr v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 138 F.R.D. 80, 1991 WL 142667 (M.D. La. 1991).

Opinion

RULING

CHRISTINE A. NOLAND, United States Magistrate Judge.

This consent case comes before the Court on the defendant’s motion to amend its answer to add a demand for trial by jury and its accompanying request that the Court exercise its discretion under Rule 39(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to grant the tardy request for a jury trial. This slip-and-fall premises liability suit was commenced in state court on October 30,1990 and was removed to this Court on January 3, 1991 after the defendant secured responses to interrogatories establishing that the plaintiff sought damages in excess of the minimum jurisdictional amount required for diversity jurisdiction. Neither, party requested a jury trial while the matter was pending in state court and neither party requested a jury trial within the ten-day time limits allowed by Rule 81(c) following removal of the action to this Court.1 At the ninety-day initial status conference held on May 16, 1991, defendant’s counsel realized for the first time that a jury trial request had not been made,2 and, five days later, on May 21, [81]*811991, moved to amend the defendant’s answer to add a jury demand. The plaintiff opposes this motion as untimely under Rule 81(e) and the defendant seeks to invoke the Court’s discretion under Rule 39(b) to grant the untimely request for a jury trial.

It is undisputed here that the defendant failed to request a jury trial within the time allowed under Rule 81(c) and that, as a technical matter, it therefore has waived any entitlement to demand a trial by jury as a matter of right. Nevertheless, this Court does have the discretion under Rule 39(b) to relieve the defendant from this waiver and to grant its untimely request for a jury trial. E.g., Daniel International Corp. v. Fischbach & Moore, Inc., 916 F.2d 1061, 1064 (5th Cir.1990).3 In considering whether to exercise this discretion, the Court must be mindful that the right to a jury trial in federal court is a fundamental constitutional right under the Seventh Amendment, such that “when the discretion of the court is invoked under Rule 39(b), the court should grant a jury trial in the absence of strong and compelling reasons to the contrary.” Swofford v. B & W, Inc., 336 F.2d 406, 409 (5th Cir.1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 962, 85 S.Ct. 653, 13 L.Ed.2d 557 (1965); see also Daniel International Corp. v. Fischbach & Moore, Inc., 916 F.2d at 1064. Accordingly, a request for a jury trial under Rule 39(b) “should be favorably received unless there are persuasive reasons to deny it.” United States v. Unum, Inc., 658 F.2d 300, 303 (5th Cir.1981), quoted in Daniel International Corp., 916 F.2d at 1064.

Under the relevant Fifth Circuit authority, the Court should consider the following five factors in considering the exercise of its discretion under Rule 39(b):

(1) whether the case involves issues which are best tried to a jury;
(2) whether granting the jury trial request would result in a disruption of the court’s schedule or that of an adverse party;
(3) the degree of prejudice, if any, to the adverse party;
(4) the length of the delay in having requested a jury trial; and
(5) the reason for the movant’s tardiness in requesting a jury trial.

Daniel International Corp., 916 F.2d at 1064.

Applying these considerations to the case at bar, the Court concludes that it should exercise its discretion in favor of granting the untimely jury trial request in this case. First, the instant case is a- garden variety slip-and-fall case of the sort that is routinely tried to a jury. The tort liability and personal injury damage issues presented in this case are particularly appropriate for trial by jury, as the factual and legal issues are relatively simple and straightforward. A jury is especially well suited for resolving this type of case as it presents what is essentially a factual dispute under established legal principles.

Second, granting the jury trial request will disrupt neither this Court’s schedule nor that of the plaintiff. The only proceedings of any consequence that occurred in this Court prior to the defendant’s jury trial request was the initial ninety day status conference, which established deadlines for discovery, motions, submission of expert reports, joinder of parties and amendment of pleadings. These deadlines are wholly unaffected by the matter of whether or not the case is ultimately tried to a jury rather than to the Court. Further, this matter has not been set down for trial [82]*82and it is this Court’s practice to not set the matter down for trial until the completion of discovery and the holding of the final pretrial conference. Thus, granting the jury trial request will cause no disruption either to the Court’s schedule or to the plaintiff’s schedule in this matter, as it will have no affect at all on scheduling.

Third, the plaintiff has not identified any prejudice that she will sustain as a result of granting the request for a jury trial and no prejudice to the plaintiff is apparent from the record. This is not a case, for example, in which the request for a jury trial was made as a delaying tactic on the eve of trial or in which the adverse party already has prepared his case for a bench trial rather than a jury trial at the time of the Rule 39(b) request. Cf. United States v. Unum, Inc., 658 F.2d at 302-03.

Fourth, the four month delay presented here, while lengthy, is not so extraordinarily lengthy that this factor, standing alone, counsels against the grant of the request for a jury trial in the absence either of any demonstration of prejudice or of any other strong and compelling reason against grant of the request. Cf. Daniel International Corp., 916 F.2d at 1064-65 (on the facts presented, a four month delay did not counsel against honoring an untimely jury trial request where the matter had in fact been set for jury trial and the adverse party belatedly sought to strike the setting of the matter for a jury trial); Swofford, supra (on the facts presented, the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting an untimely jury trial request despite a nine month delay in requesting a jury trial).

And, with respect to the fifth factor — the reason for the movant’s tardiness in requesting a jury trial — defendant’s counsel readily concedes that the only reason for overlooking the absence of a jury trial request prior to the initial ninety day status conference was simple inadvertence on his part. It is well-established by a number of decisions from the Fifth Circuit that it is not an abuse of discretion to deny a Rule 39(b) request when the failure to make a timely demand for a jury trial results from mere inadvertence on the part of the moving party. E.g., Farias v. Bexar County Board of Trustees, 925 F.2d 866

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Bluebook (online)
138 F.R.D. 80, 1991 WL 142667, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carr-v-wal-mart-stores-inc-lamd-1991.