Opinion
No. 2:06-cv-1259-MCE-DAD.
December 11, 2007
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
Through the present motion, Plaintiff Geoffrey A. Schafer ("Plaintiff") seeks to modify the Court's June 21, 2007 Amended Pretrial Scheduling Order in this case by extending the time in which the parties may complete discovery.
For the reasons set forth below, Plaintiff's Motion will be GRANTED.
Because oral argument will not be of material assistance, the Court orders this matter submitted on the briefs. E.D. Cal. Local Rule 78-230(h).
BACKGROUND
On September 28, 2001, law enforcement officers from the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, the California Bureau of Narcotics, and the El Dorado County Sheriff, executed a valid search warrant on Plaintiff's home. According to the Complaint, both Plaintiff, then fourteen years old, and his mother cooperated with the officers. Plaintiff contends that despite their cooperation, the officers pointed guns at them and kept them detained in handcuffs for approximately three hours. Plaintiff alleges that he was severely traumatized by these events, and he timely commenced the present action about a year after he turned eighteen on June 10, 2005.Plaintiff filed his complaint on June 8, 2006, naming Does 1-20 as fictitious defendants. Plaintiff claims he was ignorant of the true names of officers who participated in the aforementioned September 28, 2001 raid at the time his lawsuit was instituted. On June 6, 2007, however, after ascertaining the identity of sixteen such officers through discovery responses, he filed a Motion to Amend to include those officers as additional defendants in this litigation. That Motion was granted by the Court on August 21, 2007.
Inasmuch as attorney Franklin Gumpert already represented the County of El Dorado and El Dorado County Deputy Sheriff Bob Ashworth, Mr. Gumpert accepted service on behalf of the six additional El Dorado County officers newly named as Defendants and filed an answer on their behalf on October 12, 2007. Assistant United States Attorney Yoshinori H.T. Himel did not agree to waive service on behalf of the nine federal defendants until October 30, 2007. In addition, Mr. Himel indicated he would not be filing a responsive pleading for sixty days pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(a)(3)(B), which allows additional time for an individually named federal defendant to appear. Finally, with respect to Ken Brown, the one state-affiliated additional Defendant, Deputy Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez has agreed to file a responsive pleading on Defendant Brown's behalf by December 17, 2007.
Plaintiff filed the present Motion to Modify the Amended Pretrial Scheduling Order because the Order specifies a discovery cutoff of December 18, 2007 which will not permit meaningful discovery from the newly-named Defendants. Although attorney Himel indicated he would not oppose a discovery extension, counsel for the El Dorado County and State of California defendants refused to stipulate to the extension.
STANDARD
Once a district court has filed a pretrial scheduling order pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16, that Rule's standards control. Johnson v. Mammoth Recreations, Inc., 975 F.2d 604, 607-08 (9th Cir. 1992). Prior to the final pretrial conference, which the Court has set for June 20, 2008, a court may modify a status order upon a showing of "good cause." See Fed.R.Civ.P. 16(b)."Unlike Rule 15(a)'s liberal amendment policy which focuses on the bad faith of the party seeking to interpose an amendment and the prejudice to the opposing party, Rule 16(b)'s `good cause' standard primarily considers the diligence of the party seeking the amendment." Johnson, 975 F.2d at 609. In explaining this standard, the Ninth Circuit has stated that:
[a] district court may modify the pretrial schedule `if it cannot reasonably be met despite the diligence of the party seeking the extension.' Moreover, carelessness is not compatible with a finding of diligence and offers no reason for granting of relief. Although the existence or degree of prejudice to the party opposing the modification might supply additional reasons to deny a motion, the focus of the inquiry is upon the moving party's reasons for seeking modification. If that party was not diligent, the inquiry should end.Id. (citations omitted).
ANALYSIS
Plaintiff filed his First Amended Complaint on August 21, 2007, the same day he was permitted to do so by Court order. He initiated attempt to serve all sixteen additional defendants within approximately thirty days. There is no evidence that Plaintiff has been anything less than diligent in that regard.Given the fact that the current discovery deadline expired less than four months after Plaintiff was permitted to add sixteen new defendants to this lawsuit, and recognizing that said four-month period necessarily encompassed the time both to locate the defendants and effectuate service, maintaining the current discovery cutoff of December 18, 2007 is insufficient to permit meaningful discovery involving the new defendants. Good cause has accordingly been demonstrated for an extension of the discovery deadline beyond December 18, 2007.
While Plaintiff has requested an extension of discovery until four months after a ruling has been made on the Federal Defendant's anticipated Rule 12(b)(6) Motion to Dismiss, adopting that suggestion would result in a virtually open-ended discovery deadline without any firm date for scheduling purposes. Consequently the Court will instead extend the discovery deadline for a period of six (6) months.
CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff's Motion to Modify the Amended Pretrial Scheduling Order is GRANTED. The discovery deadline is hereby extended to June 18, 2008. A Second Amended Pretrial Scheduling Order will be forthcoming in which the dates, including the dates for the Final Pretrial Conference and trial itself, will be adjusted accordingly.IT IS SO ORDERED.