West v. Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc. et al

Filing 154

PROCEDURAL ORDER denying 140 Motion to Extend Liability Discovery Deadlines to Preserve Trial Date; denying 141 Motion for Leave to Conduct Testing on Specific Capacitors and for Corresponding Modification of Pre-Tria l Deadlines (Without Change of Trial Date); denying 143 Motion for Discovery Sanctions to Preclude the Offer of Evidence; denying 137 Motion for Reconsideration re 136 Order on Motion. So Ordered by Chief Judge Joseph N. Laplante.(jb)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
Kurt West
v.

Civil No. 10-cv-214-JL

Bell Helicopter
Textron, Inc. et al.
PROCEDURAL ORDER
On March 18, 2013, the defendants filed a motion seeking to
extend certain of the expert discovery and challenge deadlines,
and the summary judgment deadline, in this case.

Several hours

later, the plaintiff filed a motion also seeking to extend those
deadlines, but to different dates.

Putting aside the fact that

counsel for both sides filed these motions in violation of this
court’s procedure for resolving discovery disputes, set forth in
the Order After Preliminary Pretrial Conference (document no.
52), at 2, neither of the motions shows, or attempts to show,
good cause for extending the deadlines, as required by Rule
16(b)(4) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.1

1

The court does not deem it good cause that one side has
refused to agree to what the other side considers a reasonable
proposal for extending the deadlines--which, in essence, is the
premise of each of the motions. While the court encourages
counsel to accommodate their adversaries' reasonable proposals-and even considers some of the proposals rejected by counsel to
be quite reasonable--it does not follow that their rejection
amounts to good cause.

While the motions discuss the need to test certain of the
capacitors in the electronic control unit from the plaintiff’s
helicopter, they do not explain why, despite the fact that the
parties recognized this need after testing the ECU in late August
2012, they waited until March 18, 2013 (after all of the expert
discovery and challenge deadlines had already expired, and just
three days before the summary judgment deadline) to seek to
extend these deadlines.

Indeed, the deadlines now in effect were

set at the parties’ request in August, when this court granted
their joint motion for permission to test the ECU and extend the
then-outstanding deadlines to accommodate the additional
information the testing was expected to reveal.
20, 2012 (granting document no. 124).

Order of Aug.

The parties do not explain

why, even with their subsequent discovery of the need to test the
capacitors, the intervening six months have not proven sufficient
for that task, nor why that did not become apparent to them until
after nearly all of the relevant deadlines had already lapsed.2

2

The court acknowledges that, for some of this period, it
had under advisement several discovery motions that the parties
had filed in April and May 2012. But on July 20, 2012, i.e.,
prior to the parties’ joint motion for permission to test the ECU
and extend the deadlines, the court advised them against
“anticipat[ing] an expeditious resolution of their discovery
disputes, as it has prioritized other trials and dispositive
motions in cases requiring more immediate attention,” and ordered
them to “proceed with all other discovery and trial preparation
not dependent on their disputes.” Order of July 20, 2012.
Moreover, in response to an order from the court notifying them
2

In the absence of any such explanation, the motions (document
nos. 140, 141) fail to show good cause to extend the deadlines,
and are denied.

See Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4).

This ruling does

not foreclose the parties from jointly seeking to extend (or,
more accurately, resuscitate) the deadlines to dates as to which
they are able to agree.
The defendants’ “motion to foreclose plaintiff from the
offer of evidence regarding aggravation of a pre-existing
condition” (document no. 143) is, as its title suggests, a motion
in limine seeking to limit the plaintiff’s damages claim at
trial.

It is therefore DENIED as premature, without prejudice to

its refiling as a motion in limine by the applicable deadline
prior to any trial in this matter.
Finally, Rolls Royce’s motion to reconsider (document no.
137) this court’s denial of Rolls Royce’s motion for a protective
order to preserve its confidentiality designations over certain

that a decision on the discovery motions was imminent, Order of
Jan. 4, 2013 (document no. 127), the parties advised the court
that they had resolved the disputes presented by the discovery
motions, at least insofar as they involved the production of
documents (as opposed to the placement of confidentiality
designations over documents that had already been produced). Yet
both sides waited more than six weeks more to ask the court to
extend the deadlines. So the pendency of the discovery motions
should not have caused the parties to forestall testing the
capacitors, or delaying their request for an extension of
deadlines to accommodate that testing. The present motions do
not suggest otherwise.
3

documents it has produced is DENIED because it seeks
reconsideration based on information Rolls Royce possessed at the
time of its prior motion, but elected not to submit to the court.
SO ORDERED.

____________________________
Joseph N. Laplante
United States District Judge
Dated:
cc:

April 11, 2013

Joan A. Lukey, Esq.
Sara Gutierrez Dunn, Esq.
Jesse M. Boodoo, Esq.
John P. Flanagan, Esq.
L. Robert Bourgeois, Esq.
Martha C. Gaythwaite, Esq.
Brian M. Quirk, Esq.
James C. Wheat, Esq.
Jason L. Vincent, Esq.
Jeffrey H. Karlin, Esq.
Pierre A. Chabot, Esq.
Phillip S. Bisby, Esq.
Marie J. Mueller, Esq.

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