United States of America v. Siemens Industry, Inc.
- Andrew Carter
- 1:12-cv-01466
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In United States v. Siemens Industry, Judge Carter granted a stay of Siemens’s answer deadline but denied a stay of discovery.
Siemens Industry, Inc.’s deadline to answer the amended complaint is stayed pending resolution of its motion for reconsideration, while its request to stay discovery was denied; the order therefore also affects Clifford Weiner’s litigation schedule.
What happened
United States of America v. Siemens Industry, Inc. concerns Siemens’s request to pause parts of the case while the court considers Siemens’s motion asking it to reconsider an earlier order. The request involved Siemens’s deadline to answer the amended complaint and the start of discovery.
The court granted the request to pause Siemens’s time to answer the amended complaint. It denied the separate request to pause discovery. The opinion does not decide the motion for reconsideration or the parties’ underlying dispute.
Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. ordered the different results on April 12, 2024: the answer deadline was stayed, but discovery was not stayed.
The detailed version
- United States of America v. Siemens Industry, Inc. · No. 1:12-cv-01466
- Andrew Carter
- Apr. 12, 2024
Background
Siemens Industry, Inc. asked the court to reconsider a March 29, 2024 order. While that request was pending, Siemens asked to pause its time to answer the amended complaint and to pause discovery. The letter identifies Clifford Weiner as the relator, meaning the person pursuing the claims described in the caption in the government’s name.
Siemens argued that requiring it to answer before the reconsideration motion was resolved could make that motion moot. Its letter also argued that a pause would avoid unnecessary litigation effort and expense while the scope of the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction remained unresolved. Weiner opposed the requests, taking the position that there was no basis to pause discovery and that the earlier order operated as a denial of a motion to dismiss.
Ruling
Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. granted the request to stay Siemens’s time to answer the amended complaint pending resolution of the motion for reconsideration. The court denied the request to stay discovery. The order does not resolve the motion for reconsideration, decide the underlying claims, or state a new answer deadline.
Effect of the Order
The ruling pauses Siemens’s answer deadline while the reconsideration motion is pending, but it does not pause discovery. The opinion does not provide further details about how discovery will proceed or when Siemens must answer.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.