STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER TO EXTEND TIME FOR COUNTY OF KERN DEFENDANTS TO FILE ANSWER TO PLAINTIFF'S COMPLAINT, AND TO EXTEND TIME FOR SERVICE ON INDIVIDUAL COUNTY EMPLOYEES

(Doc. 9)

JENNIFER L. THURSTON, Magistrate Judge.

Defendants COUNTY OF KERN ("COUNTY" or "County"), DONNY YOUNGBLOOD, JOEL SWANSON, RANDI ALLEN, and MISTY MILLER (collectively referred to as the "County Defendants") and Plaintiff JOHN SCALIA, through their respective counsel, hereby respectfully stipulate under Local Rule 144(a) to an extension of time — up to and including December 1, 2017 — for the County Defendants to file a joint Answer to Plaintiff's complaint. The undersigned counsel for Plaintiff represents to the Court that, based on an email from — and telephone call with — Mr. Fontes today (11/13/17), County Defendants will be represented by:

The COUNTY OF KERN was served on October 25, 2017, rendering the COUNTY's answer due on November 15, 2017. The undersigned counsel for Plaintiff has been in communication with the Office of Counsel for Kern County regarding acceptance of service on behalf of the County employees; counsel spoke to Mark Nations, County Counsel, on October 25, 2017, in which Mr. Nations indicated service would likely be accepted on the employees' behalf, but he needed to speak to the employees formally to confirm this. This conversation was followed up and confirmed that day with an email, which included Dkts. 1, 2, 4, 4-1, 4-2, and 4-3, all of the documents that need to be served. A follow-up email was sent, inquiring as to the status, on October 31, 2017. A response was received by Mr. Nations on November 6, 2017, indicating he had not yet heard back, but that the request had been forwarded to the Chief of Litigation, Charles Collins. He also indicated in this email that "[a]ccepting service is usually not an issue[.]"

Today, the undersigned counsel for Plaintiff spoke to Mr. Scott Fontes, who will be representing the County Defendants; counsel met-and-conferred and jointly agreed to the stipulated extensions that are requested herein. The defense of the County and its employees was assigned by Mr. Collins to Mr. Fontes on November 8, 2107. Mr. Fontes has sent correspondence to each of the individually named County defendants, advising them of the lawsuit and their right to a defense by the Office of County Counsel. Mr. Fontes has not yet heard back from the individually named County defendants, but will seek a waiver of service from each them, in order to jointly respond to the complaint on behalf of all County defendants on or before December 1, 2017.

Accordingly, the parties agree that there is good cause to extend the 90-day period for service set by Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(m). Plaintiff and the County Defendants, thus, further stipulate to an extension of 30-days for service to be either accepted by counsel or effected on the individual County employees, DONNY YOUNGBLOOD, JOEL SWANSON, RANDI ALLEN, and MISTY MILLER, which extends the current deadline by 30-days.

There have been no previous extensions of time for the filing of an Answer or for service to be effected.

[PROPOSED] ORDER

Based upon the stipulation of counsel (Doc. 9), the Court GRANTS the request to allow the County defendants to respond to the complaint by December 1, 2017.

IT IS SO ORDERED.