Emerson v. The Prudential Insurance Company of America

Background

The plaintiffs are Frank Emerson and Maria Emerson, represented by her guardian ad litem, Frank Emerson. The defendant is The Prudential Insurance Company of America. The parties jointly moved to amend the case schedule and continue the trial. They asked to move the trial from September 16, 2024, to March 17, 2025. They also proposed changing various pretrial deadlines while leaving the mediation date unchanged.

This was the parties’ fourth request to amend the schedule. They pointed to additional Rule 35(b)(6) independent medical examinations after a January 2024 test of Maria Emerson produced results that surprised Prudential. The parties received reports from those examinations in April and May 2024 and said that the reports led to new discovery and expert preparation that could not be completed under the existing schedule. They also cited counsel and witness summer holidays and Prudential’s trial-calendar convenience.

Governing standard

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4), a schedule may be changed only for good cause and with the judge’s consent. The opinion explains that good cause means the deadlines cannot be met despite the requesting parties’ diligence. Because both parties requested the change, the court did not need to examine prejudice to an opposing party.

Court’s analysis

The court found that some of the developments were not sufficiently new to justify the full request. The parties knew or should have known about complications from Maria Emerson’s test results when they made their previous scheduling request. The court also found that some claimed delays, including summer holidays, did not justify changing the schedule because the parties should have planned for them.

The court also rejected the requested trial date based on Prudential’s convenience. The opinion noted that Prudential is a large insurance company and that its outside law firm, Dentons, LLP, has more than 1,000 lawyers and professionals in the United States. The court stated that the inability to find an earlier trial date through its lawyers was difficult to believe. The court further found that the parties gave no reason for extending different pretrial deadlines by different amounts.

Ruling

The court granted the request only partway. It kept the mediation deadline at July 1, 2024, and advanced all other dates by 63 days. The ordered deadlines were:

- Opening expert reports: August 2, 2024 - Reply expert reports: August 16, 2024 - Rebuttal expert reports: August 23, 2024 - Fact discovery cutoff: September 2, 2024 - Expert discovery cutoff: September 6, 2024 - Last day for dispositive motions: September 12, 2024 - Final pretrial conference: November 6, 2024 - Trial: November 18, 2024

The court stated that if the new dates did not work for counsel, the original dates would remain in place. Judge William Alsup signed the order on June 5, 2024.