UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO

EASTERN DIVISION

LYNDA REDDY, 

Plaintiff, Case Nos. 2:09-cv-1152

 2:11-cv-879

-v- JUDGE SMITH

Magistrate Judge Deavers

JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A., et al.,

Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

This matter is before the Court on Defendants’ Motion to Strike Plaintiff’s Motion for

Summary Judgment (Doc. 83). This motion has been fully briefed and is ripe for review. For

the reasons that follow, the Court GRANTS Defendants’ Motion to Strike.

I. BACKGROUND

In December 2009, pro se Plaintiff Lynda Reddy initiated an employment discrimination

action against Defendants JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (“Chase”), Nicole Lafayette, and Stacey

Dean (collectively “Defendants”), which was docketed as Case No. 2:09-cv-1152. Following a

preliminary pretrial conference held in July 2011, the Court initially set a case-dispositive

motions deadline of May 18, 2012 (Doc. 51).

In October 2011, Plaintiff initiated a second employment discrimination action against

Chase, which was docketed as Case No. 2:11-cv-879. Because Case No. 2:09-cv-1152 and Case

No. 2:11-cv-879 contain common issues of law and fact, the Court consolidated the two actions

in December 2011 and ordered that all future filings be filed in Case No. 2:09-cv-1152 (Doc.

61). In January 2012, the Court set the dispositive motions deadline in the consolidated cases as

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August 18, 2012 (Doc. 62). On October 1, 2012, the Court extended the dispositive motions

deadline in these cases to October 25, 2012 (Doc. 72).

In compliance with the dispositive motions deadline, Defendants filed their Motion for

Summary Judgment on October 25, 2012 (Doc. 78). On November 5, 2012, Plaintiff filed a

Motion to Extend Answer to Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 79). In addition

to seeking a fifteen-day extension to respond to Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment,

Plaintiff sought an “[o]rder extending the dispositive motion deadline . . . to 45 days after the

Court rules on . . . Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment.” Id. at 1. She indicated that

she was “preparing to file an amended complaint of Summary Judgment” and that her request

would “avoid potentially unnecessary briefing in the Plaintiff[’s] forthcoming summary

judgment.” Id. at 2-3.

On November 7, 2012, the Court granted Plaintiff’s request for additional time to respond

to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment, allowing her to file the response by November

30, 2012 (Doc. 80). Insofar as Plaintiff was requesting to extend the dispositive motions

deadline, her request was denied because she failed to set forth good cause for modification of

the case schedule as required under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4).

On November 26, 2012, Plaintiff filed her Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 81). In

response to this motion, Defendants filed their Motion to Strike Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary

Judgment (Doc. 83). The Motion to Strike is fully briefed and ripe for disposition.

II. DISCUSSION

Defendants move to strike Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment on the basis that she

has failed to set forth good cause for leave to file her motion beyond the deadline established by

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the Court. Plaintiff argues that her Motion for Summary Judgment should not be stricken under

Rule 12(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure because it does not contain immaterial or

scandalous matter, because the dispositive motions deadline did not apply to the second case she

initiated against Chase, Case No. 2:11-cv-879, and because the filing is actually a timely

response to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff’s arguments are unpersuasive.

Plaintiff’s reference to Rule 12(f) is unresponsive to Defendants’ Motion to Strike

because Defendants do not move to strike Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment under Rule

12(f), which is limited in application to pleadings or portions of pleadings.1 A motion is not a

pleading. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 7(a) (defining “pleadings”). Instead, Defendants seek to invoke

the Court’s inherent power to control its docket in determining whether to strike documents or

portions of documents. See Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U.S. 626, 630-31 (1962) (trial courts

possess inherent power to “manage their own affairs so as to achieve an orderly and expeditious

disposition of cases”). Thus, Plaintiff’s assertion that her Motion for Summary Judgment does

not contain immaterial or scandalous matter does not address the issue of whether the motion

should be stricken for being untimely filed in contravention of the Court’s case management

deadline.

Before filing her Motion for Summary Judgment, Plaintiff first filed a document

requesting an extension of time to file a response to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment

and suggesting that she was seeking to file her own motion for summary judgment. The Court

promptly granted Plaintiff additional time to file a response and also denied any request to

1

 Rule 12(f) provides that a “court may order stricken from any pleading any insufficient

defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f). 

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extend the dispositive motions deadline because she failed to set forth good cause warranting any

extension. Despite this clear order, Plaintiff still filed her Motion for Summary Judgment more

than four weeks after the dispositive motions deadline, again without providing any reason for

the late filing.

Plaintiff’s suggestion that the dispositive motions deadline only applied to the first filed

case is unavailing. The Court consolidated the two actions in December 2011, and thus the

Court’s October 1, 2012 Order setting the October 25, 2012 deadline applied to both cases. 

Further, Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment seeks judgment in her favor on all claims, in

both cases, belying any assertion that she believed the deadline only applied to the first filed

case.

Finally, the Court rejects Plaintiff’s attempt to characterize the filing as a timely response

to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment. The motion is titled “Motion for Summary

Judgment by Plaintiff Lynda Reddy,” and it is clear from the content of the motion that she seeks

judgment in her favor on her claims pursuant to Rule 56. For example, the conclusion of the

filing states in part, “this Plaintiff respectfully request [sic] that this Court issue an order granting

the Motion of [sic] Summary Judgment under Rule 56.” (Doc. 81 at 102). By this filing,

Plaintiff is undoubtedly seeking judgment in her favor on all of her claims. However, because

Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment seeks judgment in their favor on all of Plaintiff’s

claims, Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment is conceptually an indirect challenge to

Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment. While the Court could construe Plaintiff’s filing as

her response to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment, insofar as some of her assertions set

forth in support of her motion are at least an indirect challenge to arguments set forth in

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Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment, the Court believes the better course of action is to

provide Plaintiff with an opportunity to file a new document directly responsive to Defendants’

Motion for Summary Judgment, and the arguments contained therein.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court GRANTS Defendants’ Motion to Strike Plaintiff’s

Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 83). The Court therefore STRIKES Document 81.

Plaintiff may file a response to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment no later than April

22, 2013, and any reply shall be filed 14 days after the filing of the response.

The Clerk shall remove Documents 81 and 83 from the Court’s pending motions list.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

 s/ George C. Smith 

GEORGE C. SMITH, JUDGE

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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