ORDER

SHERI POLSTER CHAPPELL, Magistrate Judge.

This matter comes before the Court on Joint Motion for Extension of the Deadlines for the Plaintiff to File Motions Related to Defendant's Answer and Affirmative Defenses and for Defendant to Amend Their Pleading in Response to the Plaintiff's Complaint (Doc. #13) filed on March 27, 2012. The Parties move the Court to enlarge the time for the Defendant to file a responsive pleading or Fed. R. Civ. P. 12 motion up to and including April 26, 2012.

As grounds, the Parties assert they are engaged in discussions to resolve disagreements related to the legal sufficiency of Defendants' Affirmative Defenses, and MetLife is evaluating whether it will assert a counterclaim against Plaintiff for reimbursement of its overpayment of long-term disability benefits. Therefore, Defendants may wish to amend their Answer, and if Defendants do not amend (or do not adequately amend) their Answer then Plaintiff intends to file motions related to Defendant's Answer and Affirmative Defenses.

In addition, the Parties have also just begun settlement discussions which could resolve this matter in its entirety, and both Plaintiff and Defendants would like to exhaust those discussions before expending resources and judicial time on motion practice related to the Parties' pleadings.

Given that the litigation is in its early stages and all Parties are in agreement, the Court finds good cause to grant the requested relief.

Accordingly, it is now

ORDERED:

Joint Motion for Extension of the Deadlines for Plaintiff to File Motions Related to Defendant's Answer and Affirmative Defenses and for Defendant to Amend Their Pleading in Response to the Plaintiff's Complaint (Doc. #13) is GRANTED. The Defendant has up to and including April 26, 2012, to file a responsive pleading or otherwise answer the Plaintiff's Complaint.

DONE and ORDERED.