Wilkins v. Specialized Loan Servicing, LLC
- Gabriel Gorenstein
- 1:20-cv-00543
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Wilkins v. Specialized Loan Servicing, Judge Gorenstein denied Wilkins’s request to reopen discovery because he showed no diligence before the deadline.
The ruling directly affected Craig Wilkins’s request for additional discovery and the case’s existing discovery schedule; it denied that request while leaving the stated April 21, 2022 summary-judgment-motion deadline in place.
What happened
In Wilkins v. Specialized Loan Servicing, LLC, Craig Wilkins asked the court to reopen discovery after the February 17, 2022 deadline. He sought additional information about telephone communications, loan-dispute procedures, and phone operators he said harassed him.
The court denied the request. It explained that a scheduling deadline may be changed only for a good reason and that the person seeking the change must show diligence. Wilkins did not show that completing discovery on time was impossible, and his counsel had not sought the discovery or asked the court to address deficient responses before the deadline.
Judge Gorenstein stated that the deadline for filing a summary judgment motion was April 21, 2022. The court also noted that Wilkins had not explained why the defendant’s internal telephone policies were relevant and that he could testify about the conversations himself.
The detailed version
- Wilkins v. Specialized Loan Servicing, LLC · No. 1:20-cv-00543
- Gabriel Gorenstein
- Apr. 7, 2022
Background
Craig Wilkins applied to reopen discovery in Docket #26. The existing discovery deadline was February 17, 2022. The opinion states that counsel had been involved in the case since December 2021.
Legal standard
The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4), which provides that a court-ordered schedule may be changed only for good cause and with the judge’s consent. The party requesting the change has the burden of showing good cause. The court explained that good cause depends on the moving party’s diligence and that a request to reopen discovery should be denied when the party has not shown that completing discovery by the deadline was impossible.
Court’s ruling
The court denied Wilkins’s application to reopen discovery. It found that he had not shown that completing discovery by the deadline was impossible and had not shown any effort to complete the discovery by that deadline. Before February 17, 2022, his counsel had not asked the court to address allegedly deficient answers and had not requested from Specialized Loan Servicing the discovery Wilkins apparently sought.
The court also stated that Wilkins’s application did not explain why the defendant’s policies and procedures for telephone communications with borrowers, or its standards for addressing loan disputes by phone, were relevant. The court noted that the legality of the interactions depended on the governing law rather than the defendant’s internal policies. It further stated that Wilkins could testify about the conversations himself, so deposing the phone operators was not critical.
The court stated that the deadline for filing any summary judgment motion was April 21, 2022. Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein signed the order on April 7, 2022.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.