Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_18-cv-01681/USCOURTS-casd-3_18-cv-01681-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 410
Nature of Suit: Antitrust
Cause of Action: 17:0101 Copyright Infringement (definitions)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

SARA ELIZABETH SIEGLER, et al., 

Plaintiffs,

v. 

SORRENTO THERAPEUTICS INC., et 

al., 

Defendants.

 Case No.: 3:18-CV-1681-GPC-NLS 

ORDER REGARDING PLAINTIFF’S 

SECOND OMNIBUS MOTION AND 

PLAINTIFF’S NOTICE OF 

DISCREPANCIES 

[ECF Nos. 60, 62.] 

 

 Before the Court is pro se Plaintiff Sara Elizabeth Siegler’s ex parte motion, titled 

“omnibus motion,” filed nunc pro tunc October 30, 2018. (ECF No. 62, “second 

omnibus motion”.) Plaintiff has made a number of requests: (1) to permit her to 

withdraw, and then re-file her responses to defendants’ motions to dismiss; (2) to 

continue the hearing date on defendants’ motions to dismiss and her motion for leave to 

file a second amended complaint; (3) to particulate remotely in any hearings then held, 

and (4) for default judgment. Plaintiff has also filed a document entitled “Notice of 

Discrepancies,” which the Court construes as a motion for leave to file a supplemental 

document to her First Amended Complaint. (ECF No. 60.) The Court will address the 

issues presented by all these filings in turn. 

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I. Motion for Leave to Re-File Response Briefs and to Continue Hearing Date 

as to Motions to Dismiss 

Plaintiff previously submitted a motion, dated nunc pro tunc, October 5, 2018 

(ECF No. 46, “first omnibus motion”) asking for an extension on her deadline to file her 

response briefs to defendants Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc., TNK Therapeutics, Inc., BDL 

Products, Inc., CARgenix Holdings LLC, and Henry Ji’s motion to dismiss (ECF No. 

18), and defendant Tufts Medical Center’s motion to dismiss (ECF No. 19). For a 

number of reasons, Plaintiff’s motion was not registered to the docket until October 11, 

2018, the date of the original deadline for Plaintiff’s responses. Because Plaintiff’s first 

omnibus motion addressed a large number of issues, the Court was not able to address her 

requests until it issued an order on October 16, 2018 (ECF No. 51). By that time, 

Plaintiff had submitted two response briefs to the docket. (ECF Nos. 48, 49.) Because 

the Court observed that Plaintiff had successfully met the original deadline, the Court 

denied as moot her request for an extension of time. 

Plaintiff now seeks reconsideration of that ruling, stating that she had sent in 

rushed and incomplete response briefs so as to meet the original deadlines in the absence 

of a court order extending the same. She moves for leave to withdraw her previouslyfiled briefs and to obtain additional time to work on them more fully, and asks for the 

Court to continue the motion hearing date for defendants’ motions. 

The Court will grant Plaintiff’s requests for good cause, and accordingly set the 

amended briefing schedule on ECF Nos. 18 and 19 as follows: 

 The deadline for any response briefs to both motions will be January 11, 2019.

 The deadline for any reply briefs will be January 25, 2019.

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 The Court notes that Defendants have already submitted their reply briefs (ECF 

No. 52, 53) and several notices of joinder (ECF Nos. 54, 55, 56, 57). Given the Court’s 

decision to allow Plaintiff to withdraw and refile, the Court will extend leave to withdraw 

and refile any reply briefs as well. 

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 The new motion hearing date for both motions to dismiss will be February 15, 

2019. 

II. Motion for an earlier hearing date on Plaintiff’s motion to file a second 

amended complaint 

Plaintiff’s first ex parte omnibus motion also sought leave to file a second amended 

complaint (ECF No. 46, at 15). Since that request came after defendants had already 

submitted their motions to dismiss the First Amended Complaint (ECF No. 3), the 

Court—for the sake of judicial economy and convenience of the parties—set Plaintiff’s 

motion for leave to amend for a hearing on the same date as defendants’ motions to 

dismiss. 

 Plaintiff seeks reconsideration of that ruling, arguing that her motion for leave to 

file a second amended complaint should be heard on an earlier date than the dispositive 

dismissal motions. (ECF No. 62, at 21.) She cites Runnion v. Girl Scouts of Greater 

Chicago and Nw. Indiana, 786 F.3d 510 (7th Cir. 2015), for the proposition that the 

Court cannot set both motions on the same day because in doing so “[t]he Court risks a 

situation where a judgment dismissing the case may be entered without leave to amend 

being afforded to Plaintiffs, which would almost certainly be grounds for appeal.” (Id.) 

