Williams v. Exeter Finance LLC
- Susan Van Keulen
- 5:19-cv-05862
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Williams v. Exeter Finance, Judge Van Keulen denied plaintiffs’ motion to strike defendants’ affirmative defenses and allowed limited extra interrogatories.
The plaintiffs and defendants in the case. The plaintiffs’ motion to remove the challenged defenses was denied, but the plaintiffs received permission to serve one additional interrogatory for each challenged defense outside the ordinary interrogatory limit.
What happened
In Williams v. Exeter Finance LLC, the plaintiffs asked the court to remove several of the defendants’ affirmative defenses, which are legal defenses raised in response to a claim. They challenged the second through tenth, twelfth through fourteenth, and sixteenth through nineteenth defenses.
The court denied the motion to strike. It said the sufficiency of the defenses was better left for later resolution and found that the plaintiffs had not shown prejudice or that removing the defenses would simplify the case. The court also ended the remaining briefing schedule and canceled the hearing.
Judge Susan Van Keulen allowed the plaintiffs to serve one interrogatory for each challenged defense to learn its basis, without counting those interrogatories toward the case’s 25-interrogatory limit. The ruling did not decide whether the defenses would ultimately succeed.
The detailed version
- Williams v. Exeter Finance LLC · No. 5:19-cv-05862
- Susan Van Keulen
- Dec. 11, 2019
Background
The plaintiffs moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f) to strike the defendants’ affirmative defenses. They challenged the defendants’ second through tenth, twelfth through fourteenth, and sixteenth through nineteenth defenses, arguing that the defenses did not satisfy applicable pleading standards or did not state legally sufficient affirmative defenses.
Rule 12(f) allows a court to strike an insufficient, redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter from a pleading. The opinion explains that such motions are generally disfavored. If there is doubt about a defense, courts generally leave its sufficiency for adjudication on the merits. The opinion also notes that courts may consider whether striking the defense would prevent prejudice or simplify the litigation.
Ruling
The court denied the plaintiffs’ motion to strike. It concluded that assessing the sufficiency of the challenged defenses was better left for adjudication on the merits. The plaintiffs had not shown that including the defenses would prejudice them, and removing them would not simplify the litigation.
As a condition addressing the plaintiffs’ concerns, the court allowed them to serve one interrogatory for each challenged affirmative defense to learn the basis for that defense. Those interrogatories would not count toward the plaintiffs’ 25-interrogatory limit under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 33(a)(1).
The court also terminated the remaining briefing schedule, including the deadline for the plaintiffs’ reply, and terminated the hearing on the motion. The order did not determine whether any challenged defense would ultimately prevail.
Disposition
The motion to strike affirmative defenses was DENIED. The plaintiffs were permitted to serve the specified additional interrogatories without having them count toward the 25-interrogatory limit.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.