Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_13-cv-01770/USCOURTS-caed-2_13-cv-01770-15/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 190
Nature of Suit: Other Contract Actions
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Other Contract

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

U.S. LEGAL SUPPORT, INC., a Texas 

Corporation, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

AMEEN HOFIONI, et al., 

Defendants. 

No. 2:13-cv-01770-MCE-AC 

ORDER 

This misappropriation of trade secrets case originated before the Honorable 

Judge Lawrence K. Karlton in August 2013, after which a scheduling order was issued, 

and various motions, including a motion to disqualify counsel that resulted in a stay of 

the proceedings, were entertained. The following August, upon Judge Karlton’s 

retirement, the case was reassigned to this Court. Additional motions were filed, and, in 

January of this year, a new Pretrial Scheduling Order (“PTSO”) was issued. 

 According to Plaintiffs, moving the case forward has proved difficult for a number 

of reasons in addition to the above-described stay and reassignment. Those factors 

included the following: (1) settlement discussions that originally appeared would be 

fruitful eventually broke down; (2) the forensic inspection of voluminous amounts of 

electronically stored information continues to be extremely cumbersome to negotiate; 

(3) discovery has otherwise been highly contentious; and (4) individual defendant 

Case 2:13-cv-01770-MCE-AC Document 144 Filed 11/09/15 Page 1 of 4
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Ameen Hofioni was recently criminally indicted for embezzlement and purportedly 

intends to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in this case. It 

was against this backdrop that Plaintiff, on August 26, 2015, filed a Motion to Modify the 

PTSO (“Motion”), seeking to extend the current November 12, 2015, and January 12, 

2016, discovery deadlines by five months. That Motion is GRANTED.1 

Generally, the Court is required to enter a pretrial scheduling order within 120 

days of the filing of the complaint. Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b). The scheduling order "controls 

the subsequent course of the action unless modified by the Court,” and such orders 

entered before the final pretrial conference may be modified only upon a showing of 

"good cause." Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b); see also Johnson v. Mammoth Recreations, 

975 F.2d 604, 608 (9th Cir. 1992) (citations and quotation marks omitted). “Rule 16(b)'s 

‘good cause’ standard primarily considers the diligence of the party seeking the 

amendment.” Johnson, 975 F.2d at 609. Namely, the district court may modify the 

pretrial schedule "if it cannot reasonably be met despite the diligence of the party 

seeking the extension." Fed. R. Civ. P. 16 Advisory Committee's Notes (1983 

amendment); Johnson, 975 F.2d at 609. “[C]arelessness is not compatible with a finding 

of diligence and offers no reason for a grant of relief.” Johnson, 975 F.2d at 609. 

“Although the existence or degree of prejudice to the party opposing the modification 

might supply additional reasons to deny a motion, the focus of the inquiry is upon the 

moving party's reasons for seeking modification.” Id. If the moving party was not 

diligent, the Court’s inquiry should end. Id. 

Plaintiff has demonstrated the requisite diligence necessary to justify modifying 

the discovery deadlines.2 Having reviewed the parties’ arguments and evidence, as well 

as the record in its entirety, it is clear to the Court that litigation of this case has been 

 1

 Because oral argument would not be of material assistance, the Court ordered this matter 

submitted on the briefs. E.D. Cal. Local Rule 230(g). 

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 No Defendant has persuasively argued that any real prejudice will result from granting the instant 

Motion. Although the entity Defendants argue that they will be prejudiced if forced to incur attorneys’ fees 

and costs to conduct discovery should the deadline be extended, the Court fails to see how that 

constitutes prejudice inasmuch as those costs are simply part and parcel of the litigation process. 

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highly contentious and that a number of procedural peculiarities have combined to 

complicate the parties’ ability to progress with discovery. Given that no single event by 

itself exacerbated these discovery difficulties, and that it took a number of obstacles 

building on each other to warrant filing the instant Motion, the Court finds it unlikely that 

Plaintiff could have determined much earlier in the course of litigation that meeting 

current November 2015 and January 2016 deadlines would prove impossible. Plaintiff 

further demonstrated its diligence by filing its instant Motion almost three months before 

the first existing deadline rather than waiting until the eleventh hour. The Court need not 

parse out which party is responsible for which delays to determine that, based on the 

record as a whole, Plaintiff was diligent and discovery should be extended. 

That said, the parties, who are all represented by qualified and presumably 

talented counsel, should have been able to resolve this dispute by themselves. There is 

no reason why such a relatively short delay in discovery deadlines, a delay that will not 

affect trial or dispositive motion dates, should have required this Court’s intervention. 

Unfortunately, it can be inferred from the extensive briefing the Court received on this 

straight-forward issue that counsel has expended too much time, with the parties 

therefore spending too much money, over an issue that should have been resolved by 

stipulation. Even more importantly from this Court’s perspective, however, is the fact 

that, regardless of whether the parties and counsel are willing to waste time and money, 

addressing this Motion has unnecessarily taxed the extremely limited resources of a 

Court already stretched far too thin. All parties and counsel are admonished that the 

Court expects better from the caliber of attorneys and litigants before it in this case. 

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In the meantime, Plaintiff’s Motion to Modify the Court’s PTSO (ECF No. 112) is 

GRANTED. All discovery, with the exception of expert discovery, shall be completed by 

April 12, 2016. Not later than June 12, 2016, all counsel are to designate in writing, file 

with the Court, and serve upon all other parties the name, address, and area of expertise 

of each expert that they propose to tender at trial. All other dates, deadlines and other 

requirements contained within said PTSO remain unchanged. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: November 9, 2015 

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