Bridwell v. Ideal Cars LLC ( 2021 )

1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 8 9 Jeremy Bridwell, No. CV-19-05006-PHX-JAT 10 Plaintiff, ORDER 11 v. 12 Ideal Cars LLC, 13 Defendant. 14 15 Pending before the Court is Defendant Ideal Cars LLC’s Motion to Dismiss for 16 Failure to Prosecute (Doc. 41). Plaintiff Jeremy Bridwell has not responded, and the Court 17 now rules. 18 I. BACKGROUND 19 On August 21, 2019, Plaintiff filed a complaint alleging that Defendant violated the 20 Truth in Lending Act—particularly, 15 U.S.C. § 1638(a)(5)—by improperly disclosing 21 information related to a car sale. (Doc. 1). In its answer, Defendant generally denied 22 Plaintiff’s allegations of misconduct and counterclaimed to recover the deficiency balance 23 of the vehicle loan. (Doc. 13 at 7). Plaintiff filed an answer and amended his complaint on 24 November 13, 2019, and Defendant filed an answer and amended counterclaim on 25 December 23, 2019. (Docs. 16, 20, 24). 26 The Court issued a Scheduling Order on November 13, 2019, which provided that 27 “all discovery, including depositions of parties, witnesses, and experts, answers to 28 interrogatories, and supplements to interrogatories must be completed by June 5, 2020.” 1 (Doc. 19 at 2). The parties initially participated in discovery (see Doc. 22–23, 25–27), and 2 on May 28, 2020, they jointly moved to extend the discovery deadline by 60 days (Doc. 3 28). The Court granted the motion and extended the deadline to August 4, 2020. (Doc. 29). 4 On July 22, 2020, the parties filed a second joint motion to extend the discovery deadline 5 (Doc. 30), and the Court extended the discovery deadline to October 5, 2020 (Doc. 31). 6 On November 6, 2020, Plaintiff’s counsel filed a motion to withdraw in which 7 counsel stated that they had been unable to contact Plaintiff since April 2020 (Doc. 34),1 8 and the Court granted the motion on December 17, 2020 (Doc. 39). On January 6, 2021, 9 Defendant moved to dismiss the case under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 41(b). 10 II. DISCUSSION 11 Rule 41(b) provides that “[i]f the plaintiff fails to prosecute or to comply with these 12 rules or a court order, a defendant may move to dismiss the action or any claim against it.” 13 In determining whether a plaintiff’s failure to prosecute warrants dismissal pursuant to 14 Rule 41(b), the Court must weigh “(1) the public’s interest in expeditious resolution of 15 litigation; (2) the court’s need to manage its docket; (3) the risk of prejudice to the 16 defendants; (4) the public policy favoring disposition of cases on their merits; and (5) the 17 availability of less drastic sanctions.” Carey v. King, 856 F.2d 1439, 1440 (9th Cir. 1988) 18 (quoting Henderson v. Duncan, 779 F.2d 1421, 1423 (9th Cir. 1986)). 19 Here, the first three factors weigh in favor of dismissal. The Court has already 20 extended the discovery deadline twice in this case. Almost six months have passed since 21 the last deadline, and this case has shown no signs of moving forward since late April 2020. 22 Neither the public interest nor the Court’s need to manage its own docket would be 23 furthered by allowing the case to linger on with no plaintiff to prosecute it. Further, 24 Defendant has already had to incur attorney’s fees in defending this action, which Plaintiff 25 has seemingly abandoned. Although dismissing the case would prevent Defendant from 26 potentially recovering these attorney’s fees, Defendant’s motion makes clear that its 27 preference is to have the matter resolved. The fourth factor, as always, weighs against 28 1 Plaintiff’s counsel originally filed a motion to withdraw on November 2, 2020, which the Court denied without prejudice for failing to comply with local rules. (Docs. 32, 33). || dismissal. 2 The fifth and final factor also weighs in favor of dismissal. The Court has already 3|| ordered Plaintiff's former counsel to attempt to contact Plaintiff, and these attempts were unsuccessful. (Doc. 36). Given that Plaintiff has not responded to counsel’s attempts or 5 || prior Orders from the Court, the Court finds that dismissal is the only remaining option. 6] I. CONCLUSION 7 For the foregoing reasons, 8 IT IS ORDERED that Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss for Failure to Prosecute (Doc. 41) is GRANTED. The Clerk of Court shall dismiss this action and Defendant’s 10 || counterclaim with prejudice and enter judgment accordingly. 11 Dated this 15th day of April, 2021. 12 13 i C 14 James A. Teilborg 15 Senior United States District Judge 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 -3-