Plaintiff misreads Runnion, which did not address the propriety of a district court’s 

decision to set two motions on the same motion hearing day, but rather, warned against 

the mischief that ensues when district courts “take[s] the unusual step of entering 

judgment at the same time it dismisses the complaint.” Id. at 521 (emphasis added). 

There is little danger that the Court will, as was the case in Runnion, enter 

judgment on the same day that it rules on the pending motions to dismiss. In any event, 

the Court is prepared to hear both parties’ arguments on defendants’ motion to dismiss, as 

well as Plaintiff’s motion. The decision to hear both motions on the same day does not 

preclude the Court from granting Plaintiff her requested relief, even in the event that 

defendants were to prevail on their motions to dismiss. In fact, courts, including this one, 

routinely grant leave to amend (when appropriate under Rule 15(a)) when they rule on 

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motions to dismiss. See, e.g., Little v. Gore, 148 F. Supp. 3d 936, 952 (S.D. Cal. 2015); 

Tapia v. Davol, Inc. 116 F. Supp. 3d 1149, 1159 (S.D. Cal. 2015). 

Accordingly, the Court will not set the motion hearing date for Plaintiff’s motion 

for leave to file a second amended complaint for a different date than the hearing date set 

for defendants’ motions to dismiss. Given the continuation of the latter date, the hearing 

date for Plaintiff’s motion is also hereby set for February 15, 2019. Defendants have 

already filed a response in opposition (ECF No. 58). As such, the Court will require the 

Plaintiff to file her reply, if any, by November 20, 2018. 

III. Request for Remote Hearing 

Plaintiff has sought to participate in any motion hearing telephonically. The Court 

will grant that request and order that the hearing schedule for February 15, 2019, shall be 

conducted via teleconference. The Plaintiff is ordered to contact chambers a week prior 

to the scheduled hearing date to coordinate such a hearing. 

IV. Request for Default Judgment against the Board of Directors of Sorrento 

Therapeutics, Inc. 

Plaintiff has also moved this Court for default judgment against a defendant named 

in the complaint as the Board of Directors of Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. However, she 

has not yet secured an entry of default from the Clerk, which she is required to do before 

she can move for default judgment. See Eitel v. McCool, 782 F.2d 1470, 1471 (9th Cir. 

1986) (discussing the sequential two-step process under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

55); see also Duyen Kwong v. Santa Clara Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, No. 17-CV-02127-BLF, 

2017 WL 8294176, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 7, 2017) (denying motion for default judgment 

“because Plaintiff did not secure an entry of default by the Clerk” as required by Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 55(a)). The request is denied. 

V. Plaintiff’s “Notice of Document Discrepancies” 

On October 23, 2018, the Clerk’s Office received a document from Plaintiff 

entitled “Notice of Discrepancies.” (ECF No. 60). Therein, Plaintiff seeks to notify the 

Court of certain “document discrepancies that follow in the table below . . . for the above 

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captioned case.” (Id.) The Court, by way of a discrepancy (ECF No. 59), construed the 

document as a request to file supplemental documents to her complaint, and the Court 

hereby grants the request. 

The first item in Plaintiff’s table refers to an exhibit attached to her First Amended 

Complaint—i.e., the June 26, 2018 Response Letter from the USPTO (ECF No. 3, at 95). 

Plaintiff indicates that the exhibit is missing a cover page, and the second page of letter. 

The Court takes notice that the document is to be understood as “Exhibit 4”, but is unsure 

what Plaintiff means when she states that the second page of the Response Letter is 

missing. Indeed, it appears that page 96 of Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint is the 

second page of the June 26, 2018 response letter. 

The second item refers to another exhibit that should have been affixed to her First 

Amended Complaint—i.e., a November 10, 2015 Cease and Desist Letter. Plaintiff 

indicates that the missing exhibit was previously filed as Exhibit 4 in connection with her 

original complaint (ECF No. 1-6). The Court will grant Plaintiff’s motion for 

supplemental filings such that the supplemental filing will be construed as incorporating 

by reference Exhibit 4 of the original complaint. 

VI. Plaintiff’s Ex Parte Communications generally 

Plaintiff has previously filed a number of ex parte communications to the Court 

seeking various forms of relief without first obtaining a hearing date. (See, e.g., ECF No. 

