Shawn Padilla v. MGM Grand Hotel, LLC; Andrew Stevenson; Kevin Adams; Jerimiah Tipton; Does IV through X, and Rose I through X

District Court, D. Nevada·Decided November 3, 2025·No. 2:22-cv-02109·Unknown

Opinion

* * *

SHAWN PADILLA, an individual, Case No. 2:22-cv-02109-RFB-EJY

Plaintiff, ORDER v.

MGM GRAND HOTEL, LLC, a Nevada entity; ANDREW STEVENSON, an individual (Doe 1); KEVIN ADAMS, an individual (Doe 2); JERIMIAH TIPTON (Doe 3); DOES IV through X, and Rose I through X, Defendants. Pending before the Court is Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration. ECF No. 138. The Motion seeks reversal of the Court’s prior Order denying Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel that also granted Defendant MGM Grand’s request for attorneys’ fees. Id. Plaintiff argues that the Court’s Order was manifestly unjust when rejecting Plaintiff’s request for an in camera review raised for the first time in his Reply brief. Id. at 2. Separately pending, and decided below, is MGM Grand’s Memorandum of Attorneys’ Fees Pursuant to ECF No. 137. ECF No. 139. I. The Reconsideration Standard “Although Rule 59(e) permits a district court to reconsider and amend a previous order, the rule offers an ‘extraordinary remedy, to be used sparingly in the interests of finality and conservation of judicial resources.’” Kona Enterprises, Inc. v. Estate of Bishop, 229 F.3d 877, 890 (9th Cir. 2000) (citations omitted). Reconsideration may be granted “if the district court (1) is presented with newly discovered evidence, (2) committed clear error or the initial decision was manifestly unjust, or (3) if there is an intervening change in controlling law.” Sch. Dist. No. 1J, Multnomah Cnty., Or. v. ACandS, Inc., 5 F.3d 1255, 1263 (9th Cir. 1993) (citations omitted); see also LR 59-1(a) (“A party seeking reconsideration under this rule must state with particularity the points of law or fact that the court has overlooked or misunderstood.”). While manifest injustice acts as a catch-all provision, “it is not meant to allow a disappointed litigant an attempt to persuade the court to change its mind.” Abdur-Rahiim v. Holland, Case No. 14-CV-79-DLB, 2015 WL 859117, at *3 (E.D. Ky. Feb. 27, 2015); see also Brown v. Kinross Gold, U.S.A., 378 F.Supp.2d 1280, 1288 (D. Nev. 2005) (“A motion for reconsideration is not an avenue to re-litigate the same issues and arguments upon which the court has already ruled.”). In the Ninth Circuit, courts have treated manifest injustice as synonymous with clear error, meaning there was a “direct, obvious and observable” error. Raya v. Calbiotech, Case No. 3:18-CV-2643-WQH-AHG, 2019 WL 11504688, at *3 (S.D. Cal. Nov. 26, 2019) (collecting cases) (internal citations and quotations omitted). II. Discussion A. The Court Denies Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration. 1. Merits The Court denied Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel based on procedural and substantive failings. The Court notes the following errors made by Plaintiff leading to and ultimately appearing in Plaintiff’s underlying Motion. • Plaintiff served a subpoena by email to the Nevada Gaming Control Board only1 in violation of Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(a)(4), which requires “before [the subpoena] is served on the person to whom it is directed, a notice and a copy of the subpoena must be served on each party.” Id. See also ECF No. 137 at 2, n.6. • After the Board and Plaintiff exchanged objections, the two parties engaged in a telephonic conference. Id. at 2. There, the Board enquired into whether MGM Grand was ever served the subpoena and, after learning that they had not been, refused to move forward without service to MGM Grand. Id. • Plaintiff served MGM Grand a copy of the subpoena seven weeks after the initial service was tendered on the Board. See id. • After the parties unsuccessfully attempted to resolve the matter through the meet and confer process, Plaintiff filed the underlying Motion to Compel that identified the “Defendants” as the party from whom Plaintiff was seeking to compel disclosure—not the Board on whom the subpoena was served. Id. at 4; ECF