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Where a defendant has moved to extend the scheduling order by 30 days, that motion should be allowed because the plaintiff will not be prejudiced by a 30-day extension.
“After the Court awarded Plaintiff attorney fees due to numerous discovery delays caused by Defendant’s Counsel, ECF No. 33, Defendant replaced its lead counsel with its existing local counsel of record, Bill C. Panagos and Linda Kennedy, ECF Nos. 36, 38. A week after Defendant’s previous counsel moved to withdraw, ECF No. 36, Defendant moved to extend the scheduling order by thirty days. …
“Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4) provides that the Court may amend a scheduling order ‘only for good cause.’ …
“The Court has substantial discretion when it weighs factors for and against additional discovery. … Courts generally consider five factors in reviewing a request to extend discovery: (1) when the moving party learned of the issue that is the subject of discovery; (2) the effect of the extension on the outcome; (3) the length of the discovery period; (4) whether the moving party was dilatory; and (5) whether the adverse party was responsive to prior discovery requests. …
“In total, while three out of five factors weigh in favor of denying the motion, Plaintiff will not be prejudiced by a short thirty-day extension. By all accounts, new lead counsel for Defendant is acting quickly. Accordingly, the Court will grant a reasonable thirty-day extension to the original discovery schedule—the first extension of the discovery deadline. Denying the motion would likely prejudice Defendant far more than Plaintiff and risk the case not being decided on the merits. The Court will therefore grant Defendant’s motion and will likely not entertain any further requests for extensions. …
“Defendant moved to compel Plaintiff to produce documents related to its First Requests for Production and to ‘affirmatively state whether any documents are being withheld based on their objection or privilege.’ …
“No good faith conferral nor any conversation ‘aimed at reaching agreement’ occurred before Defendant filed its motions. …
“At bottom, Rule 7.1 is not a box that parties must check before filing a motion. The conferral process is especially important when the parties, like here, have sophisticated and experienced counsel who should be perfectly competent to work through discovery disputes ‘without court intervention.’ … Of course, after a substantive and good faith conferral regarding a contemplated motion, the parties are free to move for relief from the Court. In seeking concurrence in good faith and attempting to reach agreement, however, the parties will normally be able to narrow the issues to present to the Court and perhaps resolve them completely. To put it plainly, there should not be a question in the briefing that the Court must resolve as to whether the parties properly conferred in accordance with the Court’s local rules. And the Court must therefore insist on compliance.
“The Court will therefore strike Defendant’s motions to seal and compel. … It will require that the parties conduct a substantive, good faith conferral with the goal of resolving issues without Court intervention. The Court expects the parties to resolve or significantly narrow the issues. After conferral, if Defendant chooses to refile its motions, the Court will consider the substance at that time, perhaps with the assistance of a discovery master.”
