Williams v. County of San Mateo
- Virginia Demarchi
- 5:20-cv-03801
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Williams v. County of San Mateo, Judge Demarchi ordered Rickey Williams to show cause why the action should not be reassigned and recommended for dismissal without prejudice.
Rickey Williams was required to respond to the order and appear at the scheduled hearing. The action’s future was at issue, including possible reassignment and a recommendation of dismissal without prejudice; the order also concerned the unserved defendants.
What happened
In Williams v. County of San Mateo, Rickey Williams filed the action in June 2020. The court later allowed him to use waiver-of-service notices because of the pandemic and set deadlines for service-related information and case-management filings.
Williams did not file the required status report, and no party filed the required case-management statements. The court therefore ordered Williams to respond and appear to explain why the case should not be reassigned to a district judge and dismissed without prejudice for failure to prosecute, including failure to serve the defendants, and failure to follow prior court orders.
Judge Virginia K. Demarchi vacated the scheduled case-management conference and set a May 18, 2021 deadline for Williams’s written response and a May 25, 2021 hearing. The order did not itself dismiss the action.
The detailed version
- Williams v. County of San Mateo · No. 5:20-cv-03801
- Virginia Demarchi
- May 12, 2021
Background
Rickey Williams filed this action on June 9, 2020. On January 4, 2021, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the suspension of personal service by the U.S. Marshals Service, the court permitted the Clerk to issue notices allowing defendants to waive service. The court stated that, if defendants did not waive service, Williams could use a process server and ask the court to require defendants to pay that cost.
The court set an initial case-management conference for April 6, 2021, with a joint case-management statement due March 30. No party filed that statement. The court continued the conference to May 18 and set a new filing deadline of May 11. It also ordered Williams to file a status report by April 8 describing his efforts to serve the defendants or deliver the waiver notices. Williams did not file the status report, and no party filed the required case-management statement.
Order to Show Cause
The court explained that it has inherent authority to dismiss an action to achieve the orderly and prompt handling of cases. It also explained that a magistrate judge generally cannot hear and decide a case unless all named parties, including defendants who have not been served, consent to that jurisdiction.
The court directed Williams to file a written response by May 18, 2021, and to appear on May 25, 2021, to show cause—explain why— the court should not reassign the action to a district judge and recommend that it be dismissed without prejudice for failure to prosecute, including failure to serve defendants, and for failure to comply with prior court orders. The court vacated the May 18 case-management conference. This order did not itself dismiss the action.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.