Enriquez v. State of Nevada Department of Corrections

• Court: District Court, D. Nevada
• Decided: November 30, 2022
• Docket: 3:21-cv-00085
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 AARON D. FORD Attorney General 2 WILLIAM P. SHOGREN, Bar No. 14619 Deputy Attorney General 3 State of Nevada 100 N. Carson Street 4 Carson City, Nevada 89701-4717 Tel: (775) 684-1257 5 E-mail: wshogren@ag.nv.gov 6 Attorneys for Defendants Tim Garrett, Gail Waters, 7 Harold Wickham, and Brian Williams 8 9 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 10 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 11 ANTONIO ENRIQUEZ, Case No. 3:21-cv-00085-ART-CSD 12 Plaintiff, 13 v. ORDER GRANTING STATE OF NEVADA DEPARTMENT OF DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR 14 CORRECTIONS, et al., EXTENSION OF TIME TO RESPOND TO PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR 15 Defendants. SUMMARY JUDGMENT [DEFENDANTS’ FIRST REQUEST] 16 Defendants, Tim Garrett, Gail Waters, Harold Wickham and Brian Williams, by 17 and through counsel, Aaron D. Ford, Attorney General of the State of Nevada, and 18 William P. Shogren, Deputy Attorney General, hereby file their Motion for Extension of 19 Time to Respond to Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment. This is the first request for 20 an extension of time to file responsive pleadings made by the Defendants. 21 MEMORANDUM OF POINTS AND AUTHORITIES 22 I. RELEVANT FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 23 This is a pro se prisoner civil rights action brought by Plaintiff Antonio Enriquez 24 (Enriquez), under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and alleging a First Amendment free exercise claim, 25 a First Amendment Establishment Clause claim, and a RLUIPA claim against 26 Defendants. See ECF No. 4. 27 / / / / / / 1 Enriquez previously filed a Motion to Extend Discovery Deadlines (ECF No. 23), 2 which this Court granted. ECF No. 29. This Court set the discovery deadline for 3 January 5, 2023 and the dispositive motion deadline for February 6, 2023. 4 Enriquez then filed a Motion for Summary Judgment on November 15, 2022. 5 ECF No. 37. The deadline for Defendants to file a response is December 6, 2022. There 6 also is a pending Motion for Preliminary Injunction (ECF No. 26) and a pending 7 Objection to Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation (ECF No. 32), both from 8 Enriquez. 9 Defendants now request this Court extend the deadline to file a response to 10 Enriquez’s Motion for Summary Judgment, from December 6, 2022 to January 6, 2023. 11 II. LEGAL STANDARD 12 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(b)(1) governs extensions of time and provides as 13 follows: When an act may or must be done within a specified time, the 14 court may, for good cause, extend the time: (A) with or without 15 motion or notice if the court acts, or if a request is made, before the original time or its extension expires; or (B) on motion made 16 after the time has expired if the party failed to act because of excusable neglect. 17 18 “Rule 6(b) gives the court extensive flexibility to modify the fixed time periods 19 found throughout the rules, whether the enlargement is sought before or after the 20 actual termination of the allotted time.” Lujan v. Nat'l Wildlife Fed., 497 U.S. 871, 906 21 n. 7 (1990) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (emphasis added). Further, 22 this rule, like all the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is to be liberally construed to 23 effectuate the general purpose of seeing that cases (and other disputed issues) are 24 decided on the merits. Ahanchian v. Xenon Pictures, Inc., 624 F.3d 1253, 1258 (9th Cir. 25 2010). Regarding “good cause,” it is a non-rigorous standard that has been construed 26 broadly across procedural and statutory contexts. Id. (citing Venegas–Hernandez v. 27 Sonolux Records, 370 F.3d 183, 187 (1st Cir.2004); Thomas v. Brennan, 961 F.2d 612, 1 Consequently, requests for extensions of time made before the applicable 2 deadline has passed should “normally ... be granted in the absence of bad faith on the 3 part of the party seeking relief or prejudice to the adverse party.” Ahanchian, 624 F.3d 4 at 1259 (quoting 4B Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and 5 Procedure § 1165 (3d ed. 2004). 6 III. LEGAL ARGUMENT 7 Defendants require a short, thirty (30) day extension to file a response to 8 Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Defendants require additional time to fully 9 prepare and brief the issues. Undersigned counsel is currently finalizing a motion for 10 summary judgment due December 5, 2022, in another case (Shepard v. Director, 11 Nevada Department of Corrections, et al, Case No. 3:19-cv-00579-RCJ-CSD). 12 Undersigned counsel is also preparing for an upcoming summary judgment motion 13 hearing in the case Burch v. Daniels, Case No. 27CV-TT12-2020-0145, scheduled 14 for December 12, 2022. These events are in addition to other routine deadlines and 15 court appearances throughout undersigned counsel’s caseload, such as early mediation 16 conferences, case management conferences, and case settlement conferences. 17 Undersigned counsel submits that his recent and upcoming schedule and 18 workload constitutes good cause1 for granting an extension of time to file a response to 19 Enriquez’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Enriquez will not be prejudiced by this 20 extension, especially considering that the current deadline for dispositive motions is 21 February 6, 2023. Defendants make this request in good faith and not to cause undue 22 delay or for any other improper purpose. 23 / / / 24 / / / 25 26 1 The Ninth Circuit has given a non-exhaustive list of valid good-cause reasons in 27 the context of F.R.C.P. 6(b). See Ahanchia v. Xenon Pictures, Inc., 624 F.3d 1253. The Ninth Circuit noted reasons such as holidays, weekends, prior commitments, previously 1 || HI. CONCLUSION 2 Defendants respectfully request this Court extend the deadline to respond to 3 || Enriquez’s Motion for Summary Judgment thirty (30) days from December 6, 2022 ta 4 || January 6, 2023. 5 DATED this 29th day of November, 2022. 6 AARON D. FORD 7 Attorney General

8 py. _ Mil Pee WILLIAM P. SHOGREN, Bar No. 14619 9 Deputy Attorney General 10 Attorneys for Defendants 11 12 || IT IS SO ORDERED. 13 || DATED: November 30, 2022. 14 Cc’ SS bo wep Zacrse- 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28