Batchelor, Jr. v. York Holding, Ltd. ( 2024 )

1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 2 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 3 * * * 4 WILLIAM A. BATCHELOR, JR., Case No. 2:24-cv-00239-GMN-EJY 5 Plaintiff, ORDER 6 v. 7 YORK HOLDING, LTD., CHANGQING LIU; RAYFORD INTERNATIONAL INC.; 8 FREDRICK WAID; GREENLAKE REAL ESTATE FUND LLC; DOE INDIVIDUALS 9 1-X; and ROE CORPORATIONS I-X, inclusive, 10 Defendants. 11 12 Pending before the Court is Plaintiff’s Motion for Order Extending Time. ECF No. 20. 13 Plaintiff explains that counsel for Defendant Changqing Liu (“Liu”) refuses to accept service of the 14 Complaint (id. at 1) necessitating Plaintiff’s service on Liu, who resides in China, under Hague 15 Convention protocols that typically take six to nine months to accomplish. Id. Plaintiff further 16 explains that he attempted to effect service on Greenlake Real Estate Fund LLC (“Greenlake”) 17 through counsel; however, service before the deadline did not occur as removal to federal court 18 shortened the time to do so. Id. at 1, 3. Plaintiff requests an extension of time until March 1, 2024 19 to serve Greenlake, and until November 20, 2024 to serve Liu. Id. at 3. 20 I. Discussion 21 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(m) states that if a plaintiff shows “good cause” for failure 22 to timely serve defendants “the court must extend the time for service for an appropriate period.” 23 “Generally, good cause is equated with diligence.” Elliott v. Williams, Case No. 2:19-CV-00383- 24 GMN-BNW, 2021 WL 1612295, at *2 (D. Nev. Apr. 23, 2021). Here, Plaintiff has diligently 25 attempted to contact Defendants’ counsel to effect service, though such attempts were unsuccessful. 26 The short extension to serve Greenlake is supported by good cause as is the extension to serve Liu 27 under the Hague Convention. 1 II. Order 2 Accordingly, and based on the foregoing, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion 3 for Order Extending Time (ECF No. 20) is GRANTED. 4 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that service on Greenlake Real Estate Fund LLC must occur 5 no later than March 1, 2024. 6 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that service on Changqing Liu under the Hague Convention 7 must occur, if possible, no later than November 20, 2024. 8 Dated this 20th day of February, 2024. 9 10 ELAYNA J. YOUCHAH UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27