J. v. City and County of San Francisco

Background

The defendants filed a letter on December 8, 2025, seeking to compel production of documents from non-party witness H.H., non-party witness Suzanne Schaefer, and plaintiff Jack Brundage. The opinion states that all three were represented by plaintiffs’ counsel. The defendants acknowledged that December 1, 2025, was the cutoff for this category of discovery. Under Civil Local Rule 37-3, a discovery motion generally had to be filed within seven days after the discovery cutoff, making December 8 the filing deadline.

The defendants filed the letter unilaterally to preserve the issues before the motion-to-compel deadline and said they intended to file a corrected version containing the plaintiffs’ position. The parties had met and conferred by videoconference on December 8, but they had not filed a joint letter containing the positions of the plaintiffs or the non-party witnesses.

Court’s Requirements for Discovery Disputes

The court cited Magistrate Judge Lisa J. Cisneros’s Civil Standing Order, which requires parties to make a good-faith effort to resolve discovery disputes and to hold a formal meet-and-confer in person or by videoconference before seeking court intervention. If disagreements remain, the parties generally must file a joint letter within five business days after the formal meeting. The court also previously issued a case-specific process for preparing joint filings, which contemplated several days between the conference and filing the letter.

The court observed that the defendants waited until the filing deadline to meet and confer. As a result, they did not appear to have raised the requests early enough to prepare a timely joint letter complying with the Standing Order. The opinion notes that the record did not show a reason for the delay. It separately states that H.H.’s production of documents late on December 5 might justify some delay regarding H.H., but the record did not provide enough information to determine whether the defendants had acted diligently before the December 1 cutoff. The letter gave no justification for the timing of the disputes involving Schaefer and Brundage.

Order to Show Cause

The court ordered the defendants to show cause—meaning to explain—why the requests should not be denied. It identified two possible grounds: the unilateral letter could be procedurally improper under the Standing Order, and the expected joint letter could be untimely. The court directed the defendants to address the “good cause” standard for changing a scheduling order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16, which requires diligence.

The defendants had to file a letter brief of no more than two pages by December 12, 2025. The plaintiffs and the non-party witnesses sharing plaintiffs’ counsel could also file a letter brief by that date. The court stated that the parties could still file a joint letter by December 12, but it would consider that letter’s merits only if the defendants showed that they had raised the requests on time or had sufficient cause for not doing so. The order did not grant or deny the discovery requests at that stage.