Poipao v. County of El Dorado

• Court: District Court, E.D. California
• Decided: May 1, 2025
• Docket: 2:23-cv-01265
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 JOEL P. GUMBINER (111586) BARTLETT H. WILLIAMS (333908) 2 WILLIAMS & GUMBINER LLP 1010 B Street, Suite 200 3 San Rafael, CA 94901 4 Phone: (415) 755-1880 Joel@insuredlaw.com 5 bwilliams@williamsgumbiner.com

6 Attorneys for Plaintiffs ANTONIO POIPAO and LINDA POIPAO 7

8 Andrew T. Caulfield (SBN 238300) Joe Little (SBN 322179) 9 CAULFIELD LAW FIRM 1101 Investment Blvd., Suite120 10 El Dorado Hills, CA 95762 Tel: (916) 933-3200 11 Fax: (916) 605-4075 12 Andrew@caulfieldlawfirm.com Joe@caulfieldlawfirm.com 13 Attorneys for Defendant 14 COUNTY OF EL DORADO 15

16 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 17 EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 18 ANTONIO POIPAO and LINDA POIPAO, CASE NO. 2:23-cv-01265-CKD

19 Plaintiffs,

20 STIPULATED REQUEST TO MODIFY vs. PRETRIAL SCHEDULING ORDER; 21 [PROPOSED ORDER] COUNTY OF EL DORADO, 22 Defendant. 23 24 25 Pursuant to Local Rule 143 and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (FRCP) 16(b)(4), Plaintiffs, 26 ANTONIO POIPAO and LINDA POIPAO (hereinafter Plaintiffs), and Defendant, COUNTY OF EL 27 DORADO (hereinafter Defendant) (collectively “Parties”) by and through the undersigned counsel, 1 Order (ECF No. 27) (hereinafter “Initial Pretrial Scheduling Order” or “Pretrial Order”) for case 2:23- 2 cv-01265-CKD, by extending the dates for discovery and related deadlines from the dates given in the 3 Parties’ Stipulated Request to Modify Pretrial Scheduling Order; [Order], dated November 13, 2024. 4 FRCP 16(b)(4) allows a court to modify a scheduling order upon a showing of “good cause.” 5 According to the Ninth Circuit Court, the “good cause” standard required is primarily concerned with 6 the diligence taken by the party seeking the extension. Johnson v. Mammoth Recreations, Inc., 975 7 F.2d 604, 609 (9th Cir. 1992). A court may modify the scheduling order should the given deadlines 8 not be reasonably able to be met, despite diligent efforts. Jackson v. Laureate, Inc., 186 F.R.D. 605, 9 608 (E.D. CA 1999). 10 Here, both the Plaintiffs and the Defendant seek to amend the pretrial order. Plaintiffs recently 11 retained new counsel Joel P. Gumbiner and Bartlett H. Williams of Williams & Gumbiner, LLP end of 12 March 2025. The substitutions of attorney were filed on April 1, 2025. Plaintiffs’ counsel were in trial 13 April 16th through 23rd, 2025, and are now getting caught up on the case. Furthermore, the Parties are 14 currently meeting and conferring on the adequacy of served discovery responses, and have agreed to 15 continue working through those issues, but will require more time to do so. Under the current Pretrial 16 Order, the non-expert discovery cut off is July 14, 2025. This gives the Parties less than three months 17 to finish non-expert discovery, where thousands of pages of documents have been produced and still 18 need to be reviewed, and where depositions have not yet been scheduled, and not all percipient 19 witnesses have been identified. In light of Plaintiffs’ decision to retain new counsel, the remainder of 20 time left open for discovery under the Pretrial Order is not sufficient to allow the Parties to continue to 21 conduct meaningful discovery in this case and informally resolve their disagreements about the 22 substance of discovery responses that are still at issue. Therefore, an extension of the discovery 23 deadline is warranted to avoid prejudice to either Party. 24 Since this Stipulated Request to Modify the Pretrial Order is supported by good cause, the 25 parties hereby respectfully request that this Court modify the Pretrial Order by extending the fact and 26 expert discovery deadlines in its Pretrial Order. This would result in the following new deadlines: 27 1 Non-Expert Discovery: December 15, 2025 2 Expert Disclosures: December 1, 2025 3 Rebuttal Expert Disclosures: January 15, 2026 4 Expert Discovery: February 16, 2026 5 Law and Motion (except discovery): May 1, 2026 6 7 All other deadlines in the Pretrial Order remain unchanged. 8 9 Dated: April, 29, 2025 WILLIAMS & GUMBINER LLP

10 __________/s/___Bartlett H. Williams__ 11 Bartlett H. Williams 12 Attorneys for Plaintiffs Antonio Poipao and Linda Poipao 13

14 Dated: April 29, 2025 CAULFIELD LAW FIRM 15

16 ___________/s/_Andrew T. Caulfield__ 17 Andrew T. Caulfield Attorneys for Defendant 18 County of El Dorado

23 /// 24

27 1 [PROPOSED] ORDER 2 3 This is the Parties’ second request to modify the pretrial scheduling order. Pursuant to the 4 Stipulation regarding the Parties’ request to modify the pretrial scheduling order, and good cause 5 appearing, the Court approves the stipulation and further modifies the pretrial scheduling order (ECF 6 || No. 27; see ECF No. 29) and as follows: 7 e Non-expert discovery shall be completed by December 15, 2025; 8 e Any expert witnesses shall be disclosed by December 1, 2025; 9 e Any rebuttal expert disclosures shall be made by January 15, 2026; 10 e All expert discovery shall be completed by February 16, 2026; 1] e All law and motion, except as to discovery-related matters, shall be completed (i.e 12 heard) by May 1, 2026; and 13 e All other deadlines in the pretrial scheduling order remain unchanged. 4 IT IS SO ORDERED. 15 Sc 6 Dated: April 30, 2025 Card Kt | i Ly / a — CAROLYN K. DELANEY V7 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 18 19 5, poip.1265.23 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28