Schottenstein v. American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Schottenstein v. American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)
- Alison Nathan
- 1:20-cv-09961
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Schottenstein v. ASPCA, Judge Nathan ordered a status update about settlement or case management and warned nonresponse could lead to dismissal.
The parties, especially Dr. Douglas Schottenstein, who was warned that failing to respond could lead to dismissal for failure to prosecute.
What happened
In Schottenstein v. American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), the parties told the court they were close to settling, so the court postponed an initial case-management conference.
The court had not received a further update from the parties. It ordered them to confer and submit a status update within one week, stating whether they wanted settlement discussions with a magistrate judge or a formal case-management plan.
Judge Alison J. Nathan did not dismiss the case in this order. She warned that the plaintiff’s failure to respond by May 28, 2021, could result in dismissal for failing to pursue the case.
The detailed version
- Schottenstein v. American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals · No. 1:20-cv-09961
- Alison Nathan
- May 21, 2021
Background
On March 9, 2021, the parties asked the court to delay entry of a case-management plan because they believed they were close to reaching a settlement in principle. The court postponed the initial pretrial conference and directed the parties to tell the court whether they wanted a referral to the assigned magistrate judge for settlement purposes. The court stated that it had not heard from the parties since then.
Order
The court ordered the parties to confer and submit a status update within one week. The update had to state whether they sought referral to the magistrate judge for settlement purposes or instead sought entry of a case-management plan under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f).
Effect
Judge Alison J. Nathan did not enter a dismissal or otherwise decide the parties’ underlying dispute. The order advised the plaintiff that failing to respond by May 28, 2021, could result in dismissal for failure to prosecute, meaning failure to move the case forward. The opinion image also contains a filing stamp reading September 21, 2021, while the supplied case information and the order’s signature date identify May 21, 2021.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.