(SS) Jennings v. Commissioner of Social Security ( 2021 )

MCGREGOR W. SCOTT 1 United States Attorney 2 DEBORAH LEE STACHEL Regional Chief Counsel, Region IX 3 Social Security Administration CHANTAL R. JENKINS, PA SBN 307531 4 Special Assistant United States Attorney 5 160 Spear Street, Suite 800 San Francisco, California 94105 6 Telephone: (415) 977-8931 Facsimile: (415) 744-0134 7 E-Mail: Chantal.Jenkins@ssa.gov 8 Attorneys for Defendant 9 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 10 EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 11 FRESNO DIVISION 12 13 ) 1:20-cv-01180-SKO MARVIN LOUIS JENNINGS, ) 14 ) Plaintiff, ) POST HOC STIPULATION AND ORDER 15 ) FOR AN EXTENSION OF TIME v. ) 16 ) (Doc. 16) ) 17 ANDREW SAUL, ) Commissioner of Social Security, ) 18 ) Defendant. ) 19 20 IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED, by and between the parties, through their respective 21 counsel of record, that Defendant shall have an extension through June 15, 2021 to respond to 22 Plaintiff’s settlement letter. Defendant’s counsel miscalendared the deadline to respond to 23 Plaintiff’s letter. Counsel apologizes to Plaintiff and the Court for any inconvenience caused by 24 this delay. 25 The parties further stipulate that the Court’s Scheduling Order shall be modified 26 accordingly. 27 28 1 Respectfully submitted, 2 Dated: June 16, 2021 /s/ Melissa Newel by Chantal R. Jenkins* 3 *As authorized via email on June 16, 2021 Melissa Newel 4 Attorney for Plaintiff 5 6 Dated: June 16, 2021 MCGREGOR W. SCOTT United States Attorney 7 DEBORAH LEE STACHEL Regional Chief Counsel, Region IX 8 Social Security Administration 9 10 By: /s/ Chantal R. Jenkins 11 CHANTAL R. JENKINS Special Assistant United States Attorney 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 1 ORDER 2 On June 15, 2021, eight days after Defendant’s confidential letter brief was to be served, 3 Defendant filed a proof of service of his confidential letter brief on that same date. (Doc. 15.) The 4 following day, on June 16, 2021, the parties filed the above stipulation (Doc. 16), requesting an 5 extension of time for Defendant to file his confidential letter brief. 6 The Court may extend time to act after the deadline has expired because of “excusable 7 neglect.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(1)(B). Here, although the stipulation demonstrates good cause under 8 to support the request for extension of time (see Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4)), no such excusable 9 neglect has been articulated—much less shown—to justify the untimeliness of the request. 10 Notwithstanding this deficiency, given the absence of bad faith or prejudice to Plaintiff (as 11 evidenced by his agreement to the extension of time after the deadline), and in view of the liberal 12 construction of Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(1) to effectuate the general purpose of seeing that cases are 13 tried on the merits, see Ahanchian v. Xenon Pictures, Inc., 624 F.3d 1253, 1258–59 (9th Cir. 2010), 14 the Court GRANTS the parties’ stipulated request. The parties are cautioned that future post 15 16 hoc requests for extensions of time will be viewed with disfavor. 17 IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant’s request for an extension of time to June 15, 18 2021, to serve his confidential letter brief is granted. All other deadlines set forth in the Scheduling 19 Order (Doc. 13) are modified accordingly. 20 IT IS SO ORDERED. 21 22 Dated: June 17, 2021 /s/ Sheila K. Oberto . 23 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 24 25 26 27 28