Court Opinion

ID: 9488144
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:37:31.100668+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:43.221117
License: Public Domain

KLEINFELD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting, with whom Judges FLETCHER and REINHARDT concur:
I respectfully dissent.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 1 specifically states that the rules “shall be construed and administered to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 1. Sometimes serving one purpose tends to disserve another. For example, it is typical of bicycle engineering that one tries to build a lightweight, inexpensive, sturdy frame. But the better one serves any two goals, the worse one serves the third. Because the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure braid pretrial practice around discovery, one cannot go too far toward one of the three desiderata, “just, speedy, and inexpensive,” without sacrificing one or two of the others. By requiring a showing of prejudice which is, as a practical matter, impossible, we unreasonably disable ourselves from reviewing whether denial of a continuance is an abuse of discretion.

I. FACTS

The declarations of counsel in district court and the pretrial materials set out facts, though there is some contradiction. They appear to be as follows. Angel Martel is a paranoid schizophrenic. On June 6,1990, the day of his violent confrontation with the police, he may have been suicidal, or he may have had a delusion that people were tampering with his car in order to kill him. For whatever reason, he went into his yard with a loaded shotgun. His wife persuaded their relative, Mr. Ortega, to go into the yard and try to take the gun away from him. The gun went off, fortunately harmlessly, as Mr. Ortega tried to get it away from Mr. Martel. When Mrs. Martel heard the blast, she called the police. Eight sheriffs deputies responded to the call. Mr. Ortega may or may not have separated Mr. Martel from the shotgun by the time the deputies arrived. They unsuccessfully tried to get Mr. Martel down with a Taser, then piled on top of him to get him under control. In the course of this, they broke one of his legs and the kneecap on the other. He also required two sets of stitches to his head. His medical expenses ran close to $50,000.
Martel’s attorney, Thomas Beck, filed this § 1983 action against the County of Los An-geles, Sheriff Sherman Block, one named deputy, and all the other deputies under the aliases of Does 1-50. The gist of the complaint is that the deputies used an unconstitutionally excessive amount of force in the course of the arrest. There are other claims as well.
Mr. Beck did not know whom to sue. By chance, he had the name and badge number of the one deputy he named. He believed, no doubt based on the Martels’ perceptions and recollections, that about fifteen deputies were involved, so he sent interrogatories with his complaint asking for the names and addresses of all the deputies involved. The County answered the complaint on May 17, *999and identified seven deputies in timely answers dated May 24 and received by plaintiffs counsel May 29. Another deputy’s identity was provided to plaintiffs counsel August 2. Plaintiffs counsel sent interrogatories and requests for production for the sheriffs department Internal Investigation Bureau file on the incident and other material July 3. Various discovery disputes arose regarding how much of the Internal Investigation Bureau report and personnel files were properly discoverable. Counsel for both sides stipulated to a resolution of the most important dispute on August 2. The defendants agreed to provide the tape recordings of witness statements, transcripts of witness statements, and the Internal Investigation Bureau Report. After going through the material, plaintiffs counsel advised defense counsel by letter that the table of contents, taser report, disposition sheet, unit commander’s recommendation, and pages 3, 4 and 32 were missing, and pages 3, 5, 9, 10 and 11 were illegible. It is not clear whether he ever got these materials.
The backdrop for all of this typical discovery skirmishing was the district court judge’s standing order regarding the timing of cases. The district judge’s order was sent out as soon as the complaint was filed and said trial would be held in three months:
EXCEPT FOR UNUSUALLY COMPLEX CASES, COUNSEL SHOULD EXPECT THE CASE TO GO TO TRIAL WITHIN THREE MONTHS OF THE FILING OF THE FIRST ANSWER.
Plaintiffs counsel saw early on that this would be a problem. Part of the problem was that paper discovery — interrogatories and requests for production — needed more time. Also, plaintiffs counsel’s time was very fully committed to other trials during the summer of 1991. On July 12, 1991, he moved for an extension of time for discovery, and for shortened time on his motion to amend to add the additional deputies as defendants. The court heard the motion July 22, granted the motion to amend, and set a hearing for August 2 on the motion to compel discovery.1
On the eve of trial, both sides were unprepared to try the case. Plaintiffs counsel moved on August 22 for a continuance until October or November, and on August 26 filed a motion to compel discovery. He filed a declaration that he had not deposed any of the deputies yet, because some had just recently been identified, and he had been in trial in other cases from May 21 to June 25, from July 8 to 26, and from August 13 to 16.
Defense counsel was not ready either. She moved for bifurcation, which implied continuance, of trial of the damages part of the case, and of the claims against the County and the Sheriff. She said she had just learned from plaintiffs counsel that medical expenses were over $48,000. Evidently she was surprised to discover how large the special damages for medical expenses would be, and was not prepared to try the damages part of the case because she had not yet done the necessary discovery. She declared that she had not yet deposed plaintiffs doctors or retained medical expert witnesses for the defense.
The defense motion was granted, but plaintiffs motion for continuance was not. The ease went to trial on liability alone (not damages) against the deputies who participated in the arrest. The clerk’s list of exhibits and witnesses shows that Mr. Martel’s attorney called Mr. and Mrs. Martel, Mr. Ortega, and the eight sheriffs department officers whose names he had finally obtained. He played a tape of an interview with the deputy whom he named in the first iteration of the complaint. Mr. Martel’s attorney had not had an opportunity to depose any of the deputies, for reasons set out more fully below.
Mr. Beck served the first set of interrogatories May 6, the day the County of Los Angeles was served, asking for the names of the unknown deputies. The County responded with some but not all the names May 24. Mr. Beck asked Ms. Shen, the County’s lawyer, to stipulate to an amendment of the complaint substituting the names for his John Doe designations, but she refused. Mr. Beck was in trial in another case until June 25. He moved to shorten time and for leave *1000to amend July 12, and the court granted these motions July 22. Mr. Beck pressed for more information, and got the last name August 2.
Until the court granted leave to amend on July 22, which allowed the new defendants to be joined and served, Mr. Beck could not under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 38 serve paper discovery on them. He accomplished service of process and paper discovery on them July 30. The last deputy was added by a second amended complaint August 12.
The newly served deputies had 45 days to respond to paper discovery, under the version of Rule 33(a) then in effect. This 45 day period meant that the paper discovery from the deputies, except for the one whose name Mr. Beck knew when he filed suit in April, did not become due until after the August 27 trial. The critical paper production from the County, the Internal Investigation Bureau report, was not made until August 2, and it left Mr. Beck short the illegible and omitted pages. That production was made pursuant to the County’s stipulation in response to Mr. Beck’s motion to compel.
The practical result of this timetable was that Martel’s lawyer was required to question the deputies under oath for the first time at trial, in front of the jury. Mr. Beck’s busy trial schedule during the summer, the delay between when suit was filed and when Mr. Beck found out what deputies had been involved in the arrest, Mr. Beck’s strategy of seeking the paper discovery before deposing the deputies, and the extraordinarily short interval between filing of suit and trial, all worked together to prevent depositions.
The jury decided that none of the deputies had violated Mr. Martel’s rights by using unreasonable or excessive force. There is no way to tell what would have happened, had the deputies been required to give their account under oath twice, once prior to trial in depositions. In depositions, unlike in examinations at trial, lawyers can afford the risk of asking questions to which they do not know the answers.

