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Eagle v. U.S. Dent Co.

United States District Court, District of Kansas
Feb 9, 2023
20-cv-01146-JWB-TJJ (D. Kan. Feb. 9, 2023)

Opinion

20-cv-01146-JWB-TJJ

02-09-2023

DAVID EAGLE and BRANDY EAGLE, Plaintiffs, v. USA DENT COMPANY, LLC and DENNIS SANDERS, Defendants.


ORDER

TERESA J. JAMES, U.S. MAGISTRATE JUDGE.

This matter is before the Court on Defendants' Unopposed Motion to Amend Scheduling Order Regarding Experts (ECF No. 85). Defendants request their expert disclosure deadline be extended approximately thirty days from February 10, 2023 to March 7, 2023. They also request the March 13, 2023 deadline for serving rebuttal expert disclosures be correspondingly extended to April 13, 2023. In support of their motion, Defendants state they have good cause for the extension of these deadlines because Plaintiffs have not yet provided the original version of Brandy Eagle's 2018 Calendar. Defendants claim they need the original version of this calendar to allow a Questioned Document Examiner to review, analyze, and prepare a report regarding the calendar.

The Court denies Defendants' motion. Only three weeks ago, on January 17, 2023, the Court held a telephone status conference on a prior motion by Defendants to amend the scheduling order regarding experts (ECF No. 80). During the telephone status conference, the Court granted the motion, reset the expert disclosure deadlines and extended the other case deadlines by forty-five days. However, the Court expressly reminded the parties that they were already on their fourth amended scheduling order and stressed this would be the last extension of the scheduling order deadlines. The Court's Order (ECF No. 83) extended the deadlines as requested by Defendants and stated, “[t]he parties are firmly instructed that no further extensions of the scheduling order deadlines in this case will be granted.” In accordance with its prior Order, the Court will not grant any further extensions of the requested expert disclosure deadlines, particularly not the extensions requested here which would set the rebuttal expert disclosure deadline after the current March 31, 2023 discovery deadline and only a week before the deadline for submission of the proposed pretrial order.

On December 20, 2022, the Court denied Plaintiffs' request to extend the expert-related disclosure deadlines for failure to show good cause for their proposed new deadlines for expert-related disclosures, which had expired without any explanation for the untimely request. See Fourth Amended Scheduling Order (ECF No. 72).

The motion simply ignores the obvious conflicts the proposed extensions would create relative to the remaining schedule in the case and the likelihood that, if the motion were granted, the parties would be back to the court again in a few weeks asking for extensions of the discovery deadline and pretrial schedule.

The Court further finds Defendants' asserted reason for the requested extension, namely that they are awaiting Plaintiffs' production of the original version of Brandy Eagle's 2018 Calendar, is not sufficient to show good cause for yet another extension of the expert-related deadlines. An electronic version of Brandy Eagle's 2018 Calendar was produced during her deposition on June 16, 2021. Yet, Defendants waited until January 19, 2023 to contact Plaintiffs to confirm they still had Brandy Eagle's 2018 Calendar in their possession and to request that it be delivered to defense counsel's office. The Court recognizes this case was stayed pending a final ruling in the bankruptcy appeal between November 2021 and July 2022, but Defendants had several months before the stay began plus nearly six months after the stay was lifted and the Court entered the Third Amended Scheduling Order (ECF No. 55), on August 4, 2022, in which to request the original version of Brandy Eagle's 2018 Calendar.

ECF No. 85, ¶¶ 4-5.

ECF No. 85, ¶¶ 8-9.

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendants' Unopposed Motion to Amend Scheduling Order Regarding Experts (ECF No. 85) is DENIED for failure to show good cause.

IT IS SO ORDERED.


Summaries of

Eagle v. U.S. Dent Co.

United States District Court, District of Kansas
Feb 9, 2023
20-cv-01146-JWB-TJJ (D. Kan. Feb. 9, 2023)
Case details for

Eagle v. U.S. Dent Co.

Case Details

Full title:DAVID EAGLE and BRANDY EAGLE, Plaintiffs, v. USA DENT COMPANY, LLC and…

Court:United States District Court, District of Kansas

Date published: Feb 9, 2023

Citations

20-cv-01146-JWB-TJJ (D. Kan. Feb. 9, 2023)