Kavcic v. Broadcom Inc.
- James Donato
- 3:20-cv-01246
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Kavcic v. Broadcom Inc., Judge Donato ordered a bench trial because Broadcom missed the deadline to demand a jury.
Kavcic and Broadcom are affected by the order’s trial-format and scheduling decisions. The case will be tried by the court, not a jury; the February 1 pretrial conference was vacated; and the bench trial was set for February 13–14, 2024.
What happened
In Kavcic v. Broadcom Inc., the parties disagreed about whether their case should be tried to a jury or to the judge. Kavcic proposed a judge-only trial, and Broadcom acknowledged that it had not timely demanded a jury trial.
Broadcom asked the court to allow a jury trial anyway under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 39(b), citing its contract claims and damages request. The court said that rule did not allow relief when the missed deadline resulted from oversight or mistake, and Broadcom had not shown otherwise.
Judge Donato therefore ordered that the case be tried to the court. He vacated the February 1 pretrial conference and set a bench trial for February 13–14, 2024, with limits on each side’s trial and closing-statement time.
The detailed version
- Kavcic v. Broadcom Inc. · No. 3:20-cv-01246
- James Donato
- Jan. 17, 2024
Background
After denying summary judgment, the court directed the parties to address whether the case should be tried by a jury or by the court. Kavcic proposed a bench trial, pointing out that he had not requested a jury and that Broadcom had filed its breach-of-contract counterclaims without making a jury demand. Broadcom acknowledged that it had not made a timely demand under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 38, but asked the court to order a jury trial under Rule 39(b).
Reasoning
The court said that the Seventh Amendment and the interests of fair and efficient justice supported a jury trial given Broadcom’s damages demand and contract claims. But it also explained that a court’s discretion under Rule 39(b) is narrow and does not permit relief when the failure to make a timely jury demand resulted from oversight or inadvertence. The court found that Broadcom had not shown that its failure resulted from anything other than oversight or mistake.
Ruling and schedule
The court ordered that the case be tried by the court rather than by a jury. It vacated the pretrial conference scheduled for February 1, 2024, and set a bench trial for February 13–14, 2024, at 9:00 a.m. Each side was given four hours for trial and up to 25 additional minutes for closing statements. The parties were also ordered to file a joint pretrial statement by January 29, 2024, containing information requested in the summary-judgment order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.