Hillebrand v. United Parcel Service Incorporated

Opinion

1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

9 Brian E Hillebrand, et al., No. CV-25-02220-PHX-DJH

10 Plaintiffs, ORDER

11 v.

12 United Parcel Service Incorporated,

13 Defendant. 14 15 On June 26, 2025, pro se Plaintiffs Brian E. Hillebrand and Jay V. Shore 16 (“Plaintiffs”) brought a four-count Complaint against the United Parcel Service (“UPS”) 17 for violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”); failure to provide 18 reasonable accommodation under the ADA; interference with ADA rights; and breach of 19 contract. (Doc. 1 at 12–15). The Court ordered a Rule 16 Scheduling Conference on 20 July 7, 2025, (Doc. 8), and UPS filed its first Motion to Dismiss on August 7, 2025. 21 (Doc. 14). Plaintiffs filed a Response to the Motion to Dismiss on September 5, 2025. 22 (Doc. 17). The parties submitted a Rule 26(f) Joint Case Management Report (“Joint 23 Report”) shortly thereafter. (Doc. 18). In that report, the parties ask the Court to rule on 24 the pending Motion to Dismiss before they submit dates to the Court for their discovery 25 schedule. (Doc. 18 at 5–7). Although the parties did not officially file a Motion to Stay 26 in this case, the parties’ request to not submit dates to the Court in their Joint Report 27 pending resolution of the Motion to Dismiss is denied. 28 / / / 1 II. Legal Standard 2 The Ninth Circuit has not set forth a clear standard for district courts to apply 3 when deciding to stay a case pending the resolution of a potentially dispositive motion. 4 See Williams v. Experian Info. Sols. Inc., 2024 WL 739676, at *2 (D. Ariz. 5 Feb. 23, 2024). However, “[m]ost federal district courts . . . apply a two-part test under 6 which it is appropriate to stay discovery [where] (1) the pending motion must be 7 potentially dispositive of the entire case, or at least dispositive on the issue at which 8 discovery is aimed and (2) the pending, potentially dispositive motion can be decided 9 absent additional discovery. Discovery should proceed if either prong of the test is not 10 met. This test has the Court take a ‘preliminary peek’ at the underlying motion without 11 exhaustively reviewing the merits.” Id. (citing Ferrell v. AppFolio, Inc., 2024 WL 12 132223, *1 (C.D. Cal. 2024)). “The party seeking the stay bears the burden of proving 13 that it is warranted.” Aliphcom v. Fitbit, Inc., 154 F. Supp. 3d 933, 937 (N.D. Cal. 2015). 14 Alternatively, the district court “may, in lieu of a general stay, impose protective orders, 15 seal interrogatories, impose a stay for a finite period of time, or limit a stay to a particular 16 subject matter.” Lizarraga v. City of Nogales Arizona, 2007 WL 215616, at *1 (D. Ariz. 17 Jan. 24, 2007) (internal citations omitted). 18 III. Discussion 19 The Court finds that discovery in this case must proceed. Importantly, the Motion 20 to Dismiss filed by UPS is not “dispositive of the entire case . . .” See Williams, 2024 21 WL 739676, at *2 (outlining the guiding standard for the Court to use when deciding to 22 stay discovery). In fact, the pending Motion to Dismiss only addresses two of the four 23 claims: interference with ADA rights and breach of contract. (Doc. 14 at 1). This falls 24 short of the underlying motion disposing of the entire case. Therefore, the parties’ 25 request to stay discovery is denied and the parties are advised to resubmit their Joint 26 Report with proposed dates on which discovery will be conducted. 27 Accordingly, 28 IT IS ORDERED that the parties’ request to stay discovery pending resolution of the Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 17) is denied. 2 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the parties shall resubmit their Joint Case 3|| Management Report to the Court with proposed dates for discovery by Friday, 4|| September 12, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. 5 Dated this 9th day of September 2025. 6 Do Le 7 norable’Diang4. Huntetewa 8 United States District Fudge 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

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