Mendoza v. General Motors LLC et al

Filing 26

ORDER Granting in Part 25 Stipulation to Amend the Case Schedule, signed by Magistrate Judge Jennifer L. Thurston on 8/15/2017. Discovery Deadlines: Non-Expert 10/30/2017; Expert 1/19/2018. Non-Dispositive Motion Deadlines: Filed by 1/26/2018; Hearing by 2/23/2018. (Hall, S)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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MIRIAM MICHELLE MENDOZA,

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Plaintiff,

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v.
GENERAL MOTORS LLC, et al.,

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Defendants.

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Case No.: 1:16-cv-00967 - LJO - JLT
ORDER GRANTING IN PART STIPULATION
TO AMEND THE CASE SCHEDULE
(Doc. 25)

The parties have stipulated to amend the case schedule as to all remaining dates except the

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pretrial conference and the trial dates. (Doc. 25 at 2-3) They explain that the amendment is

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needed because of delays in seeking and producing the GM LLC corporate representative for

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deposition. Id. at 2. They assert that they need to extend expert discovery because “they prefer to

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complete fact and party witness depositions before serving expert disclosures and reports, as this

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will facilitate completeness of expert reports.”1 Id. Likewise, they assert that the case schedule

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should be amended as to non-expert discovery “to facilitate the orderly progress of discovery” but

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fail to explain why they are unable to complete non-expert discovery by the current deadline of

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October 2, 2017, give the corporate deposition will occur a full month earlier and they offer no

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Despite this, the schedule counsel propose requires the plaintiff to disclose her experts a month before the close of
their proposed deadline for non-expert discovery. Thus, the Court is at a loss to understand exactly what the
motivation is for the stipulation—other than providing counsel additional time to complete discovery that, apparently,
they did not pursue earlier.

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further description of outstanding discovery needs.
Notably, in their joint mid-discovery status conference, filed on July 3, 2017, they indicated

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that the bulk of their discovery would be completed by the beginning of August and that “[t]he

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parties do not currently anticipate any impediments to [completing] discovery.” (Doc. 23 at 2)

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Also left unexplained is why, despite that the case was scheduled in October 2016, the parties

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waited until July to conduct the needed depositions. Finally, the case schedule the parties propose

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in their stipulation—while providing them significant additional time to complete discovery—fails

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to provide sufficient time for the needed Court actions including determining motions. Therefore,

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the Court ORDERS:
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a.

All non-expert discovery SHALL be completed no later than October 30,

b.

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The stipulation to amend the case schedule is GRANTED in PART as follows:

The plaintiff SHALL disclose her experts no later than November 3, 2017

2017;

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and the defendant SHALL disclose its experts no later than November 29, 2017. Plaintiff may

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disclose rebuttal experts no later than December 22, 2017;

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c.

All expert discovery SHALL be completed no later than January 19, 2018;

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d.

Non-dispositive motions, if any, SHALL be filed no later than January 26,

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2018 and heard no later than February 23, 2018;
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As to the requests to amend the dispositive motion filing deadline and associated

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hearing date and as to the specific proposed schedule agreed upon by counsel, the stipulation is

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DENIED.

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Absolutely no other amendments to the case schedule are authorized. The parties are

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urged, once again (See Doc. 24), to complete their discovery of this case expeditiously. The

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Court does not contemplate entertaining any further requests to amend the case schedule.

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IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated:

August 15, 2017

/s/ Jennifer L. Thurston
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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