Williams v. Nevada Department of Corrections

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEVADA MICHAEL WILLIAMS, Case No.: 2:17-cv-01987-JCM-NJK 12 Plaintiff(s), ORDER v. [Docket No. 24] BRIAN WILLIAMS, et al., 15 Defendant(s).

16 Pending before the Court is Plaintiff’s motion to extend time. Docket No. 24.1 No response was filed. As discussed below, the motion to extend is GRANTED.

18 The instant motion addresses outstanding service issues. There are two Defendants against whom claims remain following screening: (1) Brian Williams and (2) “Chief Medical Officer.”

20 See Docket No. 8 at 8. With respect to Defendant Brian Williams, he has accepted service and no additional service is required. See Docket No. 16. With respect to Defendant Chief Medical Officer, Plaintiff has not yet identified who that person is. The use of “doe” defendants is not favored, but is permitted in some circumstances in which the identity of a party is not known prior to filing a complaint. E.g., Gillespie v. Civiletti, 629 F.2d 637, 642 (9th Cir. 1980). In such circumstances, courts allow the use of the fictious name while the plaintiff uses discovery or other means to identify the true name of the defendant. See id. at 642-43. To the extent he wishes such The Court construes the filings of pro se litigants liberally. See Blaisdell v. Frappiea, 729 F.3d 1237, 1241 (9th Cir. 2013).

1} claims to proceed, the plaintiff then must move to amend the complaint or move to substitute 2|| parties upon identifying the defendant’s true identity; otherwise the claims against the doe defendants will be dismissed. See, e.g., Guzman Hernandez v. Banner Boswell Med. Ctr., 2019 WL 1981866, at *1-2 (D. Ariz. Mar. 29, 2019), adopted, 2019 WL 1980429 (D. Ariz. May 3, 5|| 2019).

6 The Court will allow Plaintiff a period of 45 days to conduct discovery into the true identity 7|| of Defendant Chief Medical Officer, and to file a motion to substitute parties. As such, Plaintiff is ORDERED to file a motion to substitute parties no later than October 3, 2019. In addition, the 9] motion to extend the service deadline is GRANTED in light of the above.” The deadline to effectuate service on Defendant Chief Medical Officer is hereby EXTENDED to November 18, 11} 2019.

12 FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THE DEADLINES ESTABLISHED IN THIS 13] ORDER MAY RESULT IN THE RECOMMENDED DISMISSAL OF DEFENDANT 14| CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER.

15 IT IS SO ORDERED.

16 Dated: August 19, 2019 Nancy J. eX 18 United States.Magistrate Judge 27 > The Court has discretion to extend the service deadline even in the absence of good cause.

See in re Sheehan, 253 F.3d 507, 513 (9th Cir. 2001); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(m). Given the 28] circumstances of this case, an extension of this deadline is appropriate.