Mike Langley v. Transportation Security Administration, et. al.

• Court: District Court, D. Nevada
• Decided: October 24, 2025
• Docket: 2:25-cv-00353
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

2 DISTRICT OF NEVADA

3 * * *

4 Mike Langley, Case No. 2:25-cv-00353-APG-BNW

5 Plaintiffs, ORDER 6 v.

7 Transportation Security Administration, et. al., 8 Defendant. 9 10 Before this Court is Defendant Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Motion to 11 Stay Discovery. ECF No. 75. Plaintiff opposed the motion. ECF No. 79. Defendant Clark County 12 (representing Harry Reid International Airport) joined Defendant TSA’s motion. ECF No. 85. 13 Defendant TSA filed a reply to Plaintiff’s opposition. ECF No. 87. Plaintiff then filed a 14 consolidated reply. ECF No. 91. The parties are familiar with the arguments. As a result, this 15 Court does not repeat them. Instead, this Court will incorporate the arguments as necessary and 16 relevant to this order. As explained below, this Court will stay discovery in this matter. 17 I. Legal Standard 18 “The district court has wide discretion in controlling discovery[.]” Tradebay, LLC v. eBay, 19 Inc., 278 F.R.D. 597, 601 (D. Nev. 2011) (citing Little v. City of Seattle, 863 F.2d 681, 685 (9th 20 Cir. 1988)). Federal courts have the “power to stay proceedings is incidental to the power inherent 21 in every court to control the disposition of the causes on its docket with economy of time and 22 effort for itself, for counsel, and for litigants.” Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254, 57 S. Ct. 23 163, 81 L. Ed. 153 (1936). 24 The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not provide for automatic or blanket stays of 25 discovery because a potentially dispositive motion is pending. Skellerup Indus. Ltd. v. City of 26 L.A., 163 F.R.D. 598, 600-01 (C.D. Cal. 1995). A court may, however, stay discovery under 27 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c)(1); Clardy v. Gilmore, 773 F. App'x 1 discovery under Rule 26(c) is good cause. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c)(1) (the court “may, for good 2 cause, issue an order to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or 3 undue burden or expense,” including forbidding discovery or specifying when it will occur). 4 This Court employs the “good cause” test as articulated in Schrader v. Wynn when 5 deciding motions to stay discovery. See No. 2:19-cv-02159-JCM-BNW, 2021 WL 4810324, at 6 *3-4 (D. Nev. Oct. 14, 2021). Under that test, this Court may grant motions to stay discovery 7 when a dispositive motion is pending if (1) the dispositive motion can be decided without further 8 discovery; and (2) good cause exists to stay discovery. Id. Ultimately, guided by Rule 1 of the 9 Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, this Court is trying to determine “whether it is more just to 10 speed the parties along in discovery and other proceedings while a dispositive motion is pending, 11 or whether it is more just to delay or limit discovery and other proceedings to accomplish the 12 inexpensive determination of the case.” Id. (citing Tradebay, 278 F.R.D. at 603). 13 II. Analysis 14 By way of background, this Court granted in part and denied in part Plaintiff’s first 15 motion to amend. ECF No. 66. The denial of a motion to amend on futility grounds is dispositive. 16 As such, this Court issued a report and recommendation as to the claims it found futile. 17 Specifically, this Court recommended that Plaintiff’s Bivens claims against the TSA and the tort 18 claims against Clark County (Harry Reid International Airport) be denied as futile. Id. Plaintiff 19 objected to the recommendation and Defendant TSA requested the objection be overruled. ECF 20 Nos. 70, 74. The district court has not yet ruled on the objection to this Court’s dispositive 21 recommendation.1 The pending objections are potentially dispositive as it regards the defendants 22 mentioned above. No discovery is needed for the resolution of the objection. 23 This Court finds good cause to stay discovery as to these two defendants until Plaintiff’s 24 objection is resolved. Indeed, this Court has already found that Plaintiff will not be able to bring 25 these specific claims. ECF No. 66. Moreover, Plaintiff filed a motion for leave to file a second 26

27 1 Of note, Plaintiff filed a motion for leave to file a second amendment complaint in which he, inter alia, (1) re-asserts 1 || amended complaint in which he does not allege any claims against Clark County.’ In this 2 || particular case, mandating these defendants to engage in the discovery process would violate the 3 || principles of Rule 1. II. Conclusion 5 IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendant’s motion to stay discovery (ECF No. 6 || 75) is GRANTED. 7 DATED this 24th day of October 2025. 8 .

BRENDA WEKSLER 10 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 1] 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 ? Plaintiff's proposed second amended complaint names Clark County as a defendant but none of the claims are asserted against it. ECCF No. 72-1.