Strandquist v. Washington State Department of Health and Human Services

• Court: District Court, W.D. Washington
• Decided: January 22, 2025
• Docket: 3:23-cv-05071
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

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4 5 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 6 WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT TACOMA 7 RANDALL J STRANDQUIST, Case No. 3:23-cv-05071-TMC 8 Plaintiff, ORDER DENYING DEFENDANTS’ 9 MOTION FOR RELIEF FROM v. DEADLINES 10 WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT 11 OF SOCIAL AND HEALTH SERVICES; 12 WENDY LONG, 13 Defendant. 14

15 I. ORDER 16 Before the Court is Defendants’ motion for relief from deadlines related to expert witness 17 disclosure and dispositive motions. Dkt. 141. Having filed this motion less than three weeks 18 before trial,1 see Dkt. 130, Defendants now seek to (1) extend the expert witness disclosure 19 deadline to allow Defendants to identify a rebuttal expert and provide a report; (2) extend the 20 dispositive motions deadline to permit the parties to provide new briefing to the Court on undue 21 22 23 1 The Court recently granted Defendants’ request for a short trial continuance, providing the 24 parties with four additional weeks to prepare for trial. See Dkt. 130. 1 hardship using the expert reports; and (3) continue the trial date to accommodate the requested 2 expert discovery and follow-up motions practice. Dkt. 141 at 11. 3 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(b)(1) provides:

4 (1) In General. When an act may or must be done within a specified time, the court may, for good cause, extend the time: 5 (A) with or without motion or notice if the court acts, or if a request is made, 6 before the original time or its extension expires; or

7 (B) on motion made after the time has expired if the party failed to act because of excusable neglect. 8 Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(1). To evaluate whether a party’s failure to meet a deadline 9 constitutes excusable neglect, courts apply a four-part test and examine: “(1) the danger of 10 prejudice to the opposing party; (2) the length of the delay and its potential impact on the 11 proceedings; (3) the reason for the delay; and (4) whether the movant acted in good faith.” 12 Ahanchian v. Xenon Pictures, Inc., 624 F.3d 1253, 1261 (9th Cir. 2010) (collecting cases). 13 Defendants do not address the correct legal standard. They instead assert that Rule 16(b) 14 governs and argue that the factors weigh in favor of finding good cause to amend the scheduling 15 order. Dkt. 141 at 8–11. The purpose of Rule 16 is to facilitate efficient and thorough case 16 management in the early stages of litigation. Fed. R. Civ. P. 16. But when parties move for relief 17 from a deadline that has passed, as Defendants do here, they must show excusable neglect. See 18 Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(1)(B). Defendants have not done so. 19 Additionally, when seeking to make late disclosures of expert witnesses, the requesting 20 party must show that their failure to timely disclose was “substantially justified or is harmless.” 21 Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c)(1). Defendants do not address this standard. Instead, Defendants spend the 22 bulk of their motion rehashing arguments for their undue hardship defense, which the Court has 23 already rejected in its orders denying summary judgment and denying the Defendants’ motion 24 1 for reconsideration. See Dkt. 141 at 2-8. Having failed to address the appropriate legal standards, 2 || Defendants do not show that relief from any of the deadlines is warranted. The motion for relief 3 from deadlines (Dkt. 141) is thus DENIED. 4 5 Dated this 22" day of January, 2025. Seg AS 7 Tiffany. Cartwright United States District Judge 8 9 10 1] 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24