WILLIAM H. ORRICK, District Judge.
Plaintiffs Philip Bryde, Jennifer Waters and Alvin Northington ("Plaintiffs") and Defendant General Motors, LLC ("Defendant"), hereby submit the following Joint Stipulation and [Proposed] Order to Continue ADR Completion Date and Modify Schedule Through Class Certification Hearing.
WHEREAS on October 18, 2016 the Court issued an Order approving the parties' proposed deadline of April 29, 2017 to complete private ADR [ECF 37];
WHEREAS on October 19, 2016 the Court issued a Minute Order [ECF 38] adopting the parties' proposed schedule through class certification and setting the following dates:
In addition, the Minute Order scheduled a Further Case Management Conference for May 16, 2017.
WHEREAS the parties have not previously requested an extension of the ADR deadline or the schedule through class certification;
WHEREAS, the parties have proceeded in good faith to litigate this case. On December 1, 2016 Plaintiff served comprehensive sets of document requests and interrogatories, to which Defendant has provided responses and an initial document production. In addition, Defendant has served written discovery on Plaintiffs, and the parties are in the process of setting up a physical inspection of a Plaintiff vehicle; and
WHEREAS, notwithstanding the parties' good faith efforts to advance this matter, several issues have arisen which have slowed down the pace of discovery and require that additional time be built into the schedule. First, Plaintiffs' lead counsel, Mark S. Greenstone, had a baby in the beginning of March 2017 and has had a reduced schedule for the last two months. Second, certain technical issues have arisen with Defendant's document production that have unavoidably delayed its completion. Specifically, while GM produced over two thousand pages of documents in early March concerning the subject vehicles and their airbag systems, (1) design and testing activities for an important component in question (the Passenger Presence System sensor mat) go back several years before production of the 2010 Camaro began in 2009, and many of these activities were conducted by third-party suppliers and sub-suppliers and a GM subsidiary in Australia, making retrieval of pertinent design and testing documents difficult and time-consuming; GM is still attempting to ascertain the existence and location of responsive documents; and (2) a last minute discovery that the pertinent warranty data gathered by GM was incomplete has required the gathering of additional data; the revised data should be produced in about ten days. Third, the parties have a disagreement as to the scope of discovery which they are currently attempting to resolve through the meet and confer process, in connection with which plaintiffs are in the process of preparing a proposed ESI protocol. Fourth, the mediator whom the parties have agreed use, Hon. Edward A. Infante (Ret.), will be on sabbatical from mid-July 2017 through the first week of October 2017. The parties have discussed their respective settlement positions and believe that the schedule extension requested herein will facilitate a more productive mediation. Accordingly, the parties have reserved October 18 (subject to the Court's approval) to conduct a full day mediation before Judge Infante.
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED THAT, subject to the Court's approval:
1. The private ADR deadline is continued from April 29, 2017 to October 27, 2017;
2. The Further Case Management Conference is continued from May 16, 2017 to November 14, 2017; and,
3. The current schedule through certification is vacated, and the following schedule is adopted:
The filing attorney hereby certifies that concurrence in the filing of the document has been obtained from each signatory, in accordance with N.D. Cal. Gen. Order 45, Section X(B).
Having reviewed the parties' Joint Stipulation and [Proposed] Order to Continue ADR Completion Date and Modify Schedule Through Class Certification Hearing, and good cause appearing, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT:
1. The private ADR deadline is continued from April 29, 2017 to October 27, 2017;
2. The Further Case Management Conference is continued from May 16, 2017 to November 14, 2017; and,
3. The current schedule through certification is vacated, and the following schedule is adopted: