Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Dolgencorp, LLC

Filing 27

ORDER denying 26 Motion to Stay and extension of all deadlines. The Court grants the EEOC's request for an extension of defendants expert witness reports deadline. Signed by Magistrate Judge G. R. Smith on 1/25/18. (wwp)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
STATESBORO DIVISION
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT
OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION,

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Plaintiff, and
TERRI T. MOSLEY,
Plaintiff-Intervenor,
v.

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DOLGENCORP, LLC, d/b/a
DOLLAR GENERAL,
Defendant.

CV617-100

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ORDER
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) moved
the Court for a stay of all deadlines in this case to accommodate the lapse
in appropriations and consequent shutdown of the Federal Government.
Doc. 26. The plaintiff-intervenor and defendant do not oppose. Id. at
¶ 6. However, since the EEOC filed their motion, on January 22, 2018,
Congress has passed a continuing resolution allowing the resumption of
government operations.

See Sheryl Gay Stolberg &Thomas Kaplan,

Shutdown Ends, Setting Up Clash Over “Dreamers”, N.Y. TIMES, Jan.
23, 2018, at A1.

Given the limited duration of the shutdown, the Court DENIES
the EEOC’s request for a stay and extension of all deadlines. See doc. 26
at 3.

The most imminent scheduling-order deadline is the close of

discovery on February 26, 2018. Doc. 21 at 2. The Court expects that
any disruption caused by the shutdown can be accommodated in the
intervening time.

However, since it appears that the defendant’s

deadline to furnish expert witness reports was January 22, 2018,1 which
passed during the shutdown, the Court GRANTS the EEOC’s request
for an extension of that deadline. See doc. 26 at 3 (requesting, in part, an
extension of “all deadlines which occur during the term of any lapse in
appropriations by the same time period as the lapse.”). The deadline for
defendant to furnish its expert witness report is January 26, 2018.
SO ORDERED, this 25th day of January, 2018.

1

The Scheduling Order sets the deadline for defendant’s expert witness reports on
January 21, 2018, which was a Sunday. By operation of the Federal Rules, that
deadline was automatically extended to the next day which was not a Saturday,
Sunday, or a federal holiday. Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a)(1)(C). Although the deadline at
issue was defendant’s, the shutdown may have impeded the EEOC’s ability to satisfy
itself of receipt of the report. Therefore, to spare the parties the inconvenience of
further motions, the Court extends the deadline.
2