Ramachandran v. Best Best & Krieger
- Beth Freeman
- 5:20-cv-03693
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Ramachandran v. Best Best & Krieger, Judge Freeman found the newer and older cases not related because linking them would not prevent burdensome duplication or conflicting results.
The parties in Ramachandran v. Best Best & Krieger and Ramachandran v. City of Los Altos, including the City of Los Altos, Kirk Ballard, Christopher Jordan, and Pamela Jacobs, were affected because the court kept the two cases unrelated under its local rule.
What happened
Ramachandran v. Best Best & Krieger concerns whether a newer case, Ramachandran v. City of Los Altos, should be treated as related to this earlier case. The City Defendants asked the court to make that connection, and Pamela Jacobs supported the request.
The City Defendants argued that the cases involved many of the same parties and events and that treating them as related would avoid duplicated work, expense, and conflicting decisions. The court noted that the cases overlapped, but the earlier case had been closed for more than two years.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman determined that the cases were not related under the court’s local rule because linking them would not avoid an unnecessarily burdensome duplication of work and expense. The order therefore determined that Case Nos. 23-cv-2928 and 20-cv-3693 were not related.
The detailed version
- Ramachandran v. Best Best & Krieger · No. 5:20-cv-03693
- Beth Freeman
- July 18, 2023
Background
The City Defendants in the newer case, Ramachandran v. City of Los Altos, No. 5:23-cv-02928-SVK, asked under Civil Local Rules 3-12 and 7-11 that the newer case be treated as related to this case, No. 5:20-cv-03693-BLF. The City Defendants were identified as the City of Los Altos, Kirk Ballard, and Christopher Jordan. Defendant Pamela Jacobs filed a statement supporting the request.
The City Defendants argued that the two cases involved substantially the same parties and events. They also argued that treating the cases as related would avoid an unduly burdensome duplication of work and expense and the possibility of conflicting results if the cases were handled by different judges.
Legal standard
Civil Local Rule 3-12(a) provides that cases are related when they concern substantially the same parties, property, transaction, or event, and when handling them before different judges appears likely to cause an unduly burdensome duplication of work and expense or conflicting results.
Court’s analysis and ruling
The court acknowledged that the allegations and defendants in the two cases overlapped. But it determined that treating the cases as related would not avoid an unduly burdensome duplication of work and expense because the earlier case had been closed on April 8, 2021—more than two years before this order. The court therefore determined that Case No. 23-cv-2928 and Case No. 20-cv-3693 were not related under Civil Local Rule 3-12. The order did not state that the request was granted or denied; it stated that the cases were not related.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.