U.S. Underwriters Insurance Company v. Maldonado Construction Corp.
- Victor Marrero
- 1:16-cv-09098
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In U.S. Underwriters v. Maldonado Construction, Judge Gorenstein denied discovery stays and set case deadlines.
Certain defendants who sought to pause discovery, the plaintiffs, and the other parties subject to the court’s discovery schedule and case-management requirements.
What happened
In U.S. Underwriters Insurance Company v. Maldonado Construction Corp., certain defendants asked the court to pause discovery while they prepared motions to dismiss. The court denied those requests.
The court found that the defendants had not shown their planned motions were likely to succeed, that possible duplication with state-court discovery could be addressed through objections, and that further delay would harm the plaintiffs. It set deadlines for amendments, discovery, and possible summary-judgment requests.
Judge Gorenstein also allowed defendants to opt out of discovery if they did not dispute the plaintiffs’ position about coverage and required discovery-related applications to follow the court’s practices and deadlines.
The detailed version
- U.S. Underwriters Insurance Company v. Maldonado Construction Corp. · No. 1:16-cv-09098
- Victor Marrero
- Feb. 10, 2020
Background
Certain defendants applied to stay, or pause, discovery until the court decided their planned motions to dismiss. The opinion refers to related state-court actions involving the plaintiff and to the plaintiff’s position regarding coverage.
Ruling on the discovery stays
The court denied the motions for stays of discovery listed at Docket Numbers 186, 189, and 198. It gave three reasons: the defendants had not made a strong showing that their planned motions to dismiss would succeed; any prejudice from duplicated discovery could be reduced because defendants could object to requests that duplicated discovery already completed or soon to be completed in state court; and further delay would prejudice the plaintiffs because of the age of the case.
Additional orders and schedule
The court issued a discovery schedule and ordered that:
- The parties could move to amend the pleadings or join additional parties by February 24,
- - Requests for documents and interrogatories under Local Civil Rule 33.3(a) had to be served by March 17,
- - Discovery had to be started in time to finish by August 17,
- - If a party planned to disclose expert evidence under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2), it had to consult the other parties and propose an additional expert-discovery period by the discovery deadline. - Any request to Judge Marrero for permission to file a summary-judgment motion had to be filed by August 24,
- - The parties could jointly request participation in the court’s mediation program. - Discovery and related applications had to be initiated promptly and completed by the discovery deadline. Requests to extend the deadlines had to comply with the court’s individual practices; noncompliant requests would be denied. - Discovery applications had to comply with the court’s individual practices and generally could not be made later than 30 days before discovery closed, absent extraordinary circumstances.
The court also stated that defendants could object to discovery requests requiring duplication of state-court discovery. Defendants could opt out of all discovery if they did not dispute the plaintiffs’ position regarding coverage.
Disposition
This was a procedural scheduling and discovery order, not a decision on the planned motions to dismiss or on the parties’ underlying coverage dispute. The court denied the requested stays and established case-management deadlines.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.