Strandquist v. Washington State Department of Health and Human Services

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 6 WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT TACOMA RANDALL J STRANDQUIST, Case No. 3:23-cv-05071-TMC Plaintiff, ORDER DENYING DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR RELIEF FROM v. DEADLINES WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL AND HEALTH SERVICES; WENDY LONG, Defendant.

I. ORDER Before the Court is Defendants’ motion for relief from deadlines related to expert witness disclosure and dispositive motions. Dkt. 141. Having filed this motion less than three weeks before trial,1 see Dkt. 130, Defendants now seek to (1) extend the expert witness disclosure deadline to allow Defendants to identify a rebuttal expert and provide a report; (2) extend the dispositive motions deadline to permit the parties to provide new briefing to the Court on undue The Court recently granted Defendants’ request for a short trial continuance, providing the parties with four additional weeks to prepare for trial. See Dkt. 130.

Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(1). To evaluate whether a party’s failure to meet a deadline constitutes excusable neglect, courts apply a four-part test and examine: “(1) the danger of prejudice to the opposing party; (2) the length of the delay and its potential impact on the proceedings; (3) the reason for the delay; and (4) whether the movant acted in good faith.”

Ahanchian v. Xenon Pictures, Inc., 624 F.3d 1253, 1261 (9th Cir. 2010) (collecting cases).

Defendants do not address the correct legal standard. They instead assert that Rule 16(b) governs and argue that the factors weigh in favor of finding good cause to amend the scheduling order. Dkt. 141 at 8–11. The purpose of Rule 16 is to facilitate efficient and thorough case management in the early stages of litigation. Fed. R. Civ. P. 16. But when parties move for relief from a deadline that has passed, as Defendants do here, they must show excusable neglect. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(1)(B). Defendants have not done so. Additionally, when seeking to make late disclosures of expert witnesses, the requesting party must show that their failure to timely disclose was “substantially justified or is harmless.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c)(1). Defendants do not address this standard. Instead, Defendants spend the bulk of their motion rehashing arguments for their undue hardship defense, which the Court has already rejected in its orders denying summary judgment and denying the Defendants’ motion for reconsideration. See Dkt. 141 at 2-8. Having failed to address the appropriate legal standards, || Defendants do not show that relief from any of the deadlines is warranted. The motion for relief from deadlines (Dkt. 141) is thus DENIED.

Seg AS 7 Tiffany. Cartwright United States District Judge 1]