City Grill Hospitality Group, Inc. v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company

Filing 55

ORDER granting 23 Motion to Allow Supplemental Rebuttal Testimony; finding as moot 54 Motion for Extension of Time to File Pretrial Order. The Clerk of Court is DIRECTED to remove this case from the court's December 2, 2013 trial calendar . The pretrial conference scheduled for November 21, 2013 is hereby cancelled and the parties do not need to submit the pretrial order on November 14, 2013. The parties are DIRECTED to file a joint response as outlined in this order on or before November 21, 2013. Counsel is reminded to read the order in its entirety for detailed information and deadlines. Signed by Senior Judge James C. Fox on 11/14/2013. (Edwards, S.)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA
WESTERN DIVISION
No. 5:12-CV-610-F

CITY GRILL HOSPITALITY GROUP,
INC.,
Plaintiff,
V.

NATIONWIDE MUTUAL
INSURANCE COMPANY,
Defendant.

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ORDER

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This matter is before the court on the consent motion for extension of time to file pretrial
order [DE-54]. For the following reasons, the court has decided to continue the trial in this case
and cancel the pretrial conference set for November 21, 2013. The parties do not need to submit
the pretrial order on November 14, 2013.
The parties' cross motions for summary judgment were submitted to the undersigned
once they became ripe on October 29, 2013. The trial in this matter is currently set for the
undersigned's December 2, 2013 term of court. The court has received what appears to be
thousands of pages of documents associated with the parties' motions for summary judgment and
the court needs more time to fully consider the motions than is currently allowed by the
upcoming trial date. In addition, while the case is scheduled for the December 2, 2013 term of
court, the court will have at least a week of criminal hearings before this trial can begin.
Criminal trials for a particular term of court also always preempt civil trials due to constitutional

and statutory speedy trial requirements. 1 As a result, this trial may not begin until December 9,
2013 or December 16, 2013. The parties' motion for extension of time to file pretrial order
suggests that this trial could be quite lengthy. The court is reluctant to disturb jurors, court staff,
and the parties' holiday plans to complete the trial unless it is absolutely necessary.
In addition, the court has decided to ALLOW City Grill's motion to allow supplemental
rebuttal testimony [DE-23]. The court will issue an order explaining its reasoning for this
decision in the coming days. Because Nationwide has indicated that it will need additional time
to depose the rebuttal expert and possibly notice a new expert witness to respond, the court
deems it prudent to alert the parties of its decision in this order. Assuming Nationwide still
wishes to depose this witness, the court hereby ORDERS that discovery is re-opened for the
limited purpose of deposing City Grill's rebuttal expert and identifying/deposing a new expert to
respond City Grill's rebuttal expert.
Before setting a new trial date and drafting the order on the motions for summary
judgment, the court needs to hear from the parties. With respect to the motions for summary
judgment, the court does not know whether the parties wish to supplement their summary
judgment briefs with the evidence developed from the rebuttal expert[s], or whether the parties
are comfortable relying on the summary judgment briefs as they are currently drafted. In
addition, before setting the trial date, it will be helpful to the court to know the estimated length
of the trial. The court recognizes that only a rough estimate can be provided at this stage, and the
court will not hold the parties to the estimate in any way. Finally, to the extent practicable, the

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The court has approximately fourteen arraignments set for the December 2, 2013 term and any
of those defendants could decide to proceed to trial. If that occurs, the trial date in this case could be
delayed until December 16, 2013.
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court wants to set the trial in this matter at a time convenient for the parties and/or counsel. The
court provides the following list of its 2014 terms of court to aid the parties in selecting a new
trial date: (1) January 2; (2) January 27; (3) March 10; (4) March 31; (5) April28; (6) May 12;
(7) June 2; (8) June 30.
The parties are reminded that each term of court begins with approximately one week of
criminal hearings. The court will not know whether any criminal trials are scheduled for a
particular term until approximately two weeks prior to the scheduled term.
Accordingly, the court ORDERS that parties submit a joint response on or before
November 21, 2013 addressing the following issues:
1. Whether the parties wish to supplement the summary judgment briefs with additional
argument based on the rebuttal expert[s] report/deposition testimony.
2. The estimated trial length for this case.
3. The parties' preferred term of court for setting the trial.
CONCLUSION
The Clerk of Court is DIRECTED to remove this case from the undersigned's December
2, 2013 trial calendar. The pretrial conference scheduled for November 21, 2013 is hereby
cancelled and the parties do not need to submit the pretrial order on November 14, 2013. The
parties are DIRECTED to file a joint response as outlined above on or before November 21,
2013.

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SO ORDERED.
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This the _1f_ day ofNovember, 2013.

J
ESC. FOX
Senior United States District Judge

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