ORDER EXTENDING PLAINTIFF'S TIME TO FILE OPENING BRIEF

(Doc. 15)

SHEILA K. OBERTO, Magistrate Judge.

Pursuant to the Court's Scheduling Order, Plaintiff's opening brief was due to be filed no later November 1, 2018. (Doc. 5.) The parties filed a "Stipulation Extending Plaintiff's Time to File a Motion for Summary Judgment/Remand" on November 16, 2018—over two weeks after Plaintiff's opening brief deadline expired. (Doc. 15.)

The Court may extend time to act after the deadline has expired because of "excusable neglect." Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(1)(B). Here, although the Stipulation demonstrates good cause to support the request for extension of time (see Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4)), no such excusable neglect has been articulated—much less shown—to justify the untimeliness of the request. This is not the first time the Court has made this observation with respect to Plaintiff's counsel's requests, (see Doc. 13), and Plaintiff's counsel is admonished that the Court dedicates substantial resources to moving cases forward efficiently and expects the parties to do the same.

Notwithstanding this deficiency, given the absence of bad faith or prejudice to Defendant (as evidenced by her agreement to the extension of time after the deadline) and in view of the liberal construction of Fed. R. Civ. 6(b)(1) to effectuate the general purpose of seeing that cases are tried on the merits, see Ahanchian v. Xenon Pictures, Inc., 624 F.3d 1253, 1258-59 (9th Cir. 2010), the Court GRANTS the parties' stipulated request. The parties and their counsel, particularly Plaintiff's counsel, are cautioned that future post hoc requests for extensions of time will be viewed with disfavor.

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiff shall have an extension of time, up to and including December 4, 2018, by which to file his opening brief. All other deadlines set forth in the Scheduling Order (Doc. 5) are modified accordingly.

IT IS SO ORDERED.