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WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Kim Cramton, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

Grabbagreen Franchising LLC, et al., 

Defendants. 

No. CV-17-04663-PHX-DWL

ORDER 

Pending before the Court is the parties’ joint motion to amend the scheduling 

order. (Doc. 79.) For the reasons set forth below, the motion will be granted in part and 

denied in part. 

BACKGROUND 

The complaint in this case was filed in December 2017. (Doc. 1.) In their Rule 

26(f) report, the parties asked the Court to set a discovery deadline of November 2, 2018, 

and a dispositive motion deadline of March 29, 2019. (Doc. 50.) The Court accepted this 

proposal in significant part and issued a Case Management Order that set a discovery 

deadline of November 1, 2018. (Doc. 56.) The Case Management Order also set August 

1, 2018, as the deadline for amending the pleadings and December 2, 2018, as the 

dispositive motion deadline. (Doc. 56.) Finally, the Case Management Order included 

the following cautionary note: “The Deadlines Are Real. The parties are advised that the 

Court intends to enforce the deadlines set forth in this order, and they should plan their 
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litigation activities accordingly.” (Doc. 56 at 5, emphasis in original.) 

In early August 2018, a new law firm, Tiffany & Bosco, made an appearance on 

behalf of one defendant. (Doc. 63.) Tiffany & Bosco then appeared on behalf of the 

other four defendants in mid-September 2018. (Doc. 73). 

ANALYSIS 

The instant motion (Doc. 79) was filed on the eve of the discovery deadline. It 

asks the Court to extend the deadline for amending the pleadings until November 30, 

2018, to extend the discovery deadline until March 2, 2019, and to extend the dispositive 

motion deadline until May 3, 2019. In support of this request, the parties contend (1) 

“[t]he discovery process in general has taken longer than expected” due to Plaintiff’s 

difficulty in obtaining her own medical records and due to the “tedious” process of 

reviewing the 50,000 or so pages of discovery, and (2) “Defendants have recently 

retained new counsel . . . who need time to get up to speed on the litigation.” (Doc. 79 at 

2.) 

These explanations do not strike the Court as the sort of “good cause” required to 

modify a scheduling order. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4) (“A schedule may be modified 

only for good cause and with the judge’s consent.”). “Rule 16(b)’s ‘good cause’ standard 

primarily considers the diligence of the party seeking the amendment. . . . [C]arelessness 

is not compatible with a finding of diligence and offers no reason for a grant of relief. . . . 

[T]he focus of the inquiry is upon the moving party’s reasons for seeking modification. 

If that party was not diligent, the inquiry should end.” Johnson v. Mammoth Recreations, 

Inc., 975 F.2d 604, 609 (9th Cir. 1992). Here, the parties were specifically advised in the 

Case Management Order that “The Deadlines Are Real.” It was their responsibility to 

budget enough time to review discovery as it was being produced, even if the volume of 

discovery material was relatively high, and to issue follow-up discovery demands with an 

eye toward complying with the November 1, 2018 discovery cut-off date. 

Nor is the Court convinced that the retention of “new” defense counsel constitutes 

good cause to amend the scheduling order. The docket reflects that “new” counsel made 
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their first appearance in this case nearly three months ago. Cf. Johns v. AutoNation USA 

Corp., 246 F.R.D. 608, 610 (D. Ariz. 2006) (“Defendants’ only attempt to explain the 

delay in seeking to amend their answer is that they retained new counsel . . . . But 

Defendants waited four months after the substitution of counsel to request leave to 

amend. . . . [T]he four month delay after new counsel was obtained shows Defendants 

were not diligent.”). 

It is also notable that the joint motion doesn’t even attempt to explain why the 

deadline for amending the pleadings—which expired three months ago—should be reset 

for a month from now. 

 For all of these reasons, the Court strongly considered issuing an across-the-board 

denial of the joint motion to amend. Nevertheless, recognizing that such a result would 

be harsh (and that the case was recently transferred between judges), the Court will agree 

to grant some of the relief requested by the parties. Specifically, although the Court will 

deny the request to extend the deadline for amending the pleadings, it will agree to extend 

the discovery deadline by two months (to January 4, 2019) and to reset the dispositive 

motion deadline for one month after the close of discovery (to February 8, 2019). The 

parties are reminded, once again, that “The Deadlines Are Real.” 

Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that the joint motion to amend the scheduling 

order (Doc. 79) is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. 

Dated this 6th day of November, 2018.