No. 114 at 7. • The Board, the only entity possessing an unredacted copy of the Report at issue, was dismissed from this matter on April 7, 2023. ECF No. 20. • There was no evidence of a Request for Production served on Defendants seeking an unredacted copy of the Report; hence, there was no basis upon which the Court could reasonably compel Defendants to act. ECF No. 137 at 5. • Even if there had been a document request propounded on the Defendants, none of the Defendants possessed an unredacted copy of the Report. Id. at 6. • Given no subpoena or request to produce the Report propounded on Defendants, the Motion to Compel failed because it was directed solely to the “Defendants.” Id. • Plaintiff requested the Court conduct an in-camera review of the Report for the first time in his Reply brief, which did not afford the Defendants or the Board an opportunity to respond. Id. at 4, 6. • Plaintiff said NRS 463.120 was “irrelevant” to their request because the statute only applies to communications between the licensee and an agent of the Board in connection with its “regulatory, investigative, or enforcement authority,” but failed to explain why the information contained within an incident report that investigated a theft would not fit the “quintessence of the statutory protections.” See id. at 7. Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration recycles many of the arguments found in his Reply in support of the Motion to Compel. Plaintiff argues that his failure to send a copy of the subpoena to MGM Grand was an “inadvertent error” which was cured by the subsequent service and the good faith meet and confer. See ECF No. 138 at 4-5. Plaintiff submits that during the meet and confers, the parties discussed case law and the potential for in camera review. Id. at 5. Plaintiff argues that NRS 463.120 is not “a per se bar on disclosure.” Id. Plaintiff cites three cases, originally discussed in his Reply brief, standing for the proposition that NRS 463.120 does not mandate blanket confidentiality and allows for in camera review. Id.; see also ECF No. 130 at 3. Plaintiff has not identified any clear error in the Court’s Order. Plaintiff does not argue that the Court erred in finding there was nothing to compel from the Defendants. Instead, Plaintiff focuses on the Court’s decision not to compel the Report from the Board. Before noting the statutory privileges, the Court held that “[t]o the extent Plaintiff seeks an order compelling the NGCB to produce documents, the Motion fails because Plaintiff seeks only to compel document production from the ‘Defendants.’” ECF No. 137 at 6. Plaintiff disregards this fundamental flaw in his argument. Plaintiff says he “should have been clearer” regarding from whom he sought to compel production of the incident Report (ECF No. 138 at 6). While this may have eliminated some of the reasons for denying the Motion to Compel, the fact remains that the Motion sought to compel documents from Defendants—MGM Grand and the individual agents—and the subpoenas are not directed to Defendants. In sum, Plaintiff provides no basis to reconsider the Court’s decision, let alone a basis for finding clear error. Moreover, Plaintiff has not shown how the Court committed an error when it decided not to adopt arguments raised for the first time in Reply. Matthys v. Barrick Turquoise Ridge, Inc., Case No. 3:20-cv-00034-LRH-CLB, 2023 WL 6383312 (D. Nev. Sept. 29, 2023), appeal dismissed sub nom. Bruce v. Barrick Turquoise Ridge Inc., Case No. 23-2552, 2024 WL 4491875 (9th Cir. May 30, 2024). Indeed, when reviewing a denial of a motion for reconsider

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Shawn Padilla v. MGM Grand Hotel, LLC; Andrew Stevenson; Kevin Adams; Jerimiah Tipton; Does IV through X, and Rose I through X, (D. Nev. 2025).

Shawn Padilla v. MGM Grand Hotel, LLC; Andrew Stevenson; Kevin Adams; Jerimiah Tipton; Does IV through X, and Rose I through X (Shawn Padilla v. MGM Grand Hotel, LLC; Andrew Stevenson; Kevin Adams; Jerimiah Tipton; Does IV through X, and Rose I through X) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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