Millard Gutter Company v. Depositors Insurance Company

CourtDistrict Court, D. Nebraska
DecidedMarch 31, 2023
Docket8:18-cv-00023
StatusUnknown

This text of Millard Gutter Company v. Depositors Insurance Company (Millard Gutter Company v. Depositors Insurance Company) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Nebraska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Millard Gutter Company v. Depositors Insurance Company, (D. Neb. 2023).

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEBRASKA

MILLARD GUTTER COMPANY, a Corporation d/b/a MILLARD ROOFING AND GUTTER; GILLICK ENTERPRISES, INC.; and GROSS 8:18CV23 POINT HOLDINGS, LLC;

Plaintiffs, ORDER

vs.

NATIONWIDE INSURANCE, a/k/a/ or d/b/a NATIONWIDE; and DEPOSITORS INSURANCE COMPANY,

Defendants.

This matter comes before the Court regarding the parties’ dispute over the timeliness of Defendants’ Notice of Intent to Serve Subpoena Duces Tecum upon third parties pursuant to Rule 45 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Defendants issued the notice on February 27, 2023. Plaintiffs object to the notice as untimely and because it seeks documents irrelevant to this case. The Court held a hearing on the dispute on March 30, 2023. (Filing Nos. 66-67). The court will sustain Plaintiffs’ timeliness objections. Defendants maintain there was never a deadline set for serving Rule 45 subpoenas. While it is true that the case progression order filed on August 6, 2021, (Filing No. 40), provided the deadline for completing written discovery under Rules 33, 34, and 36 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure was December 15, 2021-- without specifically identifying Rule 45-- the majority of courts within this circuit agree that Rule 45 subpoenas nevertheless constitute discovery and are therefore governed by the discovery deadlines set forth in a scheduling order. See, e.g., Cave v. Thurston, No. 4:18-CV-00342-KGB, 2022 WL 4599408, at *11 (E.D. Ark. Sept. 30, 2022) (finding Rule 45 subpoenas for discovery issued outside the Court’s announced discovery deadline were untimely). The magistrate judges within this district also take the view that Rule 45 is encompassed within the written discovery deadline, and have subsequently revised its standard case progression order to specifically add Rule 45 to the written discovery deadline to eliminate any confusion. Although Rule 45 subpoenas may sometimes be employed in advance of trial and outside of a discovery deadline for the limited purposes of things such as memory refreshment or trial preparation, here, it is clear that the purpose of Defendants’ Rule 45 subpoenas seek written discovery rather than documents for trial preparation. Therefore, Defendants’ subpoenas seeking written discovery noticed for the first time on February 27, 2023, are well past the December 15, 2021, written discovery deadline. And, the Court finds good cause does not exist to modify the progression order with regard to the December 15, 2021, written discovery deadline.1 See Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4). “The primary measure of good cause is the movant’s diligence in attempting to meet the order’s requirements.” Hartis v. Chicago Title Ins. Co., 694 F.3d 935, 948 (8th Cir. 2012). Good cause under Rule 16(b)(4) may be shown by identifying a change in the law, newly discovered facts, or another significant change in circumstance. See Ellingsworth v. Vermeer Mfg. Co., 949 F.3d 1097, 1100 (8th Cir. 2020). If the movant makes the requisite showing of diligence, then the court may consider other factors such as the degree of prejudice to the nonmoving party. See Sherman v. Winco Fireworks, Inc., 532 F.3d 709, 717 (8th Cir. 2008). The same documents now sought by Defendants in the third party subpoena were originally sought by Defendants from Plaintiffs in 2019. Plaintiffs objected to those discovery requests. Defendants did not pursue the issue further and have never sought the Court’s involvement, formally or informally, to obtain that discovery from Plaintiffs throughout this case and over several years. Throughout the course of this long-pending case, the Court has held numerous telephone conferences with counsel to discuss scheduling matters and discovery, most recently on February 24, 2023, to set the pretrial and trial dates, and not once did Defendants mention they were still seeking this written discovery. Given that this case has been pending since 2018, the fact that Defendants did not diligently pursue available avenues to obtain the discovery they first sought in 2019, that the dispositive motion is less than one-business day away, and that the pretrial

1 There is a split of authority as to whether a motion to modify a progression schedule filed after a deadline has passed must satisfy the “excusable neglect” standard of Rule 6(b)(1)(B) in addition to, or in lieu of, the “good cause” standard under Rule 16(b). See LeFever v. Castellanos, No. 4:20CV3066, 2021 WL 5416240, at *2 (D. Neb. Nov. 19, 2021) (recognizing split); Doe v. Frakes, No. 8:19CV252, 2022 WL 507518, at *2 (D. Neb. Feb. 18, 2022) (finding the moving party must show both excusable neglect and good cause); Shank v. Carleton Coll., 329 F.R.D. 610, 614 (D. Minn. 2019) (“Arguably the excusable-neglect standard should apply when a party seeks to modify the scheduling order after the deadline has passed. But the plain text of Rule 16 does not make this distinction.”) (citations omitted); Burke v. Lippert Components Inc., No. 21-CV-3020-CJW-KEM, 2022 WL 17978806, at *2 (N.D. Iowa Dec. 28, 2022) (recognizing some district courts within this circuit have suggested that a party must also demonstrate excusable neglect to modify a deadline after it has passed); but see Petrone v. Werner Enterprises, Inc., 940 F.3d 425, 432 (8th Cir. 2019) (relying only on the “good cause” standard under Rule 16(b) when discussing what a litigant must show in order to extend a court-imposed expert disclosure deadline after the deadline has passed). and trial dates are set for this fall, the Court finds good cause does not exist to extend the written discovery deadline for Defendants to serve the noticed third party subpoenas.

Accordingly,

IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ timeliness objections to Defendants’ Notice of Intent to Serve Rule 45 Subpoena are sustained.

Dated this 31st day of March, 2023. BY THE COURT:

s/ Michael D. Nelson United States Magistrate Judge IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEBRASKA MILLARD GUTTER COMPANY, a ) CASE NO: 8:18-cyv-23 Corporation d/b/a MILLARD ROOFING _ ) AND GUTTER, GILLICK ) ENTERPRISES, INC., and ) GROSS POINT HOLDINGS LLC, ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) VS. ) ) NATIONWIDE INSURANCE a/k/a or ) d/b/a NATIONWIDE, and DEPOSITORS _ ) INSURANCE COMPANY, ) ) Defendants. )

NOTICE OF INTENT TO SERVE SUBPOENA DUCES TECUM Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 45 and NECivR 45.1, Defendants Nationwide Insurance and Depositors Insurance Company (collectively “Defendants”), hereby provide notice that Defendants will serve a Subpoena Duces Tecum upon the following entities on March 9, 2023, unless all parties waive the 10-day notice period: 1. Mejia Roofing & Contractors, Inc., 2910 Daniell Circle, Bellevue, NE 68123 2. SOS Heating, Cooling & Electrical Co., Inc., 8314 Maple Street, Omaha, NE 68134 3. MWSS, Inc., 28602 S. State Route D., Cleveland, MO 64734. A copy of the subpoenas Defendants’ intend to issue are attached hereto.

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Millard Gutter Company v. Depositors Insurance Company, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/millard-gutter-company-v-depositors-insurance-company-ned-2023.