Lozano v. County of Santa Clara
- Edward Chen
- 3:19-cv-02634
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Lozano v. County of Santa Clara, Judge Chen denied plaintiffs’ request to seek reconsideration of an earlier dismissal.
The plaintiffs’ request to revisit the earlier dismissal was denied, leaving the prior rulings on Claims Six and Seven in place. The County and the individual defendants were affected as defendants in those claims.
What happened
In Lozano v. County of Santa Clara, the court had already dismissed some of the plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice and others without prejudice. Claims Six and Seven were dismissed with prejudice against the County on immunity grounds and against individual defendants because the claims were filed too late.
The plaintiffs asked for permission to file a motion asking the court to reconsider that earlier decision. They argued that California’s delayed-discovery rule made Claims Six and Seven timely because they did not receive and review medical records until after the decedent’s death.
The court found that the plaintiffs could have raised that argument earlier, including in their opposition to the dismissal motion or at the hearing, and therefore denied their motion for leave. Judge Chen issued the order on February 26, 2020.
The detailed version
- Lozano v. County of Santa Clara · No. 3:19-cv-02634
- Edward Chen
- Feb. 26, 2020
Background
On December 16, 2019, the court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. It dismissed some claims with prejudice and some without prejudice. Relevant here, it dismissed Claims Six and Seven on immunity grounds as to the County and on statute-of-limitations grounds as to the individual defendants. The court stated that the plaintiffs had not responded to the County’s immunity arguments and therefore had waived those claims as to the County. The court also rejected the plaintiffs’ responses to the individual defendants’ statute-of-limitations arguments.
On January 16, 2020, the plaintiffs filed a motion for leave to file a motion for reconsideration under Civil Local Rule 7-9. A motion for reconsideration asks the court to revisit an earlier order. Under that rule, a party must show reasonable diligence and one of several specified grounds, such as a material difference in the facts or law, newly emerged material facts or a change in law, or the court’s failure to consider material facts or decisive legal arguments that had already been presented.
Plaintiffs’ Argument
The plaintiffs argued that the court had failed to consider material facts and decisive legal arguments. Their proposed argument concerned California’s delayed-discovery rule. They contended that the time needed to receive and review medical records after the decedent’s death delayed discovery of the alleged negligence and therefore made Claims Six and Seven timely.
The opinion states that the plaintiffs did not appear to challenge the dismissal of Claims Six and Seven as to the County. The delayed-discovery argument was directed to the statute-of-limitations ruling concerning the individual defendants.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that motions for reconsideration are generally disfavored and are not intended to allow a party to present new arguments that could have been made in the original briefing. The court found that the plaintiffs could have raised the delayed-discovery argument in their opposition to the motion to dismiss, filed four months after they received the medical records, or at the November 14, 2019 hearing, held five months after receipt of the records. The defendants’ reply had also raised the delayed-discovery issue and put the plaintiffs on notice of it.
Because the plaintiffs did not raise the argument earlier and did not satisfy Civil Local Rule 7-9, the court denied their Motion for Leave to File a Motion for Reconsideration. The order disposed of Docket No. 41. The opinion does not alter the earlier dismissal beyond denying permission to seek reconsideration.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.