Opinion
C.A. No. 04C-04-024-FSS.
Submitted: January 12, 2006.
Decided: April 28, 2006.
Upon Plaintiffs' Motion to Consolidate — DENIED
Michael P. Kelly, Esquire, McCarter English, LLP, Wilmington, DE.
Daniel A. Griffith, Esquire, Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman Goggin, Wilmington, DE.
Dear Counsel:
As you know, Judge Carpenter ordered mediation in the related case, Capitol Cleaners and Launderers, Inc. v. Northern Insurance Company of New York and Sentry Insurance Company, C.A. No. 04C-05-229-WCC, in March. You have scheduled it to happen in June. Meanwhile, the discovery deadline in Judge Carpenter's case has long since passed and, if mediation fails, trial is set for September 11, 2006.
If this case is consolidated with Judge Carpenter's, the court has no assurance that it will be resolved during, or before, September. To the contrary, the court assumes that consolidation will generate a request to postpone the September trial, and everything will grind to a halt. The court has broad discretion to decide how cases on its docket are tried, so that the court's business can be dispatched with expedition and economy while providing justice to the parties.
See Olson v. Motiva Enterprises, L.L.C., Del. Super., C.A. Nos. 02C-04-263, 02C-05-168, 02C-05-169, 02C-05-190, Slights, J. (July 22, 2003) (Mem. Op.).
Therefore, consistent with the views I have expressed before, the court remains unwilling to consolidate these cases absent assurance that you can do the trial for the consolidated case in September. Furthermore, if mediation fails in June, I will then hold a scheduling conference to set this case's trial. I will not, however, undermine Judge Carpenter's effort to resolve his case in September. Nor is it likely that Judge Carpenter will delay his trial due to this case's pendency.
For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiffs' Motion to Consolidate is hereby DENIED.