46 (seeking, inter alia, a change of venue)). The Court, at its discretion and in light of 

Plaintiff’s pro se status, has permitted Plaintiff to file those requests to the docket and 

considered them, even though Plaintiff has not followed the procedures in the Civil Local 

Rules prescribing the requirements for filing ex parte motions. CivLR 83.3(g)(2) 

(requiring an ex parte motion to be submitted with an affidavit or declaration detailing 

why the notice of the motion could not have been made to the opposing party). Filing a 

motion ex parte pursuant to Local Rule 83.3(g) allows a party filing a motion to seek 

relief from default rule that “all hearing dates for any matters on which a ruling is 

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required must be obtained from the clerk of the judge to whom the case is assigned.” 

CivLR 7.1(b). 

On this point, it is worth clarifying some misconceptions regarding the Court’s 

procedures evinced by Plaintiff in her second omnibus motion. Specifically, Plaintiff 

chafes under the Court’s chambers rules, as well as the Southern District of California’s 

Civil Local Rules. (ECF No. 62, at 16 n.11, 45 (calling the local rules “ridiculous”)). 

Plaintiff objects that she should not have to follow the local rules, which require her to 

obtain a hearing date before filing any motions, because the Federal Rules of Civil 

Procedure do not require her to do so, and because “[t]he FRCP trump the CivLR of this 

Court.” (ECF No. 62, at 16 n. 11.) 

As the Supreme Court has long recognized, a district court’s local rules are not 

petty requirements, but have “the force of law.” Hollingsworth v. Perry, 558 U.S. 183, 

191 (2010) (quoting Weil v. Neary, 278 U.S. 160, 169 (1929)). Because the local rules 

supplement the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, they “are binding upon the parties and 

upon the court,” and in fact, “a departure from local rules that affects substantial rights 

requires reversal.” Professional Programs Group v. Department of Commerce, 29 F.3d 

1349, 1353 (9th Cir.1994) (internal quotation marks omitted). Pro se litigants are just as 

bound to follow procedural rules as lawyered parties. See Carter v. C.I.R., 784 F.2d 

1006, 1008 (9th Cir. 1996) (“Although pro se, he is expected to abide by the rules of the 

court in which he litigates.”) 

This is not to say, however, that the Court will not exercise its discretion to excuse 

a pro se litigant’s harmless noncompliance with such rules. Nor does it mean that the 

Court does not apply a liberal standard with respect to pro se filings. As mentioned, this 

Court has repeatedly overlooked procedural issues attendant to Plaintiff’s filings by 

publishing them to the docket with discrepancies. (See ECF Nos. 5, 40, 45). However, 

the Court advises Plaintiff that she must endeavor to comply with the Local Rules to the 

best of her ability. This includes obtaining a motion hearing date prior to filing her 

noticed motions. To the extent Plaintiff has not yet registered for electronic filing on 

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CM/ECF for same day filing, as permitted by the Court by its October 15, 2018 order, 

she may comply with the applicable rules by post-marking her motion papers on the same 

day which she obtains a hearing date from a law clerk in chambers. 

Plaintiff is advised that failure to abide by the Local Rules could result in the future 

rejection of non-compliant filings. 

CONCLUSION 

 Having considered Plaintiff’s second omnibus motion and her motion for leave to 

file supplemental document, the Court: 

(1)GRANTS Plaintiff’s request for leave to withdraw and refile her response 

briefs to Defendants’ motions to dismiss and accordingly SETS the motions 

for hearing on February 15, 2019. Plaintiff’s new response briefs are due 

no later than January 11, 2019, and any reply from Defendants may be 

refiled no later than January 25, 2019; 

(2)DENIES Plaintiff’s request to segregate the motion hearing date for her 

motion for leave to file a second amended complaint from the date set for 

defendants’ motions to dismiss. The hearing for Plaintiff’s motion for leave 

to amend shall also be February 15, 2019. Plaintiff’s reply on the matter is 

due no later than November 20, 2018; 

(3)GRANTS the motion for telephonic hearings and DIRECTS Plaintiff to 

contact chambers at least one week before the scheduled hearing date to 

arrange for such measures; 

(4)DENIES the motion for default judgment against the Board of Directors for 

Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc.;

(5)GRANTS Plaintiff’s request for leave to file supplemental documents to her 

First Amended Complaint. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: October 31, 2018 

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