United States Securities and Exchange Commission v. Collector's Coffee Inc.
- Victor Marrero
- 1:19-cv-04355
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In United States Securities and Exchange Commission v. Collector’s Coffee, Inc., Judge Gorenstein denied Collector’s Coffee’s request to file a late summary-judgment cross-motion because it did not show good cause.
Collector’s Coffee, Inc., whose request to file a late summary-judgment cross-motion was denied; the existing briefing schedule was not changed.
What happened
In United States Securities and Exchange Commission v. Collector’s Coffee, Inc., Collector’s Coffee asked to file a request for summary judgment after the court-ordered deadline. The case involved litigation concerning Collector’s Coffee’s title in the Jackie Robinson Contracts.
JRF opposed the request, arguing that Collector’s Coffee had opportunities to seek summary judgment before the deadline but did not do so. Collector’s Coffee did not cite legal authority explaining why the court should allow it to disregard the deadline and later briefing schedule.
Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein denied the request. He ruled that Collector’s Coffee had not shown the required “good cause,” meaning a diligent and legally sufficient reason to change the scheduling deadline. The court also noted that Collector’s Coffee could have used discovery to learn about relevant evidence and arguments before the briefing occurred.
The detailed version
- United States Securities and Exchange Commission v. Collector's Coffee Inc. · No. 1:19-cv-04355
- Victor Marrero
- May 22, 2023
Background
The court had approved a joint scheduling proposal submitted by Holders, JRF, and Collector’s Coffee, setting September 13, 2022, as the deadline to request permission to file summary-judgment motions. JRF and the Holders timely submitted such requests. The court then set a briefing schedule, later extended it, and received the parties’ reply papers on January 6, 2023.
After the motions were fully briefed, Collector’s Coffee asked for permission to file a cross-motion for summary judgment in the intervenor litigation concerning its title in the Jackie Robinson Contracts. JRF opposed the request, arguing that Collector’s Coffee had had every opportunity to seek summary judgment before the deadline.
Ruling
The court denied Collector’s Coffee’s application, docketed as No. 1152. It first held that Collector’s Coffee had cited no law explaining why it should be allowed to disregard the court-ordered deadline and later briefing schedule.
The court also held that Collector’s Coffee could not satisfy the applicable “good cause” standard. Under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4) and 6(b)(1), changing a scheduling deadline requires good cause, which depends on the diligence of the party seeking the change. The court found that Collector’s Coffee had not explained why it acted diligently between the September 13 deadline and its January 9 request.
Reasoning
Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein stated that Collector’s Coffee could have sought summary judgment when the other parties did so. The court rejected the argument that evidence or arguments arising during briefing justified the late request, noting that Collector’s Coffee could have used discovery, requests for admissions, or contention interrogatories to learn relevant matters earlier. The court also noted that Collector’s Coffee might have had grounds to seek permission to file a surreply concerning arguments raised for the first time in JRF’s reply, but Collector’s Coffee had not made that request.
The order therefore denied the application for failure to show good cause to extend the deadline for filing summary-judgment motions.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.