Opinion ID: 770390
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Point to Which the Suit Had Progressed.

Text: 54 It cannot be gainsaid that, when the appellants moved to intervene on December 11, 1998, it was very late in the course of the litigation, by every measure. The case, which was ultimately disposed of 10 months after it was filed, was already over seven months old; the discovery period had been closed for over ten weeks; all witnesses, including expert witnesses, had been identified over five weeks earlier; the plaintiffs had already produced an expert report and survey; and the dispositive motion deadline, originally set 17 weeks after the close of discovery, was only seven weeks away. Having adhered to the expedited track it originally set, the district court, admirably, entered final judgment less than one year after the case was filed. 8 55 Appellants argue that, when they filed their motion to intervene, the Federal Defendants had not yet even filed an answer to the complaint; therefore, the litigation was still immature. This argument is specious. As the appellants surely know, the Federal Defendants never filed an answer; using the appellants' logic, they could file a motion to intervene with the district court today, over a year after the case was resolved on the merits, and it would still be timely. Appellants also point to other cases where intervention was allowed after even longer periods of time had passed between the filing of the complaint and the motion to intervene. The propriety of intervention in any given case, however, must be measured under all the circumstances of that particular case. NAACP v. New York, 413 U.S. at 366. The absolute measure of time between the filing of the complaint and the motion to intervene is one of the least important of these circumstances. See Sierra Club v. Espy, 18 F.3d 1202, 1205 (5th Cir. 1994) (noting, in the context of measuring the timeliness of a motion to intervene, that absolute measures of timeliness should be ignored). A more critical factor is what steps occurred along the litigation continuum during this period of time. In the instant case, when the appellants moved to intervene, discovery was closed, the experts were producing their reports, and the court's previously-identified finish line - final disposition of a case on an expedited track should occur nine to twelve months after the date the complaint is filed - was fast approaching. The particular circumstances of the cases cited by the appellants are all easily distinguishable. E.g., Mountain Top Condo. Assoc. v. Dave Stabbert Master Builder, Inc., 72 F.3d 361, 370 (3rd Cir. 1995) (allowing intervention as of right where four years had passed between the filing of the complaint and the motion to intervene, but there were no depositions taken, dispositive motions filed, or decrees entered during the four year period in question); Usery v. Brandel, 87 F.R.D. 670, 675 (W.D. Mich. 1980) (intervention as of right was allowed where ten months had passed between the filing of the complaint and the motion to intervene, but the suit had not advanced beyond early discovery). 56 Simply, the litigation had made extensive progress in the district court before the appellants moved to intervene. This factor weighs strongly in favor of the appellees. 57