Opinion ID: 2777843
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: District Court’s Scheduling Order

Text: 4 Case: 14-12038 Date Filed: 02/09/2015 Page: 5 of 20 After the Defendants filed answers, the parties filed a Joint Preliminary Planning Report and Discovery Plan (“the Plan”) on March 9, 2013. According to the Plan, the Plaintiffs had notified the Defendant City that they intended to seek leave to amend their Third Amended Complaint to, among other things, add a state-law malicious prosecution claim. The Plan provided, however, that amendments to the pleadings submitted later than thirty days after the Plan was filed, i.e., after April 9, 2013, would not be accepted, unless otherwise permitted by law. The district court entered a scheduling order accepting the Plan’s deadlines and ordering that discovery would last eight months, thus ending on November 8, 2013. The district court warned the parties that deadline extensions were not likely to be granted. The deadline for filing amended pleadings expired without the Plaintiffs’ filing a fourth amended complaint or asking for an extension of time. Meanwhile, in a series of pretrial orders, the district court dismissed a number of claims and defendants, such that the only remaining claims were: (1) the § 1983 malicious prosecution claim against the Defendant City and the Defendant Turner in his individual capacity; (2) the § 1983 failure-to-train claim against the Defendant City; and (3) the § 1988 claim for attorney’s fees.