II. ANALYSIS

Plaintiff appeals on the sole ground that the district court abused its discretion by denying the plaintiffs motion for a continuance. The majority declines to reach the question of whether the court abused its discretion, for the reason that appellant has not demonstrated “actual and substantial prejudice” from the denial of the continuance. I respectfully disagree with the majority’s interpretation of what “prejudice” means in this context. The majority thinks it means a showing that the outcome of the ease would have been different, had the continuance been granted. I think it means that a party was precluded by the shortness of time from collecting material evidence or locating material witnesses.

A. The Local Rules

Plaintiffs counsel had a right to expect more than three months from answer to trial, when he accepted the Martel case. In the Central District of California in 1991 and 1992, the median time from filing of the answer to trial in civil cases was thirteen months. See Administrative Office of The United States Courts, 1992 Federal Court Management Statistics 129 (1992).
Under the Local Rules, plaintiffs counsel could count on a minimum of five months. Rule 6.1 states that “[wjithin twenty (20) days after service of the answer by the first answering defendant, and thereafter as each defendant answers, counsel for the parties shall meet in person ...” C.D. Cal. Local Rule (Civil) 6.1. Within fourteen days after holding this meeting, “those attending are mutually obligated to file a Joint Report of Early Meeting....” C.D. Cal. Local Rule (Civil) 6.2. Rule 9.2 builds in a minimum of four months between the “Joint Report” of counsel and the pretrial conference:
Pre-trial calendar. The Court may cause the notice for a Pre-Trial Conference to be sent to the parties on a date no earlier than sixty (60) days after the Joint Report of Early Meeting required by Local Rule 6 is due to be filed with the Court. The Pretrial Conference shall be set for a date no earlier than sixty (60) days after the mailing of such notice.
*1001C.D. Cal. Local Rule (Civil) 9.2 (emphasis added).
The majority does not consider the effect of the local rules, because they were first raised in our prior opinion in this case, at 34 F.3d 731, not by the parties. The issue, though, is not whether the denial of the continuance should be reversed because the pretrial order violated the local rules. The issue in this case should be whether the district court abused its discretion, and has narrowed down to whether the appellant has demonstrated substantial and actual prejudice. The framework in which discretion was exercised was provided by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Local Rules of the Central District of California. We cannot ignore the Local Rules. The Local Rules, adopted pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 83, are laws of the United States. United States v. Hvass, 355 U.S. 570, 575, 78 S.Ct. 501, 504-05, 2 L.Ed.2d 496 (1958). We are required to use our full knowledge of the law, whether the parties cite it or not. Elder v. Holloway, — U.S. -, -, 114 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 127 L.Ed.2d 344 (1994). The minimum time period of five months provided by the rules, and the median time of thirteen months from answer to trial, provide useful measures of minimum and ordinary times for discovery and trial preparation.

B. Prejudice

I disagree with the meaning attributed by the majority to the term “prejudice” in the context of review of denial of a continuance. If we apply the meaning of “prejudice” in our precedents to the facts demonstrated by the record, as we should, prejudice is demonstrated in this case.
The majority concludes that Martel has to show “what facts he would have gained from the deputies that would have advanced his cause at trial.” Majority at page 996. Beyond advancing his cause, Martel would also have had to show, to gain reversal under the majority opinion, “what, if any, facts would have been gained from additional discovery and why, if at all, these facts would have affected the result of the trial.” Majority op. at page 997.
That is asking too much. It is too much to allow for any real review on appeal, and it is too much to reconcile with our previous decisions. Of course plaintiff cannot show what he would have gained from the discovery and how it would have affected the result at trial. He never got a chance to do the discovery, so he cannot know.
Plaintiffs lawyer represented an insane man who had been hurt in a violent confrontation with the police. Presumably Mr. Martel, his wife, and his brother-in-law thought the police had been more violent than necessary, and told their lawyer what they recalled of what they had perceived. If plaintiffs counsel called all the deputies to the witness stand and asked them if they had used more force than necessary, it was unlikely that their recollections of their perceptions of the incident would be the same as those of Mr. and Mrs. Martel and Mr. Ortega. One practical strategy was to get any reports showing what the deputies had said about the incident before, and then depose one or several of the deputies, or perhaps all of them. If all their deposition testimony appeared to be substantially consistent with other evidence and with each others’ testimony, and to support the defense, then plaintiffs counsel might have sought a low settlement or dismissal of the lawsuit. But if one of the deputies, in deposition, told a different story from what he or she had said in the Internal Investigation Bureau report, or from another deputy, or said that another deputy had gone too far, then plaintiffs counsel might develop this into his liability case at trial. Without the continuance, there were no depositions, and evidently, as the jury saw it, there was no case.
Our precedents do not support the construction the majority has imposed on the term “prejudice” in this context. If we adhere to precedent, as I think we should, prejudice in the context of denial of a continuance means an inability to collect material evidence or locate material witnesses. It does not mean facts which would have been obtained and would have affected the outcome.
In United States v. Maybusher, 735 F.2d 366 (9th Cir.1984), cert denied, 469 U.S. 1110, *1002105 S.Ct. 790, 83 L.Ed.2d 783 (1985), we affirmed a denial of a continuance. We held that prejudice was not demonstrated, because appellant “refers neither to an inability to collect evidence nor to difficulty in locating witnesses.” Id. at 370. In the case at bar, by contrast, appellant claimed exactly these kinds of prejudice. In his declaration, Mr. Martel’s attorney, Mr. Beck, told the court that because of discovery difficulties, and trouble identifying all of the deputies involved, he had been unable to gather sufficient evidence to go to trial. Under the Maybusher standard, such a showing should have sufficed to demonstrate prejudice.
Likewise, when we upheld a denial of a continuance in United States v. Mitchell, 744 F.2d 701 (9th Cir.1984), because no prejudice was shown, we did not construe “prejudice” to mean that more time would have changed the outcome. We affirmed because the appellant did not specify “what defense theories his counsel might have explored, what aspects of the case she was unable to investigate, or what witnesses might have been interviewed.” Id. at 705. United States v. Lane, 765 F.2d 1376, 1379 (9th Cir.1985), says substantially the same thing in the same circumstances as Mitchell. Neither construes “substantial and actual prejudice” to mean a demonstrated effect on the outcome, as the majority requires today.
In United States v. Flynt, 756 F.2d 1352, 1358 (9th Cir.1985), amended, 764 F.2d 675 (9th Cir.1985), we reversed a criminal contempt case because the district court denied a thirty day continuance. Flynt had behaved inappropriately in court, and was ordered to show cause why he should not be held in contempt. He had acted like a crazy man, and his attorneys sought a thirty day continuance to obtain a psychiatric evaluation of his mental capacity. We could not have reversed under the standard the majority now imposes, because Flynt’s lawyers never produced evidence that the psychiatric report would have been favorable to the defense. We did reverse, however, because the psychiatric testimony would have been “potentially” helpful to the defense, and the “importance of expert witnesses to Flynt’s defense is obvious.” Id. at 1361.
We also reversed for abuse of discretion in denying a continuance in United States v. 2.61 Acres, 791 F.2d 666 (9th Cir.1985). Seven years after this condemnation case was filed, and as it was about to go to trial, the government moved to bar the property owner from introducing evidence on the ground that its corporate standing had lapsed for nonpayment of taxes fourteen years before. The corporation unsuccessfully sought a short continuance so that it could pay the back taxes and revive its corporate standing. We held that the requirement of prejudice was satisfied because the denial “precluded Wawona from presenting any evidence concerning the value of the property.” Id. at 671. This standard is not the same as a requirement that the evidence to be submitted would have changed the outcome.
Butcher’s Union v. SDC Investment, Inc., 788 F.2d 535 (9th Cir.1986), has strong language regarding the prejudice which must be shown to obtain a reversal because of denial of discovery. But it is not a continuance ease. The plaintiffs sought discovery and the judge denied their motion a year and a half before dismissal. The issue was materiality, not time. The Unions sought to sue various defendants in a RICO case on the theory that the ends of justice required nationwide jurisdiction, but the court decided that separate, local conspiracies were alleged, so only the California defendant was subject to jurisdiction in the case. On appeal, the Unions claimed that their discovery would have developed proof of sufficient local contacts to support California jurisdiction. But the presence or absence of local contacts had not been material to the district court’s decision. The lack of prejudice resulted from this immateriality, not from insufficient proof that the discovery would have changed the outcome. No motion for continuance was at issue in the appeal. Likewise, no motion for continuance was at issue in Data Disc, Inc. v. Systems Technology Associates, Inc., 557 F.2d 1280 (9th Cir.1977). The issue was whether discovery regarding a jurisdiction issue should have been allowed, not whether more time should have been allowed before trial.
*1003Sablan v. Department of Finance, 856 F.2d 1317 (9th Cir.1988) affirmed a denial of a continuance. The dispute was about attorneys’ fees. The government wanted a continuance to do more discovery regarding the amount, but all that was at issue on appeal was appellee’s entitlement to fees as prevailing party. We held that there was no prejudice because the government sought no information “calculated to provide facts germane to the ‘prevailing party’ issue.” Id. at 1321-22. Our test of “prejudice” was thus whether the discovery was calculated to provide information “germane” to the issue, not whether it would have caused the case the reach a different result. The majority does not suggest that the discovery sought by Mr. Martel’s lawyer was not “germane.”
The case at bar falls exactly into the class of cases like Flynt and 2.61 Acres, where we have held that the prejudice requirement was satisfied, and outside the class of cases like Lane and Butcher’s Union, where we have held that it was not. Like those cases in the first class, and unlike those in the second, appellant has specified what he wanted to do with more time — get more documents from the Internal Investigation Bureau investigation files and personnel files, and depose the deputies who participated in the arrest. And as the Sabían panel put it, the information sought was reasonably calculated to produce facts germane to the issue before the district court. Sablan, 856 F.2d at 1321-22.
According to the standard for prejudice universally applied by our prior precedents, appellant did demonstrate “substantial and actual prejudice.” Mr. Beck specifically declared what evidence he wanted and why he had been precluded from getting it. That satisfies Sabían. Additionally, the deposition testimony from the deputies was clearly germane to the issue of liability. That satisfies the prejudice requirement of Flynt. Could Mr. Martel and his lawyer prove that the outcome would have changed if they had been granted extra time to do the discovery? No, not without knowing the outcome of the depositions before they occurred. But that is not the standard we have applied in the past, and I respectfully suggest that we err in doing so today. We do not need an expensive transcript to apply the test of prejudice established by our precedents: whether the denial of the continuance resulted in an inability to collect material evidence or locate material witnesses. That test is satisfied.

C. Speed and Justice

As the above explication of our precedents demonstrates, appellant in this case has indeed demonstrated “actual and substantial prejudice,” as the term has traditionally been construed in continuance cases. The majority opinion puts a new gloss on the term, requiring more than we have required before. It disposes of the appeal entirely on the basis of failure to show prejudice, so diligence, usefulness, and inconvenience, the other three Flynt factors, are not reached or considered. Of course, we can change our course in an en banc decision, so it is not enough for me to say that we are changing course. I must say why we should not. While I fully agree with the traditionally restrictive and deferential review we give to denials of continuances, I nevertheless think that the “rocket docket,” allowing three months from answer to trial, gives up too much justice for the speed it gains.
Ever since Roscoe Pound said “justice delayed is justice denied” some people have inferred that faster is always better. But too much speed as well as too much delay can deny justice. Speed of the litigation process should be managed so that the truth, not the speed, determines the outcome. One reason why “the law’s delay” is an ancient phrase is that fair resolution of a dispute takes time.
Why should this case have taken more than three months to prepare? The reason is that in civil litigation, the federal rules of civil procedure make discovery the core of trial preparation. Most cases settle after the lawyers find out the facts, and determine that their estimates of value overlap. For those that go to trial, discovery typically establishes the evidentiary basis for the jury’s verdict. Under the deadlines established by the federal rules, and the practicalities for making the discovery provided for, three months allows too little time for discovery. There doubtless are individual cases where, in a status and scheduling conference *1004shortly after commencement, the district judge may exercise reasonable discretion to limit discovery and accelerate trial, but no such individualized discretion was exercised to bar discovery in this case. The issue on appeal in the case at bar was time for discovery, not appropriateness of the discovery.
Mr. Martel’s lawyer had a schizophrenic, delusional client who was unlikely to be of great help in preparing the case. There had been no criminal trial, because Mr. Martel was not charged with a crime, so Mr. Beck could not read a transcript to see what the deputies said about the incident. He had diligently pursued the paper discovery — interrogatories and requests for production— but it had not yet been completed, evidently because of a good faith dispute about what was discoverable, and perhaps because of secretarial carelessness in the defense attorney’s office or sheriffs office in copying the Internal Investigation Bureau file. The rules generally allow thirty days for responses to paper discovery, and that much time or more is generally necessary for the document searches necessary for compliance. Mr. Beck had a good reason to have delayed his depositions — -he was exceedingly busy in other trials throughout the summer. Based on the local rules, he had a right to accept the case and plan his handling of it on the assumption that it would not go to trial before October at the earliest.
The delays in this case were not unusual. Before a lawyer can serve paper discovery or make a motion to amend, he must review the file, think about what discovery would be worth doing, and draft the papers to accomplish it. When a lawyer receives such papers, she must read them, mail them to her client, and advise her client on response duties. The client must then determine how the information can be found and who should look for it, direct an appropriate search, assemble the material, and produce it.
Every detail of every step takes time. Sending papers means a lawyer dictates them, a secretary types them, the lawyer revises them, the secretary returns the final copies, the lawyer signs them and gives the secretary directions for service, the secretary photocopies and mails them, and the post office delivers them. Responding to discovery means responding counsel reads the papers, dictates instructions to her clients, goes through the same process of getting the papers from conception to delivery. The client assigns people to look in file cabinets, put yellow stickies and paper clips on materials in the files, consult the lawyer on the telephone about whether various documents are meant to be included, photocopy designated papers, write explanations and responses, and send them to the lawyer.
This adds up to weeks even when there are no special difficulties. That is probably why the rules allow thirty days for response. Some of this delay could be avoided, if instead of processing papers in the ordinary ways, all the lawyers, clients and secretaries left their desks and did everything together, orally, at the same time. But that would greatly increase the expense. The clients would have to pay the lawyers to stand around with the secretaries as they went through the file cabinets, the secretaries would have to stand around as the lawyers read and tabbed material, and everyone would have to stand around as the files were disassembled and the discoverable pieces photocopied. Much advance preparation by the lawyers and clients would be needed for such important and fast moving discovery. The cheapest way to get the routine paper discovery done is usually the routine, somewhat slow way described.
