Wills v. City of Monterey
- Edward Chen
- 3:21-cv-01998
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Wills v. City of Monterey, Judge Chen denied the City Defendants’ request to pause discovery because the amended schedule already addressed its concern.
The ruling directly affected the City Defendants—City of Monterey, Monterey Police Department, and Monterey Harbor Patrol Health—and Plaintiff Cynthia S. Wills by leaving the amended discovery schedule in place and declining to divide the trial.
What happened
In Wills v. City of Monterey, the City Defendants asked the court to pause discovery until at least 30 days after the Supreme Court ruled in Johnson v. City of Grants Pass, a case concerning protections for unhoused people under the Eighth Amendment.
The City Defendants proposed that claims against Montage Health continue while claims affected by the Supreme Court’s decision were delayed. But the court had already extended the schedule, giving the parties time to account for that decision. The court also noted that Wills was seeking only money damages at that point and had previously been denied preliminary injunctive relief.
Judge Edward M. Chen denied the motion to stay because the amended schedule had effectively made the request moot. He also said the trial would not be divided into separate proceedings because trying all the claims would not confuse the jury.
The detailed version
- Wills v. City of Monterey · No. 3:21-cv-01998
- Edward Chen
- Apr. 15, 2024
Background
The City of Monterey, Monterey Police Department, and Monterey Harbor Patrol Health (the “City Defendants”) moved to stay, or pause, discovery deadlines. They asked for the pause to last until at least 30 days after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Johnson v. City of Grants Pass. That decision concerned the scope of Eighth Amendment protection for unhoused individuals, including Plaintiff Cynthia S. Wills.
The requested stay would have effectively delayed the earliest discovery deadline until early August 2024, based on the City Defendants’ assumption that the Supreme Court would issue its decision in late June or early July. The City Defendants’ proposal contemplated bifurcating the case so that claims against Montage Health, which they said were not affected by the Grants Pass decision, could proceed without delay.
Court’s reasoning
After the City Defendants filed their motion, the court issued an amended scheduling order. The court concluded that the schedule extension already gave the parties an opportunity to account for the Supreme Court’s decision, which could significantly affect Wills’s claim. The court also found that the extension did not prejudice Wills because, at that point, she sought only compensatory damages and had been denied preliminary injunctive relief.
The court considered factors relevant to whether a stay was proper, including possible harm from granting a stay, hardship from continuing the case, and the orderly administration of the litigation. It concluded that the requested stay was effectively moot because the amended schedule had already provided the relief the City Defendants sought.
Ruling
The court DENIED the City Defendants’ motion to stay. It also stated that it would not bifurcate the trial. Although the claims against the two groups of defendants were different and separate, the court found that trying all the claims together would not be complicated or confusing to the jury.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.