STIPULATION AND JOINT MOTION TO AMEND CASE SCHEDULING ORDER TO EXTEND DISCOVERY AND MOTION DEADLINES; PROPOSED ORDER THEREON

WILLIAM B. SHUBB, District Judge.

This Stipulation is submitted by Plaintiffs Jesus Silva Rodriguez and Rigoberto Zepeda Loa and Defendants RCO Reforesting, Inc. and Roberto Ochoa, by and through their respective counsel. The parties respectfully submit this Stipulation to amend the case scheduling order and continue the non-expert discovery and motions deadlines as follows:

Motions are likely to be scheduled for hearing on October 15, 2018. Accordingly, the parties request that the September 24, 2018 Final Pretrial Conference date be continued approximately thirty days so that the Court has had time to resolve the motion(s) prior to the Final Pretrial Conference. This request will have no effect on the December 4, 2018 jury trial date. This stipulated request is made pursuant to Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for good cause.

The current discovery and motions deadlines cannot be met in light of the Court's May 1, 2018 order to refer this matter for a Settlement Conference before Magistrate Judge Edmund F. Brennan. See Doc. 59. While the Court did not rule on defense counsel's motion to withdraw, it decided to stay discovery until further instruction. Up until that order, Plaintiffs had pursued written discovery and had taken the depositions of Defendant Roberto Ochoa and two employees of RCO Reforesting, Inc. However, Plaintiffs still need to conduct additional depositions1 and are awaiting responses to their Third Set of Interrogatories and Third Set of Requests for Production of Documents, which were both served on March 16, 2018. Because discovery is outstanding, it is essential that the Court grant this joint request to modify the case schedule.

The parties here show good cause for this request. On June 21, 2018, the parties, represented by their respective counsel, appeared at the Settlement Conference, where Defendants agreed to disclose confidential tax and financial records and other sensitive information to Plaintiffs. The Court then ordered the parties to appear for a further Settlement Conference on July 12, 2018. See Doc. 63. In the event the parties are unable to settle, defense counsel may renew their motion to withdraw as Defendants' counsel of record. See Doc. 59. If so, defense counsel would need to notice this motion on the assigned judge's motion calendar; the hearing on the matter would not take place until at least twenty-eight days after service and filing of the motion. See Local Rule 230(b). By that time, and by the time the Court issues its order on the matter, the discovery and motion deadlines would have long since passed. Unless the court does so on its own motion, Plaintiffs will have to seek a stipulation from Defendants or file a formal motion to lift the stay on discovery. The Court therefore should extend the non-expert discovery and motions deadlines and modify all other dates that are necessary to allow the parties adequate time to prepare for trial. Moreover, Plaintiffs have indicated their intent to file a motion for partial summary judgment on one or more issues in the case. The filing of that motion has been delayed as a result of the stay on discovery and attempts to resolve this matter through settlement.

Although the case schedule has been modified three times,2 these continuances have all been necessary due to Defendants' repeated discovery delays and were each granted based on a showing of good cause. Here, the parties jointly move the Court to amend the case schedule once more and agree that neither will suffer any prejudice as a result of such an amendment.

For these reasons, the parties satisfy the good cause standard under Rule 16(b) and hereby stipulate as follows:

IT IS SO STIPULATED:

IT IS SO ORDERED: