Zions Bancorporation, N.A. v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.

District Court, S.D. California·Decided September 22, 2022·No. 3:20-cv-02048·Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 ZIONS BANCORPORATION, N.A., Case No.: 3:20-cv-2048-H-AHG

12 Plaintiff, ORDER: 13 v. (1) GRANTING JOINT MOTION FOR CONTINUANCE OF DATES IN 15 Defendant. SCHEDULING ORDER; and

16 (2) DENYING AS MOOT REQUEST 17 TO EXTEND DEADLINE TO RAISE DISCOVERY DISPUTE WITH THE 18 COURT 19 [ECF No. 68] 20 21 22 23 Before the Court is the parties’ Joint Motion for Further Extension of Deadlines Set 24 Forth in Scheduling Order and Extension of the 45-Day Deadline to Report Discovery 25 Disputes. ECF No. 68. The parties seek to extend the dates in the case schedule, as set forth 26 in the amended Scheduling Order (ECF No. 67), by approximately four months each. 27 Additionally, the parties request an extension of the 45-day deadline to bring discovery 28 disputes to the attention of the Court with respect to Defendant’s written responses to 1 Plaintiff’s discovery requests, which responses were served on August 5, 2022. ECF No. 2 68 at 12. 3 I. Motion to Amend Scheduling Order 4 Under Fed. R. Civ. P 16(b)(4), “[a] schedule may be modified only for good cause 5 and with the judge’s consent.” “Good cause” is a non-rigorous standard that has been 6 construed broadly across procedural and statutory contexts. Ahanchian v. Xenon Pictures, 7 Inc., 624 F.3d 1253, 1259 (9th Cir. 2010). The good cause standard focuses on the diligence 8 of the party seeking to amend the scheduling order and the reasons for seeking 9 modification. Johnson v. Mammoth Recreations, Inc., 975 F.2d 604, 609 (9th Cir. 1992). 10 “[T]he court may modify the schedule on a showing of good cause if it cannot reasonably 11 be met despite the diligence of the party seeking the extension.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 16, advisory 12 committee’s notes to 1983 amendment. Therefore, “a party demonstrates good cause by 13 acting diligently to meet the original deadlines set forth by the court.” Merck v. Swift 14 Transportation Co., No. CV-16-01103-PHX-ROS, 2018 WL 4492362, at *2 (D. Ariz. 15 Sept. 19, 2018). 16 Notably, one of the deadlines that the parties wish to extend is the September 6, 2022 17 deadline to designate experts, which passed prior to the filing of the instant motion. See 18 ECF No. 68 at 7, 11-12. Requests for extensions of time made after the applicable deadline 19 has passed are analyzed under a different standard. In addition to considering whether the 20 movant has established good cause for such an extension, the Court may extend a deadline 21 that has already passed “if the party failed to act because of excusable neglect.” Fed. R. 22 Civ. P. 6(b)(1)(B). Excusable neglect “encompasses both simple, faultless omissions to act 23 and, more commonly, omissions caused by carelessness.” Pioneer Inv. Servs. Co. v. 24 Brunswick Assocs. Ltd. P’ship, 507 U.S. 380, 388 (1993). “To determine whether a party’s 25 failure to meet a deadline constitutes ‘excusable neglect,’ courts must apply a four-factor 26 equitable test, examining: (1) the danger of prejudice to the opposing party; (2) the length 27 of the delay and its potential impact on the proceedings; (3) the reason for the delay; and 28 1 (4) whether the movant acted in good faith.” Ahanchian, 624 F.3d at 1261 (citations 2 omitted). 3 On July 5, 2022, the Court granted a previous joint motion by the parties to extend 4 the deadlines in the case schedule by approximately three months each. ECF No. 67. Here, 5 the parties give many of the same reasons provided in support of that previous request. 6 Namely, the parties state that Plaintiff requires more time to review and produce responsive 7 documents and to prepare a privilege log in response to Defendant’s First Requests for 8 Production of Documents and Things, served on November 3, 2021, due in part to 9 Plaintiff’s counsel’s recent bout with COVID-19. See ECF No. 65 at 9, ECF No. 68 at 8- 10 9. Additionally, as before, Defendant states that it needs more time to respond to some of 11 Plaintiff’s discovery requests because many of the responsive documents pertain to the 12 separate Brazilian arbitration and litigation and are in Portuguese, and may not have an 13 English translation, requiring additional review. Defendant also reiterates the reason it 14 previously gave that it needs more time to determine whether certain internal 15 communications related to the Brazilian litigation that are sought by Plaintiff in this case 16 are privileged in whole or in part, and defense counsel anticipates that the privilege review 17 and redaction process may take several months. See ECF No. 65 at 9-10; ECF No. 68 at 9- 18 10. Finally, the parties indicate that they still have not taken any of the at least 15 party and 19 third-party depositions that they need to take to prepare their respective motions for 20 summary judgment, which was a reason given for the requested three-month extension in 21 the previous joint motion as well. ECF No. 65 at 10; ECF No. 68 at 10. 22 Although the Court is not pleased to see so many indicia that the parties have made 23 little to no progress on written discovery or depositions since their last extension request 24 was granted, the parties do include updated information in the motion before the Court 25 related to the international discovery process in Brazil. For example, the parties explain 26 that Defendant’s Letters of Request seeking documents from Gas Verde and Banco 27 Bradesco were recently granted by the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice on 28 August 19, 2022, and that enforcement of the letters of request will occur before the federal 1 courts of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, who are responsible for instructing those entities 2 to produce records. ECF No. 68 at 11. Additionally, the parties explain that the parties 3 unexpectedly encountered a snag with a scheduled deposition of a Gas Verde witness when 4 they learned that a virtual deposition would potentially violate Brazilian law, which 5 requires that depositions by oral testimony for use in foreign litigation be conducted by a 6 Brazilian judge. Id. The parties have thus agreed to pursue an alternative process for 7 obtaining oral testimony of Gas Verde, but that process will be time-intensive and will 8 require approval by this Court of additional letters of request. Id. at 11. 9 Having thoroughly considered the parties’ motion, and despite its misgivings, the 10 Court finds that the parties have established good cause to extend the case schedule in light 11 of the complexity of the international discovery process. However, the Court does not look 12 favorably on the parties’ failure to make any substantial progress towards completing other 13 discovery in the case since the last extension was granted. Therefore, the parties are 14 cautioned that the Court is unlikely to grant any further extensions of the case 15 schedule. The Court will only consider further extension requests if the parties make a 16 much stronger showing of diligence to meet the existing deadlines and far more substantial 17 progress in completing the discovery they need, and even under such circumstances, the 18 Court is disinclined to allow the parties more time than the 499 days of discovery they have 19 been allotted between the October 13, 2021 Case Management Conference and the new 20 fact and expert discovery cutoff of February 24, 2023.

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Zions Bancorporation, N.A. v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., (S.D. Cal. 2022).

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