Howard v. Cox ( 2021 )

Attorney General 2 AUSTIN T. BARNUM (Bar No. 15174) Deputy Attorney General 3 State of Nevada Office of the Attorney General 4 555 East Washington Ave., Suite 3900 Las Vegas, Nevada 89101 5 (702) 486-0661 (phone) (702) 486-3773 (fax) 6 Email: abarnum@ag.nv.gov 7 Attorneys for Defendants Minor Adams, Romeo Aranas, Sonya Clark, James G. Cox, 8 James Dzurenda, Jo Gentry, Kyle Groover, Benedicto Gutierrez, Julio Mesa, Wilfredo Piscos, 9 Conrad Porter, Francisco Sanchez, David Tristan, Joselo Vicuna and Dean Willett 10 11 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 12 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 13 REGINALD C. HOWARD, Case No. 2:17-cv-01002-JAD-BNW 14 Plaintiff, DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO VACATE THE ORDER 15 v. SCHEDULING SETTLEMENT CONFERENCE (ECF NO. 81) AND 16 GREG COX, et al., RESCHEDULE (FIRST REQUEST) 17 Defendants. 18 Defendants, Minor Adams, Romeo Aranas, Sonya Clark, James G. Cox, James 19 Dzurenda, Jo Gentry, Kyle Groover, Benedicto Gutierrez, Julio Mesa, Wilfredo Piscos, 20 Conrad Porter, Francisco Sanchez, David Tristan, Joselo Vicuna, and Dean Willett, by and 21 through counsel, Aaron D. Ford, Nevada Attorney General, and Austin T. Barnum, Deputy 22 Attorney General, hereby submit this motion to vacate and reschedule the settlement 23 conference currently set for November 19, 2021, at 09:00 a.m. to the first half of December 24 2021 on a date convenient to the Court. The Motion is based upon the attached 25 memorandum of points and authorities, the pleadings herein on file, and any other evidence 26 the Court determines is appropriate. 27 /// 28 /// 2 Defendant respectfully requests this Court to vacate the scheduled settlement 3 conference and reschedule to the first half of December 2021 at the Court’s convenience. 4 The Court ordered a settlement conference and scheduled said conference for November 5 19, 2021. ECF No. 81. The Court’s order mandated parties with settlement authority to 6 attend. Id. at 2:1-10. The Tort Claims Manager, a non-party member of the defense, retains 7 settlement authority for monetary settlements above $500. This makes the Tort Claims 8 Manager a required attendee. The Tort Claims Manager has three separate Early 9 Mediation Conferences with the Federal District Court scheduled for the same day. The 10 Torts Claims Manager advised their schedule is more open in the first half of December 11 2021. 12 Additionally, the previous Deputy Attorney General and Senior Deputy Attorney 13 General assigned to this case left the employ of the State of Nevada’s Office of the Attorney 14 General a short time before this order from the Court. Undersigned counsel returned to the 15 office from long-term military orders on October 4, 2021. Counsel was provided a full case 16 load on the same day and reviewed this case on October 5, 2021. 17 II. LEGAL ARGUMENT 18 Defendant respectfully requests this Court vacate the order scheduling a settlement 19 conference because good cause exists. District Courts have inherent power to control their 20 dockets. Hamilton Copper & Steel Corp. v. Primary Steel, Inc., 898 F.2d 1428, 1429 (9th 21 Cir. 1990) (citation excluded). “[T]he court may, for good cause, extend time . . . if a request 22 is made, before the original time or its extension expires.” FED. R. OF CIV. PROC. 6(b)(1)(A). 23 “A motion . . . to extend any date set by . . . scheduling order must . . . be supported by a 24 showing of good cause for the extension.” Nevada Local R. 26-3. The Tort Claims Manager 25 is a required attendee to this conference. This is the only person authorized to settle claims 26 over $500. This person has three separate Early Mediation Conferences scheduled by the 27 court on the same day. Additionally, undersigned counsel was assigned this case and a full 28 case load. Undersigned counsel will benefit from the additional time to properly prepare 1 ||/for this settlement conference and his role as legal adviser to the Defendants and 2 ||individuals authorized to settle this case. 3 CONCLUSION 4 Defendant respectfully requests this Court vacate the order scheduling a settlement 5 ||conference and reschedule the settlement conference in the first half of December 2021. 6 DATED this 13th day of October, 2021. 7 Respectfully submitted, 8 AARON D. FORD 9 Attorney General By: /s/ Austin T. Barnum 10 Austin T. Barnum (Bar No. 15174) Deputy Attorney General 11 Attorneys for Defendants 12 13 14 15 16 17 Order IT IS ORDERED that ECF No. 83 is GRANTED. The Settlement 18 Conference scheduled for 11/19/2021 is VACATED and 19 RESCHEDULED to 12/6/2021 at 9:00 a.m. 20 On 11/29/2021, parties and counsel must send their confidential written evaluation statement and preferred e-mail address for the 21 Zoom invitation to judicial clerk Radia Amari at 99 radia_amari@nvd.uscourts.gov. 23 A pre-Settlement Conference telephonic conference is set for 12/3/2021 at 3:00 p.m. 24 25 IT ISSO ORDERED 26 DATED: 4:51 pm, October 14, 2021 27 ug le weet 28 BRENDA WEKSLER UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 2 I certify that I am an employee of the State of Nevada, Office of the Attorney General, 3 and that on October 13, 2021, I electronically filed the foregoing DEFENDANTS’ 4 MOTION TO VACATE THE ORDER SCHEDULING SETTLEMENT 5 CONFERENCE (ECF NO. 81) AND RESCHEDULE (FIRST REQUEST), via this 6 Court’s electronic filing system. Parties who are registered with this Court’s electronic 7 filing system will be served electronically. 8 Reginald Howard, #13891 Ely State Prison 9 P.O. Box 1989 Ely, Nevada 89301 10 ESP_LawLibrary@doc.nv.gov Plaintiff, Pro Se 11 /s/ Sheri Regalado 12 Sheri Regalado, an employee of the Office of the Nevada Attorney General 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28