Opinion ID: 223418
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Gray's Acquiescence to Pre-Trial Orders

Text: The fifth Hoxworth factor asks to what extent a party assent[ed] to the district court's pretrial orders. 980 F.2d at 927. The District Court found that Gray assented to its orders because it attended three status conferences, filed a Rule 26(f) discovery report, attended a court-ordered mediation, established discovery deadlines, including time limits for experts' reports and depositions, and then, eight days prior to filing for arbitration, requested and received extensions of time to complete discovery. Furthermore, Gray does not contend that it objected to participating in any of these proceedings. Gray argues that the District Court's holding ignores the circumstance that there would have been status conferences regardless of when Gray filed its motion to compel arbitration because the litigation in the District Court would have continued against RWLS even if there was arbitration of the dispute between Gray and Cassady. Gray contends, moreover, that the status conferences did not prejudice Cassady inasmuch as there was no discovery between the time of the preliminary injunction hearing and the time when Gray filed its Motion to Stay the Proceedings. We agree with the District Court that Gray, through its assent to its orders, acted inconsistently with an intent to arbitrate. Gray compares this case with Nino in which we found that the defendant waived the right to arbitrate where he actively litigated the case for more than 15 months and engaged in no fewer than ten pretrial conferences, and extensive discovery. Nino, 609 F.3d at 199. However, in Nino we also stated that a case-specific waiver analysis is not susceptible to precise line-drawing. Id. at 212. Thus, Nino does not establish a base line of what must be shown for acquiescence in pre-trial orders to waive the right to arbitrate. Here, in addition to the three pre-trial conferences, the parties at the District Court's direction, engaged in mediation and filed Rule 26(f) discovery reports. Gray at no point during any of these proceedings indicated that it intended to invoke the arbitration clause. Further, the absence of discovery between the proceedings on the preliminary injunction application and the motion to stay the arbitration does not alleviate the litigation expenses, which we discussed above, that Cassady incurred by participating in status conferences, the mediation, and the filing of a discovery report. In that regard, Gray's argument that there would have been status conferences even if there had been arbitration because the litigation would have continued after the preliminary injunction hearing does not address the prejudice Cassady suffered inasmuch as Cassady and RWLS are separate entities represented by different attorneys in the District Court litigation. Thus, though the judicial proceedings may have continued following the denial of the preliminary injunction application, even if the Gray-Cassady dispute had been arbitrated, Cassady would not have needed to participate in them. Considering the factors that we have set forth we find that Gray's acquiescence to the District Court's pre-trial orders weighs heavily in favor of finding that Gray waived its right to arbitrate this dispute.