ORDER SUA SPONTE ADMINISTRATIVELY CLOSING CASE

WILLIAM J. MARTÍNEZ, District Judge.

In July 2014, the parties jointly moved to extend certain deadlines in the Court's scheduling order for the purposes of allowing them to pursue mediation. (ECF No. 237.) The Court granted that request and referred the matter to U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty for a settlement conference. (ECF No. 238.) A settlement conference was conducted on September 30, 2014, and continued on October 9, 2014. (ECF Nos. 253, 255, 256.) After the October 9, 2014 settlement conference, Judge Hegarty entered a Minute Order stating that the matter had settled, and vacated the Final Pretrial Conference then set for October 16, 2014. (ECF Nos. 255, 256.) The parties were directed to advise the Court by October 31, 2014 on any progress toward completion of the settlement documents. (Id.) As no such notice was filed, the Court directed the parties to file dismissal papers or a status report by December 10, 2014. (ECF No. 257.) The parties' Joint Status Report indicated that Plaintiff was in the process of drafting a license agreement and motion for consent decree to finalize the settlement. (ECF No. 261.) Given this progress, the Court directed the parties to file dismissal papers on or before January 30, 2015. (ECF No. 262.)

On January 30, 2015, Plaintiff filed a Motion for Extension of Time for the parties to file dismissal documents ("Motion"). (ECF No. 263.) The Motion, which is unopposed by Defendants, states that "dismissal is based on a complex settlement agreement among the parties" and that "the parties intend to submit the final documents for a decree to be issued by Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty". (Id.) The parties seek a thirty-day extension of their deadline to file dismissal paperwork. (Id.)

Given the above, the Court declines to grant the requested relief but will instead sua sponte administratively close the case. This case has effectively been stayed since July 2014, and the parties reached a settlement of this case in October. Despite having more than three months to finalize settlement documents, the parties have been unable to do so, and the Court is unable to discern from the record when this period of delay will come to an end. Given the parties' lackadaisical approach to these endeavors, the Court is not inclined to expend much effort in continuing to monitor the lack of progress towards the finalization of the settlement/dismissal process. Moreover, at this point, it appears there is no live dispute regarding the merits of the claims at issue in this case, and that the case is simply awaiting the parties' final agreement on the settlement documents.

Accordingly, the Court ORDERS as follows: