Seidler v. Amazon

Opinion

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3 4 5 6 7 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON 8 AT SEATTLE 9 10 KATHRYN MARIE SEIDLER, CASE NO. C23-0816JLR 11 Plaintiff, ORDER v. 12 AMAZON, 13 Defendant. 14 15 Before the court is pro se Plaintiff Kathryn Marie Seidler’s “declaration of 16 plaintiff in support of Rule 6(b) extension; or further directions,” which the court 17 construes as a motion for relief from the deadline to respond to Defendant Amazon 18 Services, LLC’s (“Amazon”) motion to dismiss Ms. Seidler’s amended complaint. (Mot. 19 (Dkt. # 18); see also MTD (Dkt. # 16).) Ms. Seidler seeks an extension of time to file her 20 response under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(b) due to technical issues with PACER 21 that allegedly impeded her access to the exhibits attached to Amazon’s motion to dismiss. 22 (Mot. at 2; id., Ex. 5 at 2.) Ms. Seidler also seeks an extension because she claims she 1 “could not fully amend the Federal Court claim until the Date of Manifestation was set by 2 the Board of Industrial Relations” in a separate administrative proceeding. (Mot. at 2.)

3 Amazon filed objections in opposition to Ms. Seidler’s motion. (Objections (Dkt. # 19).) 4 The court exercises its discretion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 1 to decide the 5 motion before the noting date. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 1 (stating that the Federal Rules of 6 Civil Procedure should be construed “to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive 7 resolution of every action and proceeding”). The court has considered the parties’ 8 submissions, the relevant portions of the record, and the applicable law. Being fully

9 advised, the court GRANTS Ms. Seidler’s motion. 10 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(b)(1) authorizes the court to grant an extension 11 of time upon a showing of “good cause.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(1). Here, Amazon filed its 12 motion to dismiss on November 15, 2023 (see generally MTD), and Ms. Seidler—who is 13 registered for electronic filing and service through the CM/ECF system—alleges she “did

14 not receive” the exhibits attached to that motion until November 29, 2023 (Mot. at 2). 15 Although the court is aware of a brief interruption to PACER and CM/ECF access that 16 occurred on November 17, 2023, that technical issue was resolved within the day. Ms. 17 Seidler provides no explanation for why she was unable to download the exhibits in the 18 two days preceding the PACER outage or during the substantial period of time that

19 passed between the outage and November 29, 2023, when Ms. Seidler claims to have 20 received the exhibits. Moreover, because the court has not granted Ms. Seidler leave to 21 further amend her complaint, Ms. Seidler’s stated desire to amend her complaint based on 22 developments in a separate administrative proceeding does not justify a delay in timely 1 responding to Amazon’s motion to dismiss. Ms. Seidler has not demonstrated good 2 cause for an extension of time.

3 Nevertheless, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(b)(1) must “be liberally construed 4 to effectuate the general purpose of seeing that cases are tried on the merits.” Ahanchian 5 v. Xenon Pictures, Inc., 624 F.3d 1253, 1259 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting Rodgers v. Watt, 6 722 F.2d 456, 459 (9th Cir. 1983)). “[R]equests for extensions of time made before the 7 applicable deadline has passed should ‘normally . . . be granted in the absence of bad 8 faith on the part of the party seeking relief or prejudice to the adverse party.’” Id.

9 (quoting 4B Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 10 1165 (3d ed. 2004)). Amazon makes no argument that Ms. Seidler has acted in bad faith 11 or that Amazon will be prejudiced by an extension of the briefing schedule. (See 12 Objections.) The court is also mindful of Ms. Seidler’s pro se status. Accordingly, and 13 due to the timing of this order on the eve of Ms. Seidler’s deadline to respond, the court

14 concludes a modest extension of time is warranted. 15 For the foregoing reasons, the court GRANTS Ms. Seidler’s motion for relief from 16 a deadline (Dkt. # 16).) Ms. Seidler must file her opposition to Amazon’s motion to 17 dismiss, if any, by no later than Wednesday, December 6, 2023. Amazon shall file its 18 reply, if any, by no later than Tuesday, December 12, 2023. The court DIRECTS the

19 Clerk to re-note Amazon’s motion to dismiss (Dkt. # 16) for December 12, 2023. 20 Dated this 1st day of December, 2023. A 21 JAMES L. ROBART 22 United States District Judge