Elsie Simmons v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation

Background

The application sought dismissal of Elsie Simmons’s action for alleged noncompliance with the court’s case-management order. The application stated that, at an initial case-management and pre-motion conference on September 19, 2019, the court denied a request to stay discovery and ordered fact discovery completed by January 17, 2020.

The application alleged that Simmons had not served any discovery, including a required disclosure under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26, interrogatories, medical records, or authorizations. It also alleged that Simmons’s counsel did not respond to communications proposing a joint request to extend discovery deadlines.

The application further alleged earlier noncompliance, including failure to provide information needed to set a response date for opposing defendants’ motions to dismiss and failure to respond to those motions. It characterized the repeated failures as willful and requested dismissal as a sanction under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 16(f) and 37(b), which permit sanctions for violating scheduling, pretrial, or discovery orders.

Ruling

Judge Lorna G. Schofield’s order states: “Application DENIED as moot in light of Judge Cave’s [unreadable] order at Dkt. No. 45.” Thus, the application was denied as moot. The provided text does not identify what Judge Cave’s order decided, and it does not state that the case itself was dismissed or resolve the underlying claims.