Hsu v. Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company

Opinion

Honorable Thomas S. Zilly

WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON

TSUNG H HSU, No. 2:20-cv-00088-TSZ Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING v. STIPULATED MOTION TO CONTINUE EXPERT INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant.

On this day came before the Court the parties’ Stipulated Motion to Continue the Date for Expert Disclosures. The parties seek through their motion a continuance of only one pre- trial date: the expert disclosure date. See Mot. at 1. In support of their motion, the parties state that they requested through their Joint Status Report that the expert disclosure date be December 30, 2020, so that the parties could complete discovery before exchanging expert disclosures. The parties’ Motion is supported by the declaration of Sarah Cox. “A schedule may be modified only for good cause and with the judge’s consent.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4); see also LCR 16(b)(5) (“A schedule may be modified only for good cause and with the judge’s consent.”). The decision to modify a scheduling order is within the broad discretion of the district court. See Johnson v. Mammoth Recreations, Inc., 975 F.2d 604, 607 (9th Cir. 1992). Rule 16(b)’s “good cause” standard primarily considers the diligence of the party seeking the amendment. If a party has acted diligently yet cannot reasonably meet scheduling dates or deadlines, a court may allow modification of the schedule. The Court finds that good cause exists to extend the expert disclosure date so that the parties can complete discovery prior to exchanging expert disclosures. The parties have conferred and agreed that this continuance will not otherwise alter the Court’s schedule. Moreover, the parties have been sufficiently diligent in their discovery efforts—they each have issued and responded to document discovery and participated in four depositions in September—but discovery is still not complete. See Declaration of Sarah Cox in Support of Stipulated Motion to Extend Expert Disclosure Date, ¶ 2. Defendant has yet to take certain key depositions, including that of the Plaintiff, id. at ¶ 3, but the case scheduling order expressly gives both parties until December 21, 2020 to complete discovery, dkt. 10. Permitting the parties to complete discovery before exchanging expert disclosures will allow any expert witnesses to incorporate all discovery into their disclosures, and avoid incomplete expert disclosures that must later be supplemented. This serves the interests of justice and efficiency articulated in Fed. R. Civ. P. 1 and LCR 1(a), and safeguards the Court’s trial schedule by keeping the other case scheduling dates in place. Accordingly, after careful consideration of the Motion, the Court GRANTS the Motion for good cause shown. IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, that the case schedule shall be amended as follows: DESCRIPTION CURRENT DATE AMENDED DATE Disclosure of expert testimony September 21, 2020 December 30, 2020 under FRCP 26(a)(2) DATED this 24th day of September, 2020. A

Thomas S. Zilly United States District Judge

DATED this 21st day of September, 2020. Davis Wright Tremaine LLP Roy Law Group Attorneys for Defendant Attorneys for Plaintiff

By s/ Sarah Cox By s/ Sarah E. Cox, WSBA #46703 Jesse Cowell, WSBA #50725 James Howard, WSBA #37259 1000 SW Broadway, Ste. 900 920 Fifth Ave., Ste. 3300 Portland, OR 97205 Seattle, WA 98104-1610 (503) 206-4313 (206) 622-3150 jesse@roylawgroup.com (206) 757-7700 sarahcox@dwt.com jameshoward@dwt.com