Deluca v. GPB Automotive Portfolio, LP
- Lewis Kaplan
- 1:19-cv-10498
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Deluca v. GPB Automotive Portfolio, Judge Willis set page limits and deadlines for anticipated motion-to-dismiss briefing.
The plaintiffs and auditor defendants in the case, whose briefing deadlines and page limits were set by the order.
What happened
In Deluca v. GPB Automotive Portfolio, the parties asked the court to resolve their disagreement about how many pages they could use in briefs for an anticipated motion to dismiss the second amended complaint.
The court reminded the lawyers to cooperate and avoid unnecessary requests for court intervention. It then set deadlines and page limits for the auditor defendants’ motion, the plaintiffs’ opposition, and the defendants’ replies, with different limits depending on whether the auditor defendants filed one combined brief or separate briefs.
The court adopted that briefing schedule and directed the parties to be more mindful of the court’s limited resources. Judge Jennifer E. Willis issued the order.
The detailed version
- Deluca v. GPB Automotive Portfolio, LP · No. 1:19-cv-10498
- Lewis Kaplan
- Sept. 25, 2023
Background
The court had previously directed the parties to confer and jointly propose a schedule for briefing an anticipated motion to dismiss the second amended complaint. The parties later submitted letters asking the court to intervene because they could not agree on the permitted brief lengths.
The court emphasized that lawyers must cooperate in conducting civil cases and should seek court intervention only in extraordinary situations involving truly significant interests. It also referred to the Southern District of New York’s Local Rule 26.4(a), which expects cooperation during all phases of discovery, including scheduling and timing matters.
Order
The court adopted the following briefing schedule:
- The auditor defendants must file their omnibus motion to dismiss by November 2,
- The joint memorandum addressing common issues is limited to 25 pages and must be signed by all auditor defendants. Each auditor defendant may also file a separate memorandum addressing arguments specific to that defendant, limited to 10 double-spaced pages. - If the auditor defendants object to those limits, they must notify the court by September 29,
- If they object, each auditor defendant may file its own 25-page motion to dismiss, but the defendants may not refer to one another’s papers and must include all aspects of their arguments within their own 25 pages. - The plaintiffs must file their opposition by December 15,
- If the defendants file one omnibus brief, the opposition is limited to 50 pages. If the defendants file separate motions, the opposition to each motion is limited to 25 pages. - The auditor defendants must file reply briefs by January 12,
- An omnibus reply is limited to 15 pages; separate replies are limited to 10 pages each.
This order set briefing procedures and did not decide the anticipated motion to dismiss or the merits of the claims. The opinion text identifies Jennifer E. Willis as the United States Magistrate Judge who issued the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.