JOINT MOTION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER TO AMEND CLASS DEADLINES

VALERIE P. COOKE, Magistrate Judge.

Come now Plaintiffs Christopher Bulen and Janith Martinez ("Plaintiffs") and Defendants Realogy Corporation and Realogy Franchise Group LLC (hereafter "Realogy"), by and through undersigned counsel, and hereby jointly seek an order of this Court amending the current scheduling order relating to the completion of class discovery and class certification briefing. In support this Motion, the parties state as follows:

1. On June 25, 2012, this Court entered its current scheduling order setting various deadlines in this action, including a class discovery deadline of November 12, 2012, and a class certification briefing deadline of December 10, 2012 ("Class Deadlines"). With these and other deadlines in mind, the parties have been working diligently to complete necessary discovery in advance of the Class Deadlines.

2. On October 18, 2012, this Court held a case management conference in order to address discovery disputes that had arisen relating to Realogy's document production and regarding the depositions Plaintiffs were seeking to take. During the hearing this Court ordered, inter alia, that Realogy was required to complete its production and produce all of its documents to Plaintiffs' counsel by close of business on Monday, October 29, 2012. See Doc. 92. The Court also directed Realogy to categorize documents that were still to be reviewed into 20 different categories in lieu of Realogy having to index the documents as to each of Plaintiffs' document requests. Id.

3. In terms of depositions, during the hearing counsel for Realogy proposed taking the depositions of Realogy employees Chris Sears, Rhonny Barragan, and Travis. Bailey, along with a Realogy corporate representative witness, on November 6, 7 and 8 in Parsippany, New Jersey. This Court further ruled that while Plaintiffs would not, at present, be allowed to take the deposition of Alex Perriello, Plaintiffs would be permitted to proceed with the depositions of Katrina Najm and Kevin Doell. See Doc. 92. The parties were instructed to "meet and confer" to confirm the deposition dates. Id. This Court also instructed Plaintiffs' counsel to provide defense counsel with contact information for counsel for the attorney representing third-party defendant, Donald Paciello, in order for defense counsel to learn whether Mr. Paciello would be participating in the litigation and, in addition, in order to schedule Mr. Paciello's deposition. Id.

4. In accord with this Court's October 18 Order, Realogy has worked to expedite as much as possible Realogy's review and production of documents responsive to Plaintiffs' more than 400 document requests. Since October 18, 2012, a 12-person document review team has worked to review more than 25,000 documents in an effort to locate, categorize, redact and Bates-label documents requested by Plaintiffs. Despite these efforts, however, Realogy is still in the process of scanning and running searches on the computers of other Realogy employees who are believed to have potentially responsive documents, and Realogy will not be able to conclude its production of documents by the Court-imposed deadline of October 29, 2012. Realogy can complete its production by November 16, 2012.1 Id.

5. In light of the fact that Realogy will not be able to produce all of its documents in advance of the currently scheduled depositions set to begin November 6—and given Plaintiffs' need to have the documents in advance of these depositions—counsel for Realogy contacted Plaintiffs' counsel in an attempt to develop revised Class Discovery deadlines and an agreeable deposition schedule.

6. Although Plaintiffs have concerns about the ability to maintain the current trial date if the Class Discovery deadlines are moved, based on the representations by defense counsel that Realogy cannot complete it production by October 29, 2012, but will be completed by November 16, 2012, Plaintiffs are agreeable to the following proposed modifications of the Class Discovery deadlines:

7. In order to complete the necessary depositions within this proposed amended class discovery schedule, Realogy has agreed to make its witnesses available the week of December 10, 2012, pursuant to the following schedule:

8. Realogy has also agreed to coordinate the depositions (and accept subpoenas for) former employees Katrina Najm and Kevin Doell.2 Realogy is also attempting to coordinate the depositions of these individuals on Tuesday, December 11 (or during the evening during the week of December 10) in order to complete all depositions during the week.

9. Plaintiffs' counsel has agreed to produce Plaintiffs for their depositions on December 18 and 19, 2012, with the depositions of Third-Party Defendant Donald Paicello to be scheduled at a time convenient for all of the parties and Mr. Paciello, but before the class discovery cut-off of December 21, 2012.3

10. On or about September 20, 2012, Plaintiffs served Donald Paciello and a FED. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) representative of Townsend Hoffman Corp. for deposition. Subsequently, on October 1, 2012, the Realogy defendants were granted leave to file a third-party complaint naming Donald Paciello and Townsend Hoffman Corp. As noted in footnote three, counsel for Donald Paciello has suggested that Mr. Paciello may file bankruptcy in view of the third-party complaint filed by the Realogy Defendants. To avoid any further delay of the deposition of Mr. Paciello and/or the FED. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) deponent for Townsend Hoffman Corp., Plaintiffs propose that Mr. Paciello and Townsend Hoffman Corp. be afforded an extension of time to answer or otherwise plead until January 7, 2013, such that those depositions can occur without being threatened by a bankruptcy stay. Defendant disagrees with this proposal, believing instead that such an open extension could in fact serve to further delay the progress of this litigation. Defendants instead believes Paciello and the other third-party defendants should be held to the usual answer deadlines in order to enable the parties and this Court to know as soon as possible whether they will be appearing in the case, whether defaults should be taken, or as has been suggested is a possibility, if one or more of the third-party defendants will file bankruptcy.

11. Plaintiffs are extremely concerned about the possibility of this order affecting the scheduled trial date in this matter, and are only agreeing to this extension because Realogy has represented that it cannot produce the documents first requested on June 29, 2012, from Realogy before November 16, 2012. Given the dates set forth in the scheduling order, Plaintiffs foresee that it is extremely likely that the deadlines in the scheduling order, particularly the discovery cut-off, the expert witness deposition cut-off, and the due date for the pretrial order, will need to be extended due to Realogy's need for more time to review documents. Plaintiffs cannot agree with the factual statements set forth in paragraph 4 above, and do not understand why Realogy has waited until the last minute to begin to review the alleged 25,000 documents, which relate to discovery requests made in either June or August 2012. Realogy disagrees with Plaintiffs' characterization of Realogy's document production efforts, and regrets that it has taken more time than anticipated to produce documents responsive to Plaintiffs' 400-plus document requests, Realogy believes with the proposed extension they can meet these and all future deadlines in the case.

12. Anticipating this Court's entry of the proposed order provided herewith, the parties do not believe any additional matters need to be addressed at the status conference currently scheduled for October, 31, 2012, and request that said conference be vacated.

WHEREFORE, for the reasons set forth herein, the parties seek an order of this Court extending the current class discovery deadline until December 21, 2012, and the class certification briefing deadline until January 25, 2013. Realogy further requests that its deadline to deliver documents to Plaintiffs' counsel be extended until November 16, 2013. Respectfully submitted,

ORDER

IT IS SO ORDERED that the current scheduling order relating to the completion of class discovery is extended until December 21, 2012, with class certification briefing due January 25 2013.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Realogy defendants are granted an additional 18 days to complete their review and production of documents requested by Plaintiffs, to and including November 16, 2012.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Status Conference scheduled for October 31, 2012, is hereby vacated.