Smith v. Diaz

Purpose of the order

The order addressed case management and scheduling. It did not decide the parties’ underlying factual or legal claims.

Proceedings and parties’ agreement

The parties stipulated, meaning they jointly agreed, that the evidentiary hearing should be vacated. They also agreed that all pending factual issues should be decided at a jury trial, in light of the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Perttu v. Richards, No. 23-1324, 2025 WL 1698783, at *3 (June 18, 2025).

Scheduling directives

The court set an in-person case-management conference for July 1, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. The parties were instructed to be prepared to discuss their availability for a pretrial conference and trial. The court stated that, because of the case’s age and current posture, the trial needed to occur by the end of 2025.

Before the case-management conference, the parties were required to meet and confer about which proposed scheduling window would work for them. The order stated that the parties should collectively clear their calendars to make a trial possible during at least one of these windows:

- Pretrial conference on September 23, 2025, at 3:00 p.m.; trial beginning October 20, 2025, at 8:30 a.m. - Pretrial conference on September 30, 2025, at 3:00 p.m.; trial beginning October 27, 2025, at 8:30 a.m. - Pretrial conference on November 4, 2025, at 3:00 p.m.; trial beginning December 1, 2025, at 8:30 a.m.

The court noted that two weeks was the maximum trial length and that stringent time limits would likely make the trial substantially shorter.

Disposition

Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. ordered the case-management conference and scheduling process described above. The order vacated the evidentiary hearing by agreement and directed that the pending factual issues proceed toward jury trial; it did not enter judgment on the claims.