Johnson v. Thi Nguyen
- William Orrick
- 3:19-cv-06170
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Johnson v. Nguyen, Judge Koh denied Johnson’s motion to strike the defendants’ answer because he did not identify grounds or sufficient evidence.
Scott Johnson’s motion was denied, and the answers filed by Hanh Thi Nguyen and the other defendants were not stricken. The order did not resolve the underlying claims.
What happened
In Johnson v. Nguyen, Scott Johnson sued Hanh Thi Nguyen and other defendants, alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Unruh Civil Rights Act. Johnson made an unopposed request to remove the defendants’ answer from the case under a federal court rule.
The court said Johnson had not identified any improper defense or other material that could be removed from the answer. It also said he had not provided enough evidence that the defendants repeatedly failed to participate in the case. The court noted that a mediator had been assigned shortly before the mediation deadline and that a mediation session was eventually held.
Judge Lucy H. Koh denied Johnson’s motion to strike the defendants’ answer. The opinion does not report a ruling on the underlying disability-access claims.
The detailed version
- Johnson v. Thi Nguyen · No. 3:19-cv-06170
- William Orrick
- Dec. 21, 2020
Background
Scott Johnson alleged that the defendants violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Unruh Civil Rights Act. The defendants filed an answer to the complaint. Johnson later filed an unopposed motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f) asking the court to strike, meaning remove, the defendants’ answer.
The case had been referred to mediation. A mediator was appointed on March 10, 2020, that appointment was later vacated, and a new mediator was appointed on May 11,
- The mediation deadline was May 26,
- A mediation session was eventually held on August 3,
- The case had settled as to O’Reilly Auto Enterprises, LLC, which had been dismissed, while the motion addressed the other named defendants’ answer.
Legal standard
Rule 12(f) allows a court to strike an insufficient defense or material that is redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous. The court explained that motions to strike are generally disfavored and should not be granted unless the challenged material clearly could not affect the litigation. Whether to grant such a motion is within the district court’s discretion.
Court’s analysis
The court found that Johnson had not identified any insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter in the defendants’ answer. The court also found that Johnson had not referred to the answer’s contents. Instead, his submission quoted mediation requirements from the district’s General Order No. 56 and asserted that the defendants had refused to participate in the required mediation.
The court acknowledged that an answer may be stricken when defendants repeatedly fail to defend themselves during litigation. But it found that Johnson had not provided sufficient evidence that the defendants met that standard. The court noted that the new mediator was appointed only 15 days before the mediation deadline, that Johnson did not tell the court he was unable to schedule mediation, and that he took no action about the alleged scheduling delays until filing the motion. The court also noted that mediation ultimately occurred.
Disposition
The court declined to exercise its discretionary authority to grant the motion and denied Plaintiff’s motion to strike Defendants’ answer. This order concerned the motion to strike and did not decide the merits of Johnson’s Americans with Disabilities Act or Unruh Civil Rights Act claims.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.