I can see no good reason for the federal courts to tell lawyers, “if you accept a case, you should depose the witnesses immediately, and be prepared to treat it as a priority so that it can go to trial in three months.” This conflicts with the requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 1, that the rules be construed to secure “inexpensive” resolution of disputes. Most lawyers are already quite busy, as Mr. Beck was, when they take on a new case. That is good, not bad. It keeps fees down. Lawyers’ fees must be higher, or their incomes lower, if they cannot manage the scheduling of cases so that they can keep busy all the time. If federal district court eases must take on the kind of priority the “rocket docket” requires, then lawyers defending them must maintain a staff of under*1005employed attorneys to whom they can assign the work. That raises prices on the defense side. On the plaintiffs’ contingent fee side, prices are raised by rejecting cases unless liability is highly likely and damages are great. A price increase to plaintiffs typically manifests itself in rejection of cases with strong liability but smaller damages, such as injuries but no death, paralysis or brain damage. That reduces the availability of a remedy for violations of constitutional rights. On both sides, too much speed makes the case more expensive to litigate.
Too much speed also has a corrosive effect on civility. The traditional answer, when a lawyer calls an adversary and says “would you give me an extension, so that I can go to my children’s summer camp parents’ day?” is “Yes, of course.” But a highly compressed schedule requires that the answer be “sorry, I can’t.” That forces the lawyers into court to claim bad faith discovery demands, bad faith responses, and make other attacks on each other which would often be unnecessary if they had time to work out reasonable and practical discovery exchanges. The less pleasant lawyers’ work becomes, the more they will charge to do it.
Increased expense and loss of civility are not the only, or the most important, casualties of too rapid a docket. The most important requirement in Rule 1, and in any system of justice, is that the system be just. A verdict, as the etymology of the word implies, should be true. Justice requires that the outcomes be reasonably reliable. After all, we could get speedy and inexpensive dispute resolution by flipping coins. Justice requires reliable, that is, true, verdicts. Too much speed reduces reliability, so produces less just outcomes. More verdicts are likely to be false if federal civil cases go to trial so quickly that reasonable discovery cannot be completed first.
In most cases, both sides have facts which it would be to their advantage that the other side not find out. For example, in this ease, hypothetically, Mr. Martel might have preferred that the defense not find out that he had not been taking his prescribed medication to control his psychosis, and the defense might have preferred that the plaintiff not find out about some differences in perception, recollection and judgment among the deputies. If there is ample time for discovery, then these sorts of things are likely to be found out. But if there is not, the probability of disclosure is reduced. The value of hiding evidence is much greater if the risk of discovery is reduced. If the case proceeds too speedily to trial, the jury is likely not to hear some critical evidence, because it will never have been discovered by the party to whose advantage it would be to bring it out.
This is not to suggest that lawyers would routinely hide evidence they know they should produce. Often it takes considerable time, thought and effort for parties to discover their own evidence, particularly if they are multidepartmental institutions, or if they do not yet fully understand what will turn out to be relevant. In this case, it is significant that neither side could prepare it in three months. The plaintiff needed, but was denied, more time to get the facts on liability, which were largely under defense control. The defense needed, and was given, more time to get the facts on damages, which were under plaintiffs control.
Many lawyers prudently delay depositions until they have received the responses to paper discovery. That way they know what to ask. Depositions are expensive. They can often be more focused, shorter, cheaper and fewer, as well as more productive of truth, if they are preceded by paper discovery. Sometimes the paper discovery facilitates settlement or dismissal without the expense of depositions. Professor Keeton explains why depositions are often best delayed until after paper discovery:
Another reason often relied upon in delaying the deposition of an adverse party or witness is the desire for completion of all practical investigation before the deposi-,. tion is taken, so that the lawyer taking it for discovery purposes will be better informed as to matters concerning which it will be wise for him to question the adverse witness or party.
Robert E. Keeton, Trial Tactics and Methods 382 (1954). The “rocket docket” forces lawyers to notice up all possible depositions as soon as they get the case, even though that is *1006likely greatly to increase expense and reduce the truth-seeking value of the depositions.

III. CONCLUSION

In this case, appellant demonstrated substantial and actual prejudice as the term has traditionally been understood in the context of review of denials of continuances. We should apply the Flynt criteria and reverse, as we did in our earlier panel decision. Federal procedure should provide “just, speedy, and inexpensive” resolution of disputes. The “rocket docket,” and our decision in this case, sacrifice two of those desiderata to the third. Cutting the time from answer to trial to three months is not worth the burden it imposes on justice.

. This is the motion resolved by stipulation, as described above.