Doe v. County of Milwaukee et al

Filing 166

ORDER signed by Judge J.P. Stadtmueller on 1/31/2017 DENYING 165 Parties' Joint Motion to Bifurcate. (cc: all counsel) (jm)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
JANE DOE,
Plaintiff,
v.
COUNTY OF MILWAUKEE,
DAVID A. CLARKE, JR.,
XAVIER D. THICKLEN, and
JOHN/JANE DOE,

Case No. 14-CV-200-JPS

ORDER

Defendants.
On January 30, 2017, the parties filed a joint motion to bifurcate the
trial of this matter. (Docket #165). They seek separate trials on the alleged
sexual assaults of the plaintiff, which was the subject of summary judgment
briefing, and on the plaintiff and other female inmates being shackled during
childbirth while incarcerated, which is posed as a class action. Id. The trial for
this matter is currently set for June 5, 2017, and the parties ask that this date
be used for the sexual assault trial, and that the childbirth shackling trial be
set in November 2017. Id.
The Court will deny the motion. This matter is now almost three years
old, and will be more than that by the time of trial. Further, the matter will
have been assigned to this branch of the Court for ten months by the current
trial date. If the parties have failed to use this extraordinarily extended period
to conduct necessary discovery and motion briefing on the class issue, the
problem is of their own making.1 Bifurcation at this stage is inconsistent with
Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and with the Court’s

1

In fact, in the plaintiff’s latest status report on the class issue, which was
dated September 30, 2016, she stated that she “anticipates she will be in a position
to file a motion for class certification within the next 45 days.” (Docket #140 at 2).
Perhaps that statement was not true, but in any event, no such motion was ever
filed.

prerogative to conclude this case consistent with the trial scheduling order
earlier entered on January 19, 2017. (Docket #162). The Court declines to
exercise its discretion to bifurcate the trial of this matter. Fed. R. Civ. P. 42(b);
Volkman v. Ryker, 736 F.3d 1084, 1088-89 (7th Cir. 2013).
Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that the parties’ joint motion to bifurcate (Docket
#165) be and the same is hereby DENIED.
Dated at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this 31st day of January, 2017.
BY THE COURT:

J.P. Stadtmueller
U.S. District Judge

Page 2 of 2