STIPULATION RE FURTHER EXTENSION OF DISCOVERY DEADLINES AND CORRESPONDING EXTENSION OF MOTION-FILING DEADLINE; AND ORDER THEREON

GARY S. AUSTIN, District Judge.

IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED by and between the parties to this action, plaintiff Starr Indemnity & Liability Company ("Starr Indemnity") and defendants YRC Inc. ("YRC") and Roadway Reverse Logistics, Inc. (collectively "defendants"), through their respective counsel of record, that the discovery deadlines in this case be extended an additional month to enable the parties to complete discovery, the progress of which has been hampered to date by a failure of cooperation of an essential third party, as more fully described below; and that the motion-filing deadline be correspondingly extended.

Specifically, the parties respectfully request that the non-expert discovery cut-off and expert disclosure date be continued from September 8, 2014 to October 10, 2014; that the rebuttal expert disclosure deadline be continued from September 22, 2014 to October 24, 2014; that the expert discovery cut-off date be continued from October 20, 2014 to November 21, 2014; and that, based upon such continuances, the date for the filing of non-dispositive and dispositive motions be continued from October 24, 2014 to November 24, 2014, with the pretrial conference and trial dates and all other orders contained in the Court's scheduling order issued on February 14, 2014 remaining in full force and effect.

Good cause exists for this joint request. This case involves a request for reimbursement by plaintiff Starr Indemnity of sums paid to its insured for the alleged damage to two pieces of machinery transported by defendant YRC from Clovis, California to Chandler, Arizona in October 2012. Having coordinated the plans with plaintiff, defendants served deposition subpoenas upon three witnesses from the company from whom the machinery was received to address factual questions central to defendants' defense position. However, none of the witnesses appeared for the scheduled depositions or notified counsel that no witnesses would appear. Steps are now being taken to reschedule such depositions and/or to gather the necessary information informally. Plaintiff's counsel has agreed to hold its noticed Rule 30(b)(6) deposition of defendant YRC in abeyance until the completion of such non-party discovery process, provided that the requested extensions are granted. The parties seek additional time to complete both steps, with the aim of resolving the case through the use of the information gathered in such process.

ORDER

The Court has reviewed the joint request and adopts the parties' stipulation in part. The Court has made slight modifications to the deadlines because the dates proposed by the parties affect the pretrial and the trial dates.1 Accordingly, the scheduling order issued on February 6, 2014 (Doc. 10) is modified as follows:

The pretrial conference and the trial dates are VACATED and will be reset after a ruling on the dispositive motions.

All other orders contained in the Court's scheduling order issued on February 14, 2014 (Doc. 10) remain in full force and effect. A review of this case indicates that it may be ripe for settlement once the discovery is completed. The parties are strongly encouraged to notify the Court if settlement is a viable option.