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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

PENSACOLA DIVISION

IN THE MATTER OF IN RE 

SKANSKA USA CIVIL 

SOUTHEAST INC. AND 

SKANSKA USA, INC. AS 

OWNERS OF THE BARGE KS 

5531 PRAYING FOR 

EXONERATION FROM OR 

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY 

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ADMIRALTY RULE 9(H)

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CIVIL ACTION NO.

3:20-CV-05980 – LC / HTC

AMENDED STATUS REPORT REGARDING LIMITATION TRIAL

(Amending only Footnote 1 regarding briefing schedule)

Pursuant to the Final Scheduling Order, ECF No. 58, entered by the Honorable 

Judge Vinson, the limitation trial for these consolidated actions is presently set for 

September 13, 2021.1Judge Vinson recently recused himself and the case was 

assigned to the Honorable Judge Walker who ordered the parties to meet and confer 

and submit a status report on the length of time the trial might take. See ECF No. 

944 & 1111. The cases were then transferred to the Honorable Judge Lacey Collier. 

See ECF No. 1136. 

 

1 Skanska has filed a motion to dismiss claimant claims of economic loss as not 

cognizable under the Supreme Court case of Robins Dry Dock. Claimants oppose 

the motion. Skanska filed its Amended Motion to Dismiss and for Summary 

Judgment on May 11, 2021, the claimants’ deadline to respond is May 26, 2021, and 

the Amended Motion is set for an oral argument on June 21, 2021 pursuant to the 

Final Scheduling Order. (Doc. 58).

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After a meet and confer, the parties agree that the limitation trial will take 

between two and three weeks, although the length could change. The parties also 

discussed whether a September trial date was realistic. Prior to the March 18, 2021

conference with Judge Vinson, Claimants had suggested January 2022 and Skanska 

had suggested March 2022 as potential trial dates. A September trial date was set as 

a compromise to Judge Vinson’s suggestion of a June 2021 trial. The parties agree

now that even a September 2021 trial is unrealistic and impossible to meet in light 

of the following, inter alia: (1) Claimants have only recently propounded requests 

for production of documents and interrogatories; responses are not due for more than 

a week; (2) Skanska has not yet propounded written discovery; (3) Skanska has 

gathered more than 2.0 terabytes of documentation potentially responsive to 

Claimants’ broad discovery; (4) Skanska has identified over 100 potential 

deposition witnesses if Claimants’ discovery requests are taken “verbatim;” and (5)

the parties have not been able to reach a final agreement on an ESI order or on 

Claimants’ limitation of the breadth, scope and time frame of Claimants’ requests. 

 A complete production of documents responsive to Claimants’ document 

requests would result in a production of over 2.0 terabytes of data. One terabyte is 

generally estimated to be the equivalent of 75 million pages of documents. 

Accordingly, Claimants’ current document requests would involve the review and 

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production of hundreds of millions of pages of documents. This far exceeds what 

the parties anticipated and would take months to review and produce. 

 The parties continue to cooperate and meet and confer on solutions to these

issues in order to accomplish a timely and more narrowly focused production. 

However, as the parties work through these issues, trial is approaching without 

discovery having been started. Given these concerns, the parties jointly request that 

the trial date be continued. Skanska suggests that the setting of a trial date be 

deferred until the parties have the opportunity to negotiate the scope of production 

and then determine the amount of time that will be required to obtain and review the 

document production and to conduct further discovery, including taking 

depositions.

2

 Once this has occurred, the parties will request a scheduling 

conference to set a trial date and other deadlines.

 

2 The parties could not agree on the wording of a joint motion but agree that a trial 

continuance is necessary.

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Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Derek A. Walker 

DEREK A. WALKER

Admitted Pro Hac Vice

KENNETH H. TRIBUCH

Florida Bar No. 986887

Harold. K. Watson, Esq.

Derek A. Walker, Esq.

Charles P. Blanchard, Esq. 

Jon W. Wise, Esq.

CHAFFE MCCALL, LLP

801 Travis, Suite 1910

Houston, Texas 77002

Telephone: (713) 546-9800

Facsimile: (713) 546-9806

and

SCOTT A. REMINGTON

Florida Bar No. 122483

JEREMY C. BRANNING

Florida Bar No. 507016

CLARK PARTINGTON

P.O. Box 13010

Pensacola, FL 32591-3010 

Telephone: (850) 434-9200

Facsimile: (850) 432-7340

Attorneys for Skanska USA Civil Southeast 

Inc. and Skanska USA, Inc.

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I HEREBY CERTIFY that a copy of the foregoing has been furnished to the 

following through the Court’s CM/ECF electronic filing system on this 14th day of 

May, 2021:

Brian Barr, Esq.

Christopher Paulos, Esq.

Levin, Papantonio, Thomas, Mitchell, 

Rafferty & Proctor, P.A. 

316 South Baylen Street

Pensacola, FL 32502

Bryan F. Aylstock, Esq.

Justin G. Witkin, Esq.

Douglass A. Kreis, Esq.

Neil D. Overholtz, Esq.

Nathan C. Bess, Esq.

Bobby J. Bradford, Esq.

Stephen H. Echsner, Esq.

E. Samuel Geisler, Esq.

Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz, PLLC

17 East Main Street, Second Floor

Pensacola, FL 32502

Service E-Mail: Sgeisler@awkolaw.com

 nbess@awkolaw.com

 sallyteam@awkolaw.com

Thomas F. Gonzalez, Esq.

J. Nixon Daniel, III, Esq. Beggs & Lane, RLLP

501 Commendencia Street

Pensacola, Florida 32502

Service Email: jnd@beggslane.com

 tfg@beggslane.com

Attorneys for Claimants 

/s/Jeremy C. Branning

JEREMY C. BRANNING

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