Wang v. Ehang Holdings Limited
- Beth Freeman
- 5:20-cv-00569
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
Wang v. Ehang Holdings Limited: Judge Freeman denied defendants’ motion to extend discovery because they lacked diligence and good cause.
The defendants’ ability to take Gary Wang’s deposition after the April 30, 2021 discovery deadline was affected; the underlying claims were not decided.
What happened
In Wang v. Ehang Holdings Limited, Gary Wang brought claims involving his former employment, including breach of contract, fraud, and labor-code violations. The defendants asked to reopen discovery so they could depose Wang.
The court denied the request. It held that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16 applied because the defendants sought to change the case schedule, and they did not show that they had acted diligently before the April 30, 2021 discovery deadline.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman ruled that the defendants’ new counsel’s dissatisfaction with prior counsel’s handling of discovery did not establish good cause. The court therefore denied the defendants’ administrative motion to extend the discovery cut-off.
The detailed version
- Wang v. Ehang Holdings Limited · No. 5:20-cv-00569
- Beth Freeman
- Sept. 8, 2021
Background
Gary Wang filed the case on January 24, 2020. His second amended complaint asserted claims for breach of contract, fraud, and labor-code violations arising from his former employment with a group of companies he called “EHang Group.” The named defendants were EHang Holdings Limited, Guangzhou EHang Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., Huazhi Hu, Derrick Yifang Xiong, Shang-Wen Hsiao, and Richard Jian Liu.
The court’s scheduling orders set April 30, 2021, as the discovery cut-off. The court later continued the trial from October 18, 2021, to April 4, 2022, because of pandemic-related travel restrictions from China to the United States. On August 18, 2021, the defendants obtained new counsel. New counsel sought an extension of the discovery deadline to depose Wang, but Wang’s counsel opposed the request.
The Motion and Legal Standard
The defendants argued that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(b)(1) governed their request. The court held that Rule 16 governed instead because the defendants sought to modify the case schedule. Rule 16 allows a schedule to be changed only for good cause and with the judge’s consent. The court explained that the central question was whether the requesting party had acted diligently.
Court’s Analysis
The defendants did not show that they had acted diligently. They said Wang’s deposition was needed to defend against the fraud claim but did not explain why the deposition could not have occurred before the discovery deadline. They also pointed to Wang’s production of numerous documents on March 12, 2021, but did not explain how the requested deposition related to that production.
The court further held that any lack of diligence by former counsel was attributable to the defendants. New counsel’s dissatisfaction with how prior counsel handled discovery did not establish good cause to change the scheduling order.
Disposition
The court held that the defendants had not established the diligence required for good cause and denied the defendants’ administrative motion to extend the discovery cut-off. Judge Beth Labson Freeman did not decide the underlying employment, contract, or fraud claims in this order.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.