Cardwell v. Davis Polk and Wardwell LLP

Background

On September 15, 2023, Plaintiff filed a motion in limine seeking sanctions for spoliation of evidence. Spoliation refers to the destruction or loss of evidence. Defendants argued that the motion was untimely, improper, and frivolous because discovery had closed years earlier. They asked the court to strike the motion or hold a hearing, and to stay their September 28 opposition deadline while the court considered that request.

Plaintiff responded that Defendants should present those arguments in their opposition to the motion.

Timeliness of the sanctions motion

The court explained that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37 does not set a specific deadline for sanctions motions, but unreasonable delay may make such a motion untimely. The court noted that Plaintiff had not provided support for the reasonableness of the delay. It also noted that Defendants had cited no authority supporting their request to strike the motion for untimeliness and had instead asserted that the motion’s impropriety was obvious.

The court requested further briefing. It invited Defendant to submit a letter by September 25, 2023, detailing the factual and legal support for the untimeliness argument, and allowed Plaintiff to reply by September 27, 2023. The letters could address only timeliness and not the merits of the sanctions motion. Pending the court’s decision on timeliness, it stayed the September 28 opposition deadline and October 3 reply deadline for Plaintiff’s motion. Other deadlines from the court’s July 5, 2023 order remained in effect.

Exhibit copies

Plaintiff’s request to submit electronic copies of exhibits was granted in part and denied in part. The parties were directed to contact the judge’s courtroom deputy for instructions on downloading electronic copies for the court’s use. The court also required both Plaintiff and Defendants to submit paper copies of the exhibits.

Requests for deadline extensions

Plaintiff’s requests to extend the September 19 and September 20, 2023 deadlines for edits to the joint pretrial order, exchanging exhibits, and exchanging objections to counter-designations and further counter-counter-designations were denied. The court referred Plaintiff to its Individual Rule 1(E), which requires extension requests to be made at least two business days before the original deadline.

Disposition

The court sought additional briefing on whether Plaintiff’s sanctions motion was timely and stayed the related briefing deadlines. It granted in part and denied in part the request for electronic exhibit copies, and denied the requests for extensions of the specified pretrial deadlines. The court did not decide the merits of the sanctions motion in this order.