Opinion
KAMALA D. HARRIS Attorney General of California PETER A. MESHOT Supervising Deputy Attorney General KEVIN W. REAGER Deputy Attorney General Attorneys for Defendant California Highway Patrol Officer Craig Gooch
LAW OFFICES OF JOHNNY L. GRIFFIN, III, JOHNNY L. GRIFFEN, III MANOLO OLASO Attorneys for Plaintiff
AMENDED STIPULATION TO MODIFY THE CASE SCHEDULING ORDER AND ORDER
John A. Mendez, Judge
TO THE HONORABLE COURT:
The parties hereby stipulate to modifying the case scheduling order to allow additional time to take the deposition of Plaintiff Miya Simpson and Defendant Officer Gooch. The parties request that all pending dates be vacated and reset as follows:
1. Discovery Cutoff: February 27, 2015;
2. Dispositive Motion Filing: March 25, 2015;
3. Dispositive Motion Hearing: April 22, 2015, at 9:30 a.m.:
4. Joint Pretrial Statement Due: May 29, 2015;
5. Pretrial Conference: June 5, 2015 at 11:00 a.m, and;
6. Jury Trial: July 13, 2015 at 9:00 a.m.
The parties believe that good cause exists to modify the scheduling order because, as reported by the parties in their mid-ligation statements, counsel for Plaintiff had lost contact with Ms. Simpson and was unable to arrange for the deposition prior to the November 28, 2014, discovery cut-off. After meeting and conferring, defense counsel had to unilaterally schedule the deposition for November 21, 2014, because Ms. Simpson had not responded to any of her counsel's attempts to contact her. Predictably, Ms. Simpson did not appear for the deposition.
On Monday, November 23, 2014, just prior to the Thanksgiving holidays, Plaintiff reestablished contact with her counsel. Counsel offered to make Ms. Simpson available for her deposition. However, with the cut-off set for the Friday after Thanksgiving, there was no time to schedule and complete the deposition, as well as any potential motions to compel, prior to the cutoff. Plaintiff has agreed to be deposed in accordance with the proposed modified schedule.
Defense counsel has likewise agreed to make Defendant available for deposition, so that all of the evidence will then be available to the parties for use in dispositive motions.
The parties have not previously requested any modifications or continuances. The interests of judicial economy favor allowing the parties to complete the depositions in order to streamline the evidence that will be presented at trial. Also, after the depositions are completed, the parties may be able to avoid a trial altogether through dispositive motions or settlement.
For these reasons, the parties respectfully request that the case scheduling order be modified as set forth above to allow the parties to complete discovery and present dispositive motions, if appropriate.
IT IS SO STIPULATED.
IT IS SO ORDERED. The case scheduling order is modified as follows:
1. Discovery Cutoff: February 27, 2015;
2. Dispositive Motion Filing: March 25, 2015;
3. Dispositive Motion Hearing: April 22, 2015, at 9:30 a.m.;
4. Joint Pretrial Statement Due: May 29, 2015;
5. Pretrial Conference: June 5, 2015 at 11:00 a.m., and;
6. Jury Trial: July 13, 2015 at 9:00 a.m.
No other modifications will be permitted absent a showing of manifest injustice.