Mercer v. Caesars Entertainment, Inc.

Opinion

1 MONTGOMERY Y. PAEK, ESQ. Nevada Bar No. 10176 2 AMY L. THOMPSON, ESQ. Nevada Bar No. 11907 3 MICHAEL D. DISSINGER, ESQ. Nevada Bar No. 15208 4 LITTLER MENDELSON, P.C. 3960 Howard Hughes Parkway 5 Suite 300 Las Vegas, Nevada 89169.5937 6 Telephone: 702.862.8800 Fax No.: 702.862.8811 7 mpaek@littler.com athompson@littler.com 8 mdissinger@littler.com 9 Attorneys for Defendants CAESARS ENTERTAINMENT, INC. AND PARIS 10 LAS VEGAS OPERATING CO., LLC 11 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEVADA 12 13 LEANN MERCER, on behalf of herself and all Case No. 2:23-cv-00958-MMD-NJK others similarly situated, 14 Plaintiff, STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] 15 ORDER TO EXTEND STAY OF v. PROCEEDINGS FOR 45 DAYS TO 16 PERMIT TIME FOR ADDITIONAL CAESARS ENTERTAINMENT, INC.; PARIS MEDIATION EFFORTS 17 LAS VEGAS OPERATING CO., LLC; and DOES 1 through 50, inclusive, [THIRD REQUEST] 18 Defendants. 19 20 Plaintiff, LEANN MERCER (“Plaintiff”), and Defendants, CAESARS 21 ENTERTAINMENT, INC. (“Caesars”) and PARIS LAS VEGAS OPERATING CO., LLC 22 (“Paris”) (“Defendants”) (together, the “Parties”), by and through their undersigned counsel, hereby 23 agree and stipulate to extend the current stay of all proceedings in this matter by forty-five (45) 24 days from the current expiration date of December 20, 2023 up to and including Monday, February 25 5, 20241 to permit time for the Parties to continue their mediation efforts. 26 27 1 Forty-five (45) days from December 20, 2023 falls on Saturday, February 3, 2024. Per Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a)(1)(C) the stay will therefore be extended up to and including Monday, February 5, 28 2024. 1 The purpose of the instant stipulation is to promote judicial economy and permit this Court 2 to effectively control the disposition of cases on its docket with economy of time and effort for 3 itself, counsel, and the litigants. See Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254 (1936) (“[T]he power 4 to stay proceedings is incidental to the power inherent in every court to control the dispositions of 5 the causes on its docket with economy of time and effort for itself, for counsel, and for litigants.”); 6 Pate v. DePay Orthopedics, Inc., No. 2:12-cv-01168-MMD-CWH, 2012 WL 3532780, *2 (D. Nev. 7 Aug. 14, 2012) (“A trial court may, with proprietary, find it is efficient for its own docket and the 8 fairest course for the parties to enter a stay of an action before it, pending resolution of independent 9 proceedings which bear upon the case.”) (internal citations omitted). In evaluating whether to stay 10 proceedings, the Court should look at the competing interests of the parties and of the Court, 11 including “‘possible damage which may result in granting the stay, the hardship or inequity which 12 a party may suffer in being required to go forward, and the orderly course of justice measured in 13 terms of simplifying or complicating of issues, proof, and questions of law which could expected 14 to result from a stay.’” Coker v. Dowd, No. 2:13-cv-0994-JCM-NJK, 2013 WL 12216682, *1 (D. 15 Nev. Jul. 8, 2013) (granting joint motion to stay all proceedings pending mediation), quoting 16 Lockyer v. Mirant Corp., 398 F.3d 1098, 1110 (9th Cir. 2005). 17 As noted in the Parties’ prior stipulation to extend the stay of proceedings (ECF No. 11) 18 from November 20, 2023, up to and including December 20, 2023, the Parties engaged in private 19 mediation on Wednesday, October 25, 2023, and agreed to reconvene for an additional mediation 20 session on Tuesday, November 21, 2023, however the continued mediation date has since been 21 rescheduled to Monday, January 15, 2024 which was the next earliest availability of all parties and 22 the mediator. The Parties continue to agree that through ongoing mediation efforts the Parties may 23 be able to resolve the matter entirely and avoid unnecessary litigation costs and waste of judicial 24 resources. Because the stay currently expires on December 20, 2023, the Parties agree that an 25 additional forty-five (45) day extension of the current stay of all proceedings, up to and including 26 Monday, February 5, 2024, is warranted so that the Parties can continue their efforts to resolve the 27 matter entirely without expending unnecessary litigation costs and efforts, and that neither Plaintiff 28 nor Defendants will be prejudiced by an extension of the current stay of proceedings. 1 The Parties further agree that they will each suffer an avoidable hardship – time and money 2 spent litigating – if the matter is required to proceed prior to the additional mediation session 3 scheduled for Monday, January 15, 2024. The Parties respectfully submit that extending the stay 4 of proceedings until conclusion of the mediation will avoid the waste of judicial resources by 5 simplifying or entirely disposing of the issues in this action. 6 Accordingly, the Parties agree and hereby stipulate that good cause exists to extend the 7 current stay of all proceedings up to and including Monday, February 5, 2024. The Parties also 8 agree, stipulate and hereby request that: (1) the current December 5, 2023 deadline for filing a joint 9 status report be moved to fourteen (14) days after January 15, 2024; and (2) the December 20, 2023 10 status check be rescheduled to a date on or after February 5, 2024. The Parties will file a joint status 11 report informing the Court of the outcome of the mediation within fourteen (14) days of the January 12 15, 2024, mediation session as follows: 13 1. Should the Parties reach a settlement of all claims, the Parties will update the Court 14 as to the tentative resolution and set forth a proposed briefing schedule for settlement approval; or 15 2. Should the Parties be unsuccessful at resolving all claims, the Parties shall inform 16 the Court which, if any, claims were not resolved and propose a scheduling order for the matter to 17 proceed, including for Defendants’ responsive pleading and commencement of discovery. 18 / / / 19 20 / / / 21 22 / / / 23 24 / / / 25 26 / / / 27 28 / / / 1 The instant stipulation is submitted in good faith to allow the parties to potentially resolve 2 || the matter entirely through private mediation and is not for the purpose of causing any undue delay. 3 IT IS SO STIPULATED. 4 5 Dated: November 28, 2023 Dated: November 28, 2023 6 || Respectfully submitted, Respectfully submitted, 7 || 4s/ Joshua R. Hendrickson /s/ Michael D. Dissinger MARK R. THIERMAN, ESQ. MONTGOMERY Y. PAEK, ESQ. 8 || JOSHUA D. BUCK, ESQ. AMY L. THOMPSON, ESQ. JERE RARIISNON SS? pena 0 THIERMAN BUCK, LLP ao

11 |] Attomeys for Plaintiff CAFSARS ENTERTAINMENT, INC. AND LEANN MERCER PARIS LAS VEGAS OPERATING CO., 12 LLC 13 14 IT ISSO ORDERED. 15 Dated: CL 29, 2023 16 17 ITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 pe