1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 EUREKA DIVISION 7 8 RYAN WILLIAMS, Case No. 20-cv-05292-YGR (RMI)

9 Plaintiff, ORDER DENYING MOTION TO 10 v. COMPEL

11 CONDENSED CURRICULUM Re: Dkt. No. 65 INTERNATIONAL, 12 Defendant. 13 14 Now pending before the court is a “Notice” (dkt. 65) filed by Plaintiff through which he 15 complains that “prior to the parties’ October 15, 2021 joint submission . . . CCI represented that it 16 would produce documents that would enable Plaintiff to calculate the commissions he was due 17 [and that] [b]ased on that agreement, Plaintiff did not move to compel RPD Nos. 12, 14-19, 27-29, 18 [and] 83-93.” See Notice (dkt. 65) at 2. Consequently, Plaintiff uses his unilaterally-filed “Notice” 19 as a mechanism to request the court to order Defendant to produce four categories of information 20 (certain Salesforce and QuickBooks reports, as well as certain “attribution reports”) by January 18, 21 2022. See id. at 6. For the following reasons, Plaintiff’s request is denied. 22 The presiding judge in this case has already moved the cutoff deadline for fact discovery 23 from June 11, 2021 to November 26, 2021 (see dkt. 28), and then again from November 26, 2021 24 to December 17, 2021 (see dkt. 38). When the only pending discovery dispute in this case (dkt. 25 30) was referred to the undersigned on October 20, 2021, the undersigned issued a written order 26 on November 2, 2021 (dkt. 33), deciding all disputed issues. Since then, the parties have wasted 27 no shortage of the court’s time in that Defendant’s foot-dragging resulted in no fewer than four 1 imposition of coercive sanctions (dkt. 57), but staying their execution such as to afford Defendant 2 one final opportunity to comply with the court’s November 2, 2021 (dkt. 33) on the initial 3 discovery dispute letter brief. 4 Throughout the deluge of notices, briefs, and status reports over the course of the last three 5 months, Plaintiff has occasionally mentioned – in passing – that it had sought certain documents 6 during fact discovery, that it had received assurances from Defendants about producing those 7 documents that later proved false, and that it was prejudiced because it never moved to compel the 8 information underlying RPD Nos. 3-6, 12, 14-22, 25, 27-29, 49, and 80-83. See Pl.’s Sanctions 9 Mot. (dkt. 50) at 13-14; see also Pl.’s Notice (dkt. 65) at 2 (now only complaining about missing a 10 significantly smaller subset of that information: RPD Nos. 12, 14-19, 27-29, 83-93). The court will 11 note that when Plaintiff first complained about this on December 22, 2021 (see dkt. 50 at 13-14), 12 fact discovery had closed only three days earlier. Plaintiff offered no explanation why he could not 13 have moved to compel this information before the close of fact discovery – even if Defendant had 14 given Plaintiff a false assurance of production, when fact discovery was coming to a close, 15 Plaintiff could have moved to compel this information, but for some reason decided against doing 16 so. Given the fact that Plaintiff mentioned it in passing – in the context of a principal brief on 17 coercive sanctions geared to enforcing the court’s November 2nd order, the court instructed 18 Plaintiff as follows: “[t]o the extent that Plaintiff was misled by any assurances during the 19 discovery period that later proved to be untrue such that Plaintiff missed an opportunity to move to 20 compel certain materials that were not encompassed in this court’s November 2nd Order, the 21 Parties are ordered to promptly meet and confer in an effort to resolve these concerns informally, 22 if informal resolution proves impossible, and Plaintiff wishes to proceed, the Parties are 23 ORDERED to promptly file a joint letter brief addressing those issues such that Plaintiff’s 24 assertions of prejudice can be properly addressed.” See Order of December 29, 2021 (dkt. 57) at 7. 25 Thus, if Plaintiff was asserting that he was cheated out of the opportunity to timely move to 26 compel the information underlying RFP Nos. 3-6, 12, 14-22, 25, 27-29, 49, and 80-83 – on 27 December 29th, the court ordered Plaintiff and Defendant to promptly meet and confer and then to 1 why a motion to compel this information could not have been timely filed. 2 Given that fact discovery closed on December 17, 2021, in giving Plaintiff a chance to 3 present this dispute through a properly prepared and jointly-filed letter brief, the court was looking 4 for Plaintiff’s explanation as to why he was unable to timely move to compel the discovery in 5 question (for example, if Defendant had manipulated the timeline such as by assuring Plaintiff that 6 it would provide those materials by mid-January but then failed to do so). However, Plaintiff 7 ignored this court’s order as to the prompt filing of a joint letter brief setting forth the reasons why 8 filing a motion to compel before the deadline set forth in the local rules would have been 9 impossible. Instead, Plaintiff has unilaterally filed a “Notice” through which he now seeks an 10 order compelling the production of that discovery nearly a month after the passing of the fact 11 discovery cutoff deadline. To make matters worse, Plaintiff’s “Notice” contains no semblance of a 12 coherent explanation as to why it would not have been possible to file a motion to compel this 13 material before December 17, 2021 (let alone 7-days later as contemplated by this Court’s Local 14 Rules, as described below). 15 First, the court will note that the undersigned does not have the authority to order 16 discovery that was not already the subject of a timely motion compel this far after the deadline set 17 by the District Judge. See e.g., United States ex rel. Brown v. Celgene Corp., No. CV 10-3165 18 GHK (SS),

, at *6 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 16, 2015); see also Watts v. 19 Allstate Indemnity Co.,

,

, at *2 (E.D. Cal. Oct. 20 23, 2012) (magistrate judge does not have authority to amend district judge’s scheduling order or 21 to hear untimely discovery disputes); UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Disco Azteca Distribs., Inc., 2006

,

, at *3 (E.D. Cal. July 18, 2006) (“Of course, the 23 magistrate judge is not empowered to modify the district judge’s scheduling order.”). If Plaintiff 24 wishes to reopen discovery at this point, he must file such a request before the District Judge. 25 Second, even if the undersigned were not bound by the District Judge’s discovery deadline, 26 the undersigned would still be strongly inclined to deny Plaintiff’s request for several reasons, the 27 most important of which is because he has not established that he was diligent. In this regard, 1 discovery, no motions to compel fact discovery may be filed more than 7 days after the fact 2 || discovery cut-off... [and] [d]iscovery requests that call for responses or depositions after the 3 applicable discovery cut-off are not enforceable, except by order of the Court for good cause 4 || shown.” When Plaintiff initially complained about this issue — in passing, as a tangent, and in an 5 || unrelated motion for coercive sanctions geared to enforcing the court’s November 2nd order — 6 || Plaintiff could have still moved to compel this information since fact discovery had only closed 5 7 || days earlier and Local Civ. R. 37-3 permits the filing of motions to compel up to 7 days after the 8 || closing of fact discovery. However, Plaintiff failed to do so. Thus, Plaintiff's request to compel 9 this material now is due to be DENIED as untimely, especially in light of the fact that the request 10 || is unattended with any particularized showing of good cause for the delay. Additional bases for the 11 denial are manifest in the fact that a “Notice” is not a suitable method for moving to compel 12 || discovery under this court’s local rules, or under the provisions set forth in the General Standing 13 Order of the undersigned, or under the specific instructions that Plaintiff was given in the court’s 14 || order of December 29th (quoted above). 3 15 IT IS SO ORDERED. A 16 Dated: January 18, 2022 Me Z —

R@BERT M. ILLMAN 19 United States Magistrate Judge 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28