United States of America, ex rel. v. Sightpath Medical, Inc.
- David Schultz
- 0:13-cv-03003
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 3
In United States of America, ex rel. v. Cameron-Ehlen Group, Inc., Judge Schultz denied a 45-day extension but allowed later supplementation of discovery responses.
The plaintiffs must supplement their response to Interrogatory No. 1 by October 31, 2019. The defendants retain the October 17 fact-discovery deadline but receive the time set by the court to evaluate the supplemental information during expert discovery.
What happened
In United States of America, ex rel. v. Cameron-Ehlen Group, Inc., the plaintiffs asked for 45 more days for the case’s remaining deadlines. They said they needed the extra time mainly to finish matching information from third parties and supplement their response to a discovery question about alleged false claims, not to conduct general discovery.
The court found that the plaintiffs had worked diligently and that the defendants had not shown that limited additional time would harm their fact-discovery efforts. But the court decided that extending all remaining deadlines was unnecessary. Fact discovery therefore remained due October 17, 2019, while the plaintiffs received until October 31, 2019, to supplement their response to Interrogatory No. 1.
Judge Schultz denied the request to extend the remaining deadlines and set the other discovery, motion, and trial-readiness deadlines listed in the order. The order addressed case scheduling and discovery, not the merits of the alleged false claims.
The detailed version
- United States of America, ex rel. v. Sightpath Medical, Inc. · No. 0:13-cv-03003
- David Schultz
- Oct. 16, 2019
Background
The plaintiffs requested a 45-day extension of the remaining deadlines. They stated that they did not need more time to complete discovery generally, but sought the extension to comply with the court’s April 2, 2019 order requiring them to supplement their response to the defendants’ Interrogatory No. 1 no later than 45 days before the close of fact discovery.
The requested extension would have moved the supplementation deadline from September 3 to October 17, the date fact discovery was scheduled to close, and would have moved all remaining deadlines by 45 days. The plaintiffs explained that identifying alleged false claims required matching submission data with sales data from various lens manufacturers. Some of that work could be done electronically, while other parts had to be completed manually.
Court’s analysis
Because the request sought to change deadlines in the pretrial scheduling order, the court required the plaintiffs to show good cause under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16. The court found that the plaintiffs had worked diligently and had substantially complied with the April 2 order. The court also found that the defendants had not shown that allowing limited additional time to complete the supplementation would prejudice their fact-discovery efforts.
The court nevertheless concluded that extending fact discovery and all remaining deadlines was unnecessary because the plaintiffs acknowledged that they did not need 45 additional days of fact discovery. The court instead used its authority to manage discovery to give the plaintiffs additional time to supplement their response while leaving the fact-discovery deadline unchanged. The court stated that this approach would give the defendants two full months during expert discovery to evaluate the information.
Order and effect
The court ordered as follows:
- The plaintiffs’ request to extend the remaining deadlines was DENIED. - The plaintiffs had to supplement their response to the defendants’ Interrogatory No. 1 by October 31,
- - Fact discovery had to be completed by October 17,
- - The party with the burden of proof had to identify experts and make the required disclosures by October 29,
- - Rebuttal expert identification and disclosures were due November 28,
- - All expert discovery, including expert depositions, had to be completed by December 30,
- - Fact-discovery-related non-dispositive motions were due November 28,
- - Other non-dispositive motions and dispositive motions were due January 29,
- - The case had to be ready for trial on June 1, 2020.
The order was a discovery and scheduling ruling. It did not decide the merits of the alleged false claims.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.