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David A. Chami, AZ #027585

PRICE LAW GROUP, APC

8245 N. 85th Way

Scottsdale, AZ 85258

T: (818) 600-5515

F: (818) 600-5415

david@pricelawgroup.com

Haytham Faraj , CA #291416

Admitted pro hac vice

LAW OFFICES OF HAYTHAM FARAJ

1935 W Belmont Ave.

Chicago, IL 60657

T: (312) 635-0800

F: (202) 280-1039

haytham@farajlaw.com

Attorneys for Plaintiff

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Mussalina Muhaymin as Personal 

Representative of the Estate of 

Muhammad Abdul Muhaymin Jr., 

Plaintiff,

v.

City of Phoenix, an Arizona Municipal 

Corporation, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No.: CV-17-04565-PHX-SMB

PLAINTIFF’S RESPONSE TO 

DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO 

CONTINUE ORAL ARGUMENT ON 

DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR 

SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Plaintiff Mussalina Muhaymin (“Plaintiff”), through undersigned counsel, hereby submits 

her Response to Defendants City of Phoenix, Antonio Tarango, Oswald Grenier, Kevin 

McGowan, Jason Hobel, Ronaldo Canilao, David Head, Susan Heimbigner, James Clark, Dennis
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Leroux, Ryan Nielsen and Steven Wong’s (collectively the “Defendants”) Motion to Continue 

Oral Argument on Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment [doc. 304] (“Motion”). 

Defendants’ Motion constitutes a poorly disguised request that the Court consider improper,

additional briefing on Defendants’ fully briefed Motion for Summary Judgment. As described 

below, granting Defendants’ Motion would be contrary to the purpose of summary judgment as 

established by the Supreme Court, and unfairly prejudicial to Plaintiff’s case, allowing 

Defendants to present additional arguments for summary judgment not identified in the original 

summary judgment motion.

As this Court correctly noted just last year, “a party moving for summary judgment must 

raise, in its initial motion, all of the grounds on which it is seeking relief.” Udd v. City of Phoenix, 

No. CV-18-01616-PHX-DWL, 2020 WL 1536326, at *8 (D. Ariz. Mar. 31, 2020). This 

requirement acts as “a key limitation on a district court's power to enter summary judgment [by 

ensuring that the] power may be exercised only ‘so long as the losing party was on notice that 

she had to come forward with all of her evidence.’” Id. (quoting Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 

U.S. 317, 326, 106 S. Ct. 2548, 2554, 91 L. Ed. 2d 265 (1986)).

Defendants attempt to sidestep this important requirement by asking that the Court wait 

to rule on Defendants’ fully briefed Motion for Summary Judgment until Defendants have had 

time to submit additional arguments regarding the impact of Plaintiff’s expert witness on the 

issue of summary judgment.1 This is facially improper. Defendants were required to make any 

1 This improper request for more pages is in addition to its granted motion to exceed the page limitation 

set forth in the local rules. See docs. 270, 280.
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and all arguments in support of summary judgment in their original summary judgment motion. 

See Udd, 2020 WL 1536326, at *8. 

In addition to being facially inappropriate, Defendants’ attempt to comingle the separate 

issues of summary judgment and expert preclusion/limitation under Daubert is incredibly 

prejudicial to Plaintiff’s case. Had Defendants raised issues regarding the necessity of Plaintiff’s 

expert to surviving summary judgment in their original motion, Plaintiff would have made the 

strategic decision to introduce evidence into the record relevant to issues testified to by Plaintiff’s 

expert, using a certain number of the allowed pages. 

The instant situation represents the quintessential purpose of page limits in legal briefing. 

Defendants were afforded forty pages in which to notify Plaintiff of all potential areas of 

insufficiency in her case. Plaintiff was afforded forty pages to respond to this notification by 

presenting relevant evidence on the issues raised. If Defendants believed that exclusion of 

Plaintiff’s expert would be dispositive of Plaintiff’s claims, they were required to notify Plaintiff 

of such in their summary judgment motion. See Udd, 2020 WL 1536326, at *8 (“summary 

judgment [...] power may be exercised only ‘so long as the losing party was on notice that she 

had to come forward with all of her evidence.’”) (quoting Celotex Corp., 477 U.S. at 326).

Having failed to affirmatively present the entirety of its summary judgment arguments 

within the allotted forty pages, Defendants now seek to create an inappropriate “back door” 

through which to sneak additional argument, after Plaintiff’s window to introduce additional 
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relevant evidence in response has closed.

2 This is neither the purpose of a Daubert motion, nor 

an appropriate approach to summary judgment motion practice.

For these reasons, Plaintiff respectfully requests that the Court deny Defendants’ Motion 

and included request that the Court comingle the issues of summary judgment and Daubert

determination. The parties’ arguments regarding summary judgment have been fully briefed, and 

are not reliant on the Court’s determination of Defendants’ Daubert motion. No legitimate 

purpose is served by waiting for Defendants to submit additional briefing (which the Court may 

not consider) in order to include additional arguments that were not properly submitted in the 

original Motion for Summary Judgment.

Respectfully submitted this 7th day of April, 2021.

PRICE LAW GROUP, APC

By: /s/ David A. Chami 

David A. Chami, AZ #027585

david@pricelawgroup.com

Attorneys for Plaintiff

2 This is especially prejudicial here because if the Court were to exclude Plaintiff’s expert, or limit his 

testimony, Plaintiff would have the opportunity at trial to introduce all evidence relevant to the issues 

regarding which Plaintiff’s expert has opined. Armed with such evidence, the jury could reasonably still 

come to a conclusion consistent with the opinion of Plaintiff’s expert witness. If, however, the Court 

considers Defendants’ summary judgment and Daubert motions simultaneously, and decides the 

summary judgment motion after granting the Daubert motion, Plaintiff’s claim will be adjudicated 

without the benefit of all relevant evidence which would be available to the jury. This, again, runs directly 

contrary to the requirements for summary judgment. Udd, 2020 WL 1536326, at *8 (“summary judgment 

[...] power may be exercised only ‘so long as the losing party was on notice that she had to come forward 

with all of her evidence.’”) (quoting Celotex Corp., 477 U.S. at 326).
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I hereby certify that on April 7, 2021, I electronically filed the foregoing with the Clerk of 

the Court using the ECF system, which will send notice of such filing to all attorneys of record in 

this matter. Since none of the attorneys of record are non-ECF participants, hard copies of the 

foregoing have not been provided via personal delivery or by postal mail.

/s/ Florence Lirato