Malibu Media, LLC v. Doe

Filing 105

ORDER: Defendant's Objections to Magistrate's Order Denying Defendant's Motions to Compel (Doc. # 94 ) is overruled. See Order for details. Signed by Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington on 2/8/2016. (DRW)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
TAMPA DIVISION
MALIBU MEDIA, LLC,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No. 8:14-cv-1580-T-33TBM

GREGORY WEAVER,
Defendant.
_____________________________/
ORDER
This

matter

comes

before

the

Court

upon

Defendant

Gregory Weaver’s Objections to Magistrate’s Order Denying
Defendant’s Motions to Compel, which was filed on January 19,
2016 (Doc. # 94). Plaintiff Malibu Media, LLC has not filed
a response; however, the Court finds that no response is
necessary. For the reasons that follow, the Court overrules
the Objection.
Discussion
Before addressing the merits of Weaver’s Objection, the
Court finds it necessary to outline its efforts to maintain
a schedule in order to bring this case to a just, speedy, and
inexpensive resolution. On April 4, 2015, the Court entered
its

first

Case

Management

and

Scheduling

Order,

which

established a discovery deadline of October 9, 2015. (Doc. #

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33 at 1). Then, because of its accommodation to the parties
regarding the disclosure of expert reports (Doc. # 40), the
Court found it necessary to enter an Amended Case Management
and Scheduling Order (Doc. # 41). The Amended Case Management
and Scheduling Order moved the discovery deadline to November
9, 2015. (Id. at 1).
A

flurry

of

motions

regarding

discovery

concerning

expert reports and production of Weaver’s hard-drive then
ensued. (Doc. ## 42-57, 60, 63-66). Also during this period,
counsel for Weaver and Malibu Media conferred in earlyNovember

of

2015,

regarding

issues

related

to

various

interrogatories and requests for production. (Doc. ## 85-7,
86-4). Following this contentious period of discovery, the
Court

was

asked

by

Weaver

to

modify

the

Amended

Case

Management and Scheduling Order (Doc. # 66). On November 23,
2015, the Court——for a second time——extended the discovery
deadline, this time to January 8, 2016. (Doc. # 68). Thus, in
total,

the

parties

were

provided

an

extra

91

days

of

discovery.
The day before the discovery deadline was set to expire,
Weaver filed two motions to compel: one as to Weaver’s
interrogatories and the other as to Weaver’s requests for
production. (Doc. ## 85, 86). The Honorable Thomas B. McCoun

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III, United States Magistrate Judge, to whom the motions to
compel were referred, denied the motions. (Doc. # 91). In so
doing, Judge McCoun’s Order outlined the relevant course of
discovery, including the Court’s prior two extensions of the
discovery deadline, and found that Weaver failed to provide
a

“reason

or

good

cause

for

the

delay

in

bringing

the

motions.” (Id. at 2). Judge McCoun further found that Weaver
failed to “offer a basis for extending the discovery deadline
yet again . . . .” (Id.).
Weaver has timely filed the present objection. (Doc. #
94). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a) states:
Nondispositive Matters. When a pretrial matter not
dispositive of a party's claim or defense is
referred to a magistrate judge to hear and decide,
the magistrate judge must promptly conduct the
required proceedings and, when appropriate, issue
a written order stating the decision. A party may
serve and file objections to the order within 14
days after being served with a copy. A party may
not assign as error a defect in the order not timely
objected to. The district judge in the case must
consider timely objections and modify or set aside
any part of the order that is clearly erroneous or
is contrary to law.
Weaver

argues

because

the

Amended

Case

Management

and

Scheduling Order states, “[t]he Court may deny as untimely
all motions to compel filed after the discovery deadline,”
Judge McCoun’s Order should be overturned as contrary to the
law. Weaver’s argument is unpersuasive.

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As demonstrated in this Order and Judge McCoun’s Order,
the Court has been more than accommodating to the parties and
has extended the deadlines in this case on multiple occasions.
Despite conferring in mid-November of 2015, Weaver waited
until the day before the discovery deadline was set to lapse
to file his motions to compel. Notably, granting those motions
would have required a, or resulted in a de facto, third
extension of the discovery deadline. Yet, Weaver presented no
justifying reason to the Court for doing so, especially in
light of the fact that the Court previously warned counsel no
further extensions would be granted (Doc. # 68).
Upon review of the record, Weaver’s motions to compel,
Judge McCoun’s Order denying the motions to compel, and
Weaver’s Objection, the Court cannot say Judge McCoun’s Order
was contrary to the law. Accordingly, Weaver’s Objection is
overruled.
Accordingly, it is
ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and DECREED:
Defendant Gregory Weaver’s Objections to Magistrate’s
Order Denying Defendant’s Motions to Compel, which was filed
on January 19, 2016 (Doc. # 94) is OVERRULED.

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DONE and ORDERED in Chambers in Tampa, Florida, this 8th
day of February, 2016.

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