Gonzalez v. Golden 1 Credit Union ( 2023 )

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 CLAUDIA GONZALEZ, No. 2:21-cv-02394-MCE-DB 12 Plaintiff, 13 v. ORDER 14 GOLDEN 1 CREDIT UNION, 15 Defendant. 16 17 Presently before the Court is Plaintiff Claudia Gonzalez’s (“Plaintiff”) Notice of 18 Voluntary Dismissal in which she seeks to voluntarily dismiss her federal causes of 19 action, but not her state law causes of action, so the case can be “remanded to state 20 court for further proceedings on account of the current backlog in the Eastern District[.]” 21 See ECF No. 25 (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)). Defendant Golden 1 Credit Union 22 (“Defendant”) has filed an Objection. ECF No. 27. For the reasons set forth herein, 23 Defendant’s Objection is SUSTAINED. 24 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1) provides that “the plaintiff may dismiss 25 an action without a court order by filing: (i) a notice of dismissal before the opposing 26 party serves either an answer or a motion for summary judgment; or (ii) a stipulation of 27 dismissal signed by all parties who have appeared.” Here, none of these provisions are 28 /// 1 applicable because there is no stipulation between the parties and Defendant filed an 2 Answer to Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint on November 22, 2021. See ECF No. 16. 3 The Court also finds dismissal of the federal claims only at this juncture would be 4 inappropriate even if Plaintiff sought a court order. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(2). Plaintiff 5 initiated this action in the Northern District of California on September 7, 2021, and 6 pursuant to the parties’ agreement, this action was transferred to the Eastern District of 7 California on December 22, 2021. See ECF Nos. 1, 20. The case was then assigned to 8 this Court and the Initial Pretrial Scheduling Order was issued; based on that Order, the 9 deadlines to complete fact discovery (November 22, 2022) and disclose expert 10 witnesses (January 20, 2023) have since passed. ECF No. 22. As Defendant says, 11 “this matter has progressed too far in federal court for Plaintiff to dismiss her federal 12 claims even with a court order.” ECF No. 27, at 2. In any event, Plaintiff now wanting to 13 have her case transferred to state court, especially after this case has been pending in 14 federal court for over two years, is improper. See Ngoc Lam Che v. San Jose/Evergreen 15 Cmty. Coll. Dist. Found., No. 17-cv-00381-BLF, 2017 WL 2954647, at *3 (N.D. Cal. July 16 11, 2017) (“As an initial matter, this Court could not remand [plaintiff’s] state law claim 17 even if it were to dismiss [plaintiff’s federal] claim, because this action was originally filed 18 in federal court.”) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1447). Plaintiff chose to file her case in federal 19 court and agreed to transfer venue to this District. Furthermore, no dispositive motions 20 have been filed and the current deadline to do so is May 22, 2023. Plaintiff cannot claim 21 to be prejudiced by this District’s backlog if there are no outstanding motions or actions 22 pending before the Court. In fact, Plaintiff’s Notice of Voluntary Dismissal is the first 23 filing on the docket since the case was transferred to this District back in December 24 2021. 25 /// 26 /// 27 /// 28 /// 1 Accordingly, Defendant’s Objection to Plaintiff's Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, 2 | ECF No. 27, is SUSTAINED. The Court will not dismiss Plaintiff's federal causes of 3 | action and remands this case back to state court. 4 IT IS SO ORDERED. 5 | Dated: March 8, 2023 Matar LEK: Whip AX XC - SENIOR UNITED STATES URTRICT JUDGE 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28