ORDER

STIPULATION TO EXTEND TIME TO COMPLETE EARLY NEUTRAL EVALUATION (ENE)

RICHARD SEEBORG, District Judge.

Pursuant to ADR Local Rule 5-5(a), plaintiff AllCells, LLC ("AllCells") and defendant State Farm General Insurance Company ("State Farm"), by and through their counsel of record, hereby stipulate and respectfully request that this Court amend the Case Management Scheduling Order (Dkt. No. 22) entered on January 11, 2018, as follows:

1. This case is an insurance coverage dispute, in which AllCells seeks payment of contract benefits as an assignee and judgment creditor of State Farm insured Cepheus Biosciences, Inc. ("Cepheus"). In summary, AllCells had filed an underlying suit against Cepheus and its founders for trade secret misappropriation. The Cepheus defendants tendered that suit to State Farm, which accepted the defense under a reservation of rights. The underlying parties resolved the matter at settlement conference, which resulted in entry of a stipulated judgment against Cepheus in the amount of $1 million, and an assignment of Cepheus' rights under its State Farm policy to AllCells.

2. The Court entered a Case Management Scheduling Order on January 11, 2018 (Dkt. No. 22), which ordered the parties to complete Early Neutral Evaluation (ENE) through the Court's ADR Department, within the next 120 days (or May 11, 2018).

3. The Court appointed Rachel Ehrlich as the ENE evaluator (Dkt. No. 24). The ENE is currently set to take place on May 10, 2018, at 10:00 a.m.

4. Since the Court's order, the parties have diligently proceeded with written discovery. On January 23, 2018, plaintiff served Requests for Production of Documents on State Farm. These Requests sought, among other things, production of documents related to: 1) the insureds' tender of the underlying action to State Farm; and 2) the tenders of other non-party State Farm insureds involving "trade secret" claims.

5. Because the requested documents included attorney-client communications and attorney work product relating to the insureds' defense against the underlying action, State Farm's counsel Jenny Chu contacted the insureds' personal counsel Mark Zhai, for authorization to disclose Cepheus' claim and policy information. The insureds' counsel informed State Farm that the insureds would not agree to waive their privacy rights or attorney-client privilege, and instructed State Farm not to produce protected information relating to the tender.

6. Ms. Chu informed AllCells' counsel Anthony Abdollahi of the insureds' position. State Farm also served timely discovery responses on March 27, 2018, which agreed to production of unprivileged items, but objected to production of claims-related documents (whether belonging to Cepheus or other insureds) on the basis of third party privacy, attorney-client privilege, and attorney work product.

7. AllCells contends that it is entitled to Cepheus' claims and defense-related documents, as Cepheus' assignee and judgment creditor. It also contends that it is entitled to other insureds' claims-related documents as such information is relevant to the coverage issue underlying this suit.

8. State Farm, AllCells, and the insureds have engaged in good faith meet and confer efforts to attempt resolution of these issues. However, it has become increasingly clear that the parties may need to seek the Court's assistance by way of motions to compel or to enforce the underlying settlement agreement.

9. It is AllCells' position that the requested documents may be necessary to its preparation for the ENE.

10. The parties therefore respectfully request that the Court continue the ENE-completion deadline for 90 days, to August 9, 2018, to allow the parties to resolve this discovery dispute, and to complete and review any necessary additional document production.

IT IS SO STIPULATED.

SIGNATURE ATTESTATION

I hereby attest that all signatories listed have authorized the filing of this document.

[PROPOSED] ORDER BY THE COURT

The Court hereby GRANTS the parties' request, and extends the ENE-completion deadline to August 9, 2018.

IT IS SO ORDERED.