Pearson v. State of California

8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 San Francisco Division 11 AKAYSIA PEARSON, et al., Case No. 20-cv-05726-CRB (LB) 12 Plaintiffs, DISCOVERY ORDER 13 v. Re: ECF No. 44 14 STATE OF CALIFORNIA, et al., 15 Defendants.

17 The defendants moved to compel a nonparty John Hiserodt’s s compliance with a subpoena issued to him to produce information about a second-opinion autopsy that he performed — at the request of the guardian ad litem for plaintiff N.P — on decedent Coltrane Pearson.1 The trial judge previously referred discovery disputes to the undersigned, and the court gave notice of its discovery-dispute procedures.2 22 For clarity, for the purposes of third-party subpoenas and discovery disputes, the court’s standing order’s instructions to “parties” is meant to refer to the participants in a third-party discovery dispute (even if they are not formal parties to the underlying litigation). The court views the joint-letter-brief process as more efficient than the five-week motion process because parties Mot. – ECF No. 44. Citations refer to material in the Electronic Case File (ECF); pinpoint citations are to the ECF-generated page numbers at the top of documents. ] can (1) talk with each other, see each other’s positions, try to find areas of compromise, and work || out disputes amongst themselves, and (2) narrow, sharpen, and focus the issues they cannot resolve before they present those issues to the court. See Synopsys, Inc. v. Ubiquiti Networks, Inc., || No. 17-cv-00561-WHO (LB), 2018 WL 2294281, at *1 (N.D. Cal. May 21, 2018). It usually is faster to file a letter brief. The approach also avoids sanctions because the more streamlined || process usually resolves the disputes without a formal motion to compel. The court hopes that || parties (and third parties) approach the process in good faith.

8 The court directs the parties to engage in that process. Because the defendants describe their || unsuccessful attempt to resolve the dispute informally, the court does not follow its customary || practice of denying the motion without prejudice in favor of the letter-brief process.* The motion 11 remains on calendar, and the briefing schedule remains in effect. But the court hopes that the || pending motion provides some incentive for the parties to work out the dispute next week.

E 13 IT IS SO ORDERED.

14 Dated: September 18, 2022 15 Let BC LAUREL BEELER 16 United States Magistrate Judge

Z 18 || > Mot. — ECF No. 44 at 2.