Shelly Albaum
Jun 3, 2019
UPDATE: On June 4 Judge Carney approved the new trial date with an amended scheduling order.
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Two new items appeared on the California docket his afternoon: (1) Minutes from last Friday's discovery conference and (2) a joint stipulation proposing to delay the trial until October 29. You can read them here:
Joint Stipulation regarding Scheduling
The minutes from the discovery meeting are sparse, but it suggests that some issues were resolved and we will soon see an order from Magistrate Judge McCormick, but other issues remain unresolved, and there will be a follow-up hearing on June 7.
The Joint Stipulation asks Judge Carney to postpone the trial until October 29 to allow sufficient time for, among other things, expert discovery, motions for summary adjudication, mediation, and pre-trial submissions.
In support of the delay, the parties point out that they have worked hard and made great progress toward completing fact discovery, including producing and reviewing over 90,000 documents, as well as coordinating and holding nineteen fact witness depositions in Los Angeles, Sacramento, New York, Chicago, and Boston (including two third-party depositions that lasted multiple days).
The final fact witness deposition is scheduled for June 6, 2019, and several remaining document discovery disputes have yet to be resolved (in fact, it was Magistrate Judge McCormick who suggested that "early Fall of 2019" would be a better trial date).
That means that expert discovery has not yet begun (including the exchange of opening and rebuttal expert reports and depositions), and summary judgment motions will are after that.
Mediation is now scheduled for September 17, 2019.
We will see how Judge Carney responds to the request; I would be surprised if it is not approved. However, it would be reasonable to assume that there will be no further delays, and October 29 really will be the trial date.