Uchikura v. Willis Towers Watson Call Center ( 2023 )

1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 8 9 Vladik Uchikura, No. CV-22-00002-PHX-DWL 10 Plaintiff, ORDER 11 v. 12 Willis Towers Watson Call Center, et al., 13 Defendants. 14 15 Defendants have filed a motion for extension of time to respond to pro se 16 Plaintiff’s Third Amended Complaint (“TAC”). (Doc. 42.) Defendants seek a one-week 17 extension because their counsel “has had a family emergency that required time away 18 from the office.” (Id.) Defense counsel contacted Plaintiff to see if he would agree to the 19 extension request, but “Plaintiff stated he would oppose the request, despite Defendants 20 not having opposed Plaintiff’s requests for extensions.” (Id.) Plaintiff has filed four 21 motions for deadline extensions (Docs. 10, 19, 26, 31), each of which was granted. This 22 is Defendants’ first request for an extension in this matter. 23 The motion will be granted without further briefing. There is no conceivable 24 argument against permitting Defendants a one-week extension, particularly when the 25 reason for the extension is that their counsel had a family emergency. Agreeing to 26 reasonable extension requests is a basic civility in litigation, one that Defendants have 27 extended to Plaintiff. Plaintiff is reminded that “not only must pro se litigants follow the 28 same rules of procedure that govern other litigants, but they must also conduct || themselves with the same civility, decorum, and professionalism that is expected of 2|| attorneys,” including “the professional courtesy of agreeing to reasonable requests to 3 || extend deadlines.” Martin v. Pizza, 2022 WL 4000640, *2 (D. Nev. 2022). 4 Accordingly, 5 IT IS ORDERED that Defendants’ motion for extension of time (Doc. 42) is 6|| granted. The deadline for Defendants to respond to the TAC is extended to March 14, 7\| 2023. 8 Dated this 28th day of February, 2023. 9 10 Lom ee” ll f t _o—— Dominic W. Lanza 12 United States District Judge 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 _2-