Bernath v. Seavey

Filing 45

ORDER granting 42 Defendant's Motion for Enlargement of Case Management and Mandatory Initial Disclosure Deadlines and Continuance of Preliminary Pretrial Conference. The parties shall have up to and including October 20, 2015 during whic h to complete the required case management meeting. The parties' mandatory Rule 26(a)(1)(A) disclosures shall be due within fourteen (14) days of the case management meeting, or no later than November 3, 2015.The Preliminary Pretrial Conference currently set for September 28, 2015 is cancelled and will be rescheduled by separate notice. Signed by Magistrate Judge Carol Mirando on 9/14/2015. (ALB)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
FORT MYERS DIVISION
DANIEL A. BERNATH,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No: 2:15-cv-358-FtM-99CM

MARK CAMERON SEAVEY,
Defendant.
ORDER
Before the Court is Defendant’s Motion for Enlargement of Case Management
and Mandatory Initial Disclosure Deadlines and Continuance of Preliminary Pretrial
Conference (Doc. 42), filed on September 1, 2015. Plaintiff filed a Declaration of
Daniel A. Bernath in Opposition to Motion to Expand Time on September 3, 2015.
Doc. 43. Defendant’s motion therefore is ripe for review, and for the reasons that
follow is due to be granted.
Defendant Mark Cameron Seavey seeks the extensions and continuance based
on difficulty communicating with Plaintiff to schedule the case management
conference. Defendant’s motion includes as an attachment forty-nine (49) pages of
email communications with Plaintiff in which Defendant attempts to coordinate a
telephonic or in-person case management meeting.

See Doc. 42-1.

Although

Plaintiff filed an Opposition, the document consists mostly of Plaintiff’s accusations
that somehow Defendant attempted to sabotage an airplane flown by Plaintiff and
Plaintiff’s resulting letter to the FBI detailing the incident. See Doc. 43. Plaintiff

does allege that “the first time [Defendant’s attorney John D.] Mason has said he will
meet me in Ft Myers is in his declaration which I have read today,” and further states
the following:
I offered him dates for my availability. I have told him
what I will be requesting of him and his gang leader client
(the identities of his gang members who use fake names to
terrorize me). He has not responded.

Id. at 2. Plaintiff does not, however, otherwise address why he opposes Defendant’s
requested extensions and continuance.
The Related Case Order and Track Two Notice for Patent Cases, entered in
this case on June 25, 2015, states:
Counsel and any unrepresented party shall meet within
SIXTY (60) DAYS after service of the complaint upon any
defendant for the purpose of preparing and filing a Case
Management Report.
Doc. 4 at 1-2 (emphasis in original). Defendant’s motion states that he is uncertain
as to the precise deadline for the case management meeting given Plaintiff’s filing of
an Amended Complaint on July 16, 2015 and Plaintiff’s repeated failure to properly
serve Defendant with various documents. Doc. 42 at 1-2. Defendant estimates the
current deadline as September 20, 2015 based upon the expiration of sixty (60) days
from the date Defendant received Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint via the Court’s
electronic filing system. Id. at 2 n.1; see Doc. 20. Defendant now seeks an extension
of thirty (30) days for the parties to complete the case management meeting. Doc.
42 at 3.
The Court may extend any deadline for good cause and enjoys broad discretion
in managing its docket. Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b); see Chudasama v. Mazda Motor Corp.,
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123 F.3d 1353, 1366 (11th Cir. 1997). Here, Defendant has shown that the parties
have attempted to coordinate a case management meeting but have been unable to
do so within the time permitted. Accordingly, the Court finds that an extension of
the deadline by which the parties are required to meet for the purposes of preparing
the Case Management Report is warranted. Defendant also requests that if the
deadline for the case management meeting is extended, the Rule 26 mandatory initial
disclosures deadline by which the parties are required to make the mandatory Rule
26 initial disclosures be extended to allow the parties fourteen (14) days following the
case management meeting to complete the disclosures. Doc. 42 at 3. In light of
granting the prior extension, the Court also finds that a corresponding extension of
the deadline for mandatory Rule 26 initial disclosures is warranted.
Finally, the Case Management Report form provided as part of the Related
Case Order and Track Two Notice states that the initial disclosures deadline may be
“no later than [the] date of [the] Preliminary Pretrial Conference.” Doc. 4 at 5. The
Preliminary Pretrial Conference currently is scheduled for September 28, 2015 at
2:15 p.m. before the Honorable Sheri Polster Chappell.

Doc. 13.

Accordingly,

because the Court will extend the deadline for the case management meeting until
October 20, 2015 and allow the parties fourteen (14) days from the completion of the
case management meeting to file their mandatory initial disclosures, the current date
and time for the Preliminary Pretrial Conference have been rendered impractical.
The Court therefore also will continue the conference to accommodate the other
extensions granted by this Order.

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ACCORDINGLY, it is hereby
ORDERED:
1.

Defendant’s Motion for Enlargement of Case Management and

Mandatory Initial Disclosure Deadlines and Continuance of Preliminary Pretrial
Conference (Doc. 42) is GRANTED.
2.

The parties shall have up to and including October 20, 2015 during

which to complete the required case management meeting. The parties’ mandatory
Rule 26(a)(1)(A) disclosures shall be due within fourteen (14) days of the case
management meeting, or no later than November 3, 2015.
3.

The Preliminary Pretrial Conference currently set for September 28,

2015 is cancelled. The Conference will be rescheduled by separate notice.
DONE and ORDERED in Fort Myers, Florida on this 14th day of September,
2015.

Copies:
The Honorable Sheri Polster Chappell
United States District Judge
Counsel of record
Pro se Plaintiff

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