Opinion
Case No. 07-15130.
September 22, 2008
ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO AMEND THE SCHEDULING ORDER
Before the court is Plaintiff's motion to amend the April 23, 2008 scheduling order. Defendants have filed a response, in which they concur in Plaintiff's motion. The court will grant the motion. Pursuant to the court's scheduling order, discovery was originally set to conclude by September 30, 2008, and the dispositive motion deadline was set for October 30, 2008. The court entered a stipulated order on July 31, 2008 which extended the discovery deadline until October 30, 2008. The parties now request another amendment (1) in order to pursue facilitation and (2) because of certain past discovery delays. The parties request extensions of the discovery and dispositive motion deadlines as well as extensions of the expert report deadlines. The court rarely extends deadlines, and does so only after the parties persuade the court that extensions are necessary despite their diligent efforts to meet the deadlines. Here, the court is not entirely convinced that, especially in light of the already-extended discovery deadline, the parties have worked diligently to meet all of the deadlines. Nor does the court understand why an expert is even necessary given the types of claims presented in this case. Nonetheless, because the parties have scheduled a facilitation and the state court has agreed to extend its discovery deadlines, the court finds "good cause" to extend the dates in order to minimize costs prior to the facilitation. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 16(b)(4). Further, the extension will have little impact on this court's docket; this case is currently scheduled for the March/April trailing docket and the court therefore retains some flexibility to adjust the dates without delaying the trial date. Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff's motion to amend [Dkt. # 29] is GRANTED and the April 23, 2008 scheduling order [Dkt. # 15] is AMENDED as follows:
Plaintiff shall serve any expert reports by October 6, 2008 and Defendants' expert reports shall be served by November 3, 2008. All discovery shall be concluded by December 1, 2008 and any dispositive motion shall be filed by December 1, 2008. Responses to any dispositive motions will be due by December 22, 2008, and replies will be due by January 5, 2009.
All other dates remained unchanged. NO FURTHER EXTENSIONS, INCLUDING EXTENSIONS TO BRIEFING DEADLINES, WILL BE GRANTED.