Petrillo v. Pinnacle Services, Inc.

CourtDistrict Court, D. Nevada
DecidedMarch 3, 2023
Docket3:22-cv-00261
StatusUnknown

This text of Petrillo v. Pinnacle Services, Inc. (Petrillo v. Pinnacle Services, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Nevada primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Petrillo v. Pinnacle Services, Inc., (D. Nev. 2023).

Opinion

1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 2 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 3 * * * 4 PRESCILLA PETRILLO, Case No. 3:22-cv-00261-MMD-CLB

5 Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART EMERGENCY 6 v. MOTION TO COMPEL AND DENYING 7 PINNACLE SERVICES, INC., MOTION TO STRIKE LATE FILED REPLY

8 Defendant. [ECF Nos. 16, 22]

9 “Discovery is supposed to proceed with minimal involvement of the Court. 10 Counsel should strive to be cooperative, practical and sensible, and should seek judicial 11 intervention only in extraordinary situations that implicate truly significant interests.” 12 Cardoza v. Bloomin' Brands, 141 F. Supp. 3d 1137, 1145 (D. Nev. 2015) (citations and 13 internal quotations omitted). This case involves a civil action filed by Plaintiff Prescilla 14 Petrillo (“Petrillo”) against Defendant Pinnacle Services, Inc., dba, Summit Collection 15 Services (“Summit”). The current motion pending before the Court is an example of an 16 issue that should have been resolved, and in many respects, was resolved prior to the 17 filing of the document. Such conduct will not be tolerated in the future. 18 Specifically, before the Court is Petrillo’s emergency motion to compel discovery 19 and request for sanctions, which alleges that Pinnacle failed to properly respond to 20 certain discovery requests. (ECF No. 16.) Summit responded, (ECF No. 20), pointing out 21 that it provided supplemental discovery responses to the disputed discovery requests 22 prior to the filing of the current motion. Petrillo replied. (ECF No. 21).1 In her reply, 23 Petrillo acknowledges that at least some of the supplement responses, which were 24

25 1 Petrillo’s reply was filed late. Pursuant to the Local Rules, the reply was due 7 26 days after service of the response, which was January 31, 2023. LR 7-2(b); ECF No. 20. Petrillo filed the reply on February 14, 2023—a full week past the deadline. Summit filed 27 a motion to strike the reply as untimely. (ECF No. 22.) While the Court agrees the reply was untimely, the Court in its discretion, will consider the reply in resolving the motion to 28 1 provided prior to the filing of the motion, were responsive. For the reasons stated below, 2 Petrillo’s emergency motion to compel, (ECF No. 16), is granted in part and denied in 3 part. 4 I. BACKGROUND 5 Petrillo filed a complaint against Summit on June 9, 2022, alleging claims for 6 violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) and the Nevada Deceptive 7 Trade Practices Act against Summit. (ECF No. 1.) The complaint alleges that Summit 8 violated the FDCPA by communicating with Petrillo without disclosure of the caller’s 9 identity and by using false, deceptive, or misleading representations in Summit’s tactics 10 to collect an alleged debt from Petrillo, that she claims is not owed. (Id.) The complaint 11 also alleges that the actions of Summit violated NRS 598.0923(3) and constitute 12 “consumer fraud” as defined by NRS 41.600(2)(e). Summit denies all allegations of 13 wrongdoing and claims this to be a frivolous lawsuit. (ECF Nos. 9, 20.) 14 Summit filed its answer on July 12, 2022. (ECF No. 9.) On July 15, 2022, the 15 Court issued a civil Standing Order, (ECF No. 11), and directed the parties to file a joint 16 case management report ("CMR"), (ECF No. 12). On August 26, 2022, the parties 17 submitted a joint CMR that included a proposed discovery plan and scheduling order, 18 (ECF No. 13), which the Court adopted. (ECF No. 14.) The scheduling order set the 19 close of discovery for May 1, 2023. (Id.) 20 On October 4, 2022, Petrillo served Summit her first set of discovery requests. 21 (ECF Nos. 16, 20.) On November 3, 2022, Summit served its responses to Petrillo’s first 22 set of discovery requests. (Id.) According to Petrillo’s counsel, soon after Summit’s 23 responses were served on Petrillo, there were several calls between the parties where 24 Petrillo’s counsel raised concerns with some of Summit’s responses. (ECF No. 16). 25 In an email sent on November 23, 2022, Petrillo’s counsel asks Summit’s counsel 26 “if any of Defendant’s employees spoke to Plaintiff prior to June 14, 2021.”2 (Id.) 27

28 1 Summit’s counsel did not respond. (ECF No. 16.) Petrillo’s counsel repeatedly posed the 2 same question in subsequent emails to Summit’s counsel on December 2, 2022, 3 December 9, 2022, and December 14, 2022. (Id.) Thereafter, the parties’ counsel met 4 telephonically to discuss Petrillo’s concerns regarding Summit’s responses to Petrillo’s 5 first set of discovery. (Id.) 6 On December 28, 2022, Petrillo served Summit with a letter titled “Plaintiff’s Rule 7 37 Letter in Petrillo v. Pinnacle Services.” (Id.) This letter itemized and detailed each of 8 Petrillo’s concerns with Summit’s responses. (Id.) On January 5, 2023, counsel for the 9 parties and Summit’s owner met telephonically and narrowed the various discovery 10 issues to only Interrogatory Nos. 7, 14, and 15. (Id.) Counsel for Petrillo once again 11 asked several material questions outside of clarifying the discovery dispute. (Id.) Summit 12 agreed to amend the discovery responses and the parties agreed that counsel for 13 Petrillo would memorialize the conversation in an email, which Petrillo’s counsel did on 14 January 5, 2023. (Id.) Summit alleges that the January 5, 2023 email does not accurately 15 reflect the telephone conversation and provided an unagreed-to deadline of the next day 16 to amend the responses. (ECF No. 20.) 17 On January 9, 2023, Summit’s counsel emailed Petrillo’s counsel to alert him that 18 employees were out of the office and Summit “should be able to” amend the responses 19 by Friday afternoon on January 13, 2023. (ECF No. 20.) Petrillo’s counsel responded to 20 the email on the same day, agreeing to the extension to send the supplemental 21 responses and discussed the possibility of filing a joint extension of deadlines. (Id.) 22 Summit did not send the responses on the afternoon of January 13, 2023. (Id.) The 23 following Monday, January 16, 2023, was a federal holiday. (Id.) On January 17, 2023, 24 at 9:16 AM, Summit sent Petrillo the supplemental response to Interrogatory Nos. 7, 14, 25 26 question in the case, was improperly directed to counsel rather than to Summit. See Hirt v. Unified Sch. Dist. No. 287, 308 F. Supp. 3d 1157, 1178 (D. Kan. 2018) (“directing a 27 discovery request to counsel, rather than a party, is inappropriate under Fed. R. Civ. P. 33.”). Summit cannot be faulted for a lack of response to this specific question because 28 1 and 15. (Id.) On January 17, 2023, at 9:50 AM, Petrillo filed the instant emergency 2 motion to compel discovery. (ECF No. 16.) 3 II. LEGAL STANDARD 4 “[B]road discretion is vested in the trial court to permit or deny discovery.” Hallett 5 v. Morgan, 296 F.3d 732, 751 (9th Cir. 2002). The “scope of discovery” encompasses 6 “any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense and 7 proportional to the needs of the case[.]” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1).

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Petrillo v. Pinnacle Services, Inc., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/petrillo-v-pinnacle-services-inc-nvd-2023.