Lin v. Solta Medical, Inc.

Nature of the Order

This is a case-management and pretrial order. The court adopted the parties’ case-management statement except where the order modified it. The opinion does not state the substance of Hsin Lin’s claims or Solta Medical, Inc.’s defenses, and it does not decide the merits of those claims.

Schedule

The order set a jury trial for March 11, 2024, at 8:30 a.m., with a trial length of no more than 10 days. It set the final pretrial conference for February 15, 2024, at 2:00 p.m., and required dispositive motions—motions that could resolve claims or the case—to be heard by November 2, 2023. Each party may file only one summary-judgment motion without the court’s permission.

The order set August 1, 2023, as the cutoff for non-expert discovery; April 1, 2023, and June 1, 2023, as the plaintiff’s and defendant’s expert-disclosure deadlines; and July 1, 2023, as the expert-discovery cutoff. It required discovery disputes to be presented through a joint letter brief and referred discovery motions to a magistrate judge. The parties were also referred to private mediation, to be completed by August 1, 2023.

The parties could seek to amend their pleadings no later than 90 days before the fact-discovery cutoff, with enough time remaining to conduct discovery concerning added claims or parties. Any Doe defendants had to be identified by that deadline or they would be dismissed.

Pretrial and Trial Requirements

The order required the parties to prepare a joint pretrial statement describing the claims and defenses remaining for trial, requested damages, undisputed and disputed facts, proposed stipulations, disputed legal issues, possible separate trials, and settlement negotiations. It also required trial briefs, motions in limine, deposition-excerpt designations, witness lists, exhibit lists, proposed jury materials, and a proposed verdict form. Parties generally could not use witnesses or exhibits in their cases-in-chief unless they disclosed them in the required pretrial filings, absent court permission and good cause.

The order established procedures for jury selection, proposed jury instructions, trial hours, evidence objections, confidential materials, and amendment of the schedule. Changes to the order required a written court order based on good cause, and the parties could not change the pretrial schedule merely by stipulation.

Disposition and Classification

Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton entered the case-management and pretrial order. Because the order handles scheduling, discovery, mediation, and trial procedures rather than deciding the underlying legal dispute, it is classified as a procedural order.