Garcia v. Smith's Food & Drug Centers, Inc.

• Court: District Court, D. Nevada
• Decided: February 7, 2023
• Docket: 2:22-cv-01616
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

5 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 6 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 7

8 BEATRIZ GARCIA, Case No. 2:22-cv-01616-CDS-NJK 9 Plaintiff(s), Order 10 v. [Docket No. 12] 11 SMITH’S FOOD & DRUG CENTERS, INC., 12 Defendant(s). 13 Pending before the Court is a stipulation to extend case management deadlines by 120 days. 14 Docket No. 12.1 15 A request to extend unexpired deadlines in the scheduling order must be premised on a 16 showing of good cause. Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4); Local Rule 26-3. The good cause analysis turns 17 on whether the subject deadlines cannot reasonably be met despite the exercise of diligence. 18 Johnson v. Mammoth Recreations, Inc., 975 F.2d 604, 609 (9th Cir. 1992). 19 In this case, the parties “would like to extend the discovery deadlines by 120-days [sic] in 20 order to negotiate privately and, if that fails, to schedule a private mediation with Judge Stuart Bell 21 (Ret.) at JAMS for April 4, 2023.” Docket No. 12 at 1-2. Federal courts encourage informal 22 settlement and the use of alternative dispute resolution. Nonetheless, a desire to engage in 23 settlement discussions is a routine aspect of federal litigation and is not generally viewed as good 24 cause to extend case management deadlines. Williams v. James River Grp. Inc., ___ F. Supp. 3d 25 ____, 2022 WL 4181415, at *5 (D. Nev. Sept. 13, 2022) (collecting cases). Moreover and 26

27 1 The stipulation incorrectly identifies the current discovery cutoff as being “September 23, 2022” and asks for a new discovery cutoff of January 22, 2024. Docket No. 12 at 3. The current 28 discovery cutoff is June 20, 2023. Docket No. 10 at 2. 1} significantly, no justification is advanced to support a four-month extension of deadlines, 2|| particularly given that the proposed mediation is less than two months away. 3 In the circumstances presented, the Court will provide a 30-day extension to the case 4! management deadlines. Accordingly, the stipulation to extend is GRANTED in part and 5] DENIED in part. Deadlines are RESET as follows: 6 e Joint status report regarding mediation: April 7, 2023 7 e Amend pleadings/ add parties: April 21, 2023 8 e Initial experts: May 22, 2023 9 e Rebuttal experts: June 20, 2023 10 e Discovery cutoff: July 20, 2023 11 e Dispositive motions: August 21, 2023 12 e Joint proposed pretrial order: September 20, 2023, or 30 days after resolution of 13 dispositive motions 14 IT IS SO ORDERED. 15 Dated: February 7, 2023 16 ZEN. EE Nancy J. Kong 17 United States Magistrate Judge 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28