Lindblad v. Bolanos
- Susan Illston
- 3:21-cv-06606
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Lindblad v. Bolanos, Judge Illston granted defendants’ motion to set aside default and denied Lindblad’s successive motion to compel entry of default.
The defendants were allowed to respond to plaintiff’s claims without the January 7, 2022 default remaining in place. Plaintiff’s successive request to compel entry of default was denied.
What happened
In Lindblad v. Bolanos, the defendants asked the court to remove a default entered by the Clerk after they missed the response deadline. They said service had been defective or that confusion caused their late response.
The court found that both sides had contributed to delays: plaintiff had repeatedly sought default and defendants had missed a deadline the court had clearly set. But the court found no bad faith by defendants, determined they had identified possible defenses, and found no meaningful harm to plaintiff beyond delay.
Judge Susan Illston granted the defendants’ motion to set aside the January 7, 2022 default and denied plaintiff’s successive motion to compel entry of default. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Lindblad v. Bolanos · No. 3:21-cv-06606
- Susan Illston
- Feb. 28, 2022
Background
The Clerk entered default against the defendants on January 7, 2022, after they did not timely respond to the complaint. The defendants moved to set aside the default. They argued that service had not been properly completed until January 10, 2022, and alternatively that their failure to respond earlier resulted from an honest mistake and confusion.
The court had previously directed that service would be treated as complete on November 23, 2021, and that responses were due December 15, 2021. The defendants did not file a timely response. The opinion states that the defendants had earlier reported service problems and had proposed November 23 as the date service would be treated as complete. It also states that plaintiff had repeatedly failed to complete proper service and had filed several requests for default.
On January 7, 2022, plaintiff filed another motion for default seeking a stated amount of three million dollars. The Clerk declined that later request as moot because default had already been entered. Plaintiff then filed a successive motion to compel entry of default, arguing that the Clerk had wrongly treated the later request as moot. The defendants opposed that motion. The opinion also notes that the defendants later filed a motion to dismiss, but this order did not decide that motion.
Legal standard
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 55(c), a court may set aside an entry of default for “good cause.” The court considered whether the defendants acted culpably, whether they had potentially meritorious defenses, and whether setting aside the default would prejudice plaintiff. The court explained that default is a severe remedy and that cases should generally be decided on their merits when possible.
Court’s analysis
The court found no evidence that the defendants’ failure to respond by December 15, 2021, was in bad faith. At most, the record showed confusion and excusable neglect, rather than an intent to take advantage of plaintiff, interfere with the court’s decision-making, or manipulate the legal process.
The court also found that the defendants had identified defenses that, if true, could provide a defense to plaintiff’s claims. The court stated that it had learned about those defenses through earlier papers and did not identify a requirement that the defenses appear in the motion to set aside default itself. Finally, the court found no recognizable prejudice to plaintiff from setting aside the default other than delay.
Disposition
The court granted defendants’ motion to set aside the default entered on January 7, 2022. It also denied plaintiff’s successive motion to compel entry of default, regardless of any possible error by the Clerk in declining plaintiff’s later request as moot. The order addressed the default-related motions and did not decide the merits of the underlying claims.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.