Theodorakis v. DFINITY Stiftung

Opinion

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 EFTYCHIOS THEODORAKIS, Case No. 23-cv-02280-AMO

8 Plaintiff, ORDER STRIKING OPPOSITIONS TO 9 v. MOTIONS TO DISMISS AND ORDERING PLAINTIFF TO SHOW 10 DFINITY STIFTUNG, et al., CAUSE 11 Defendants. Re: Dkt. Nos. 91

12 13 On August 5, 2024, Plaintiff filed an administrative motion requesting permission to file an 14 additional ten pages in his opposition to Individual Defendants Dominic Williams’s and Gian 15 Bochsler’s motion to dismiss. ECF 88. Plaintiff argued that a “full opposition” would require 35 16 pages of text to respond to Defendants’ “multi-pronged attack” of the Second Amended 17 Complaint. Id. The Court denied the administrative motion on August 6, 2024. ECF 90. Plaintiff 18 filed his opposition to the Individual Defendants’ motion to dismiss on August 9, 2024. ECF 91. 19 Civil Local Rule 3-4(c)(2) requires that all written text in papers presented for filing, 20 including footnotes, be “(A) in a standard, proportionally spaced font . . . (B) in 12 point type or 21 larger; and (C) spaced no more than 10 characters per horizontal inch.” L-R 3-4(c)(2). “These 22 page limits are not mere formalities. They are important. Page limits promote judicial economy 23 and “encourage litigants to hone their arguments and to eliminate excessive verbiage.” LaComba 24 v. Eagle Home Loans & Inv., LLC, No. 2:23-CV-00370-KJM-DB, 2023 WL 6201597, at *1 (E.D. 25 Cal. Sept. 22, 2023) (quoting Fleming v. County of Kane, 855 F.2d 496, 497 (7th Cir. 1988) 26 (citation omitted)); see also N/S Corp. v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 127 F.3d 1145, 1146 (9th Cir. 27 1997) (“[R]esources are limited. In order to give fair consideration to those who call upon us for 1 || justice, we must insist that parties not clog the system by presenting us with a slubby mass of 2 || words rather than a true brief. Hence we have briefing rules.”) 3 In defiance of the local rules, Plaintiff's opposition to the Individual Defendants’ motion to 4 || dismiss uses a typeface — Arial Narrow — with 14-15 characters per horizontal inch, and a 10-point 5 font for the footnotes. See ECF 91; ECF 95 (Goodman Affidavit).! This effectively added four 6 || excess pages to Plaintiffs’ opposition. See Goodman Affidavit § 2. Accordingly, the Court 7 STRIKES Plaintiff's opposition to the Individual Defendants’ motions to dismiss for failure to 8 comply with the Civil Local Rules. The Court additionally ORDERS Plaintiff to SHOW 9 || CAUSE why he should be permitted to re-file a proper opposition and why Plaintiffs counsel 10 || should not be sanctioned for violating the Court’s August 6 order and the Civil Local Rules. 11 Plaintiff shall file a written response of no more than three pages to the Order to Show Cause by 12 || August 23, 2024, at noon PT. A hearing on the Order to Show Cause shall take place on August 13 29, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. PT. 14 IT IS SO ORDERED. a 16 Dated: August 20, 2024

(Nnaceh ARACELI MARTINEZ-OLGUIN 19 United States District Judge 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 | Although Plaintiffs’ opposition to Defendant Dfinity Stiftung’s motion to dismiss, ECF 92, does 28 not appear to exceed the page limit contemplated by the local rules, it also improperly uses the same format and font as the opposition to the Individual Defendants’ motion.