McDonald v. Molina Health Care Inc ( 2021 )

THE HONORABLE JOHN C. COUGHENOUR 1 2 3 4 5 6 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON 8 AT SEATTLE 9 MARK MCDONALD, CASE NO. C20-1189-JCC 10 Plaintiff, ORDER 11 v. 12 MOLINA HEALTHCARE, INC., and MOLINA HEALTHCARE OF WASHINGTON, INC., 13 Defendants. 14 15 This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiff’s motion to continue the trial date and 16 amend the case schedule. (Dkt. No. 28). Having thoroughly considered the parties’ briefing and 17 the relevant record, the Court finds oral argument unnecessary and hereby DENIES the motion 18 for the reasons explained below. 19 A court's scheduling order “may be modified only for good cause and with the judge's 20 consent.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4). A party demonstrates good cause for modifying a scheduling 21 order by showing that, despite the exercise of due diligence, the scheduled deadlines cannot be 22 met. See Zivkovic v. Southern Calif. Edison Co., 302 F.3d 1080, 1087–88 (9th Cir.2002) (finding 23 that the moving party failed to demonstrate good cause for a continuance where it so moved four 24 months after the scheduling order was issued). If the party seeking a modification did not 25 exercise diligence, then the motion for modification should be denied. Id. 26 1 Here, Plaintiff waited until the last day of the discovery period before requesting a 2 continuance. (See Dkt. No. 19, 28.) He did not take any deposition nor serve any discovery in the 3 eight months since the case schedule had been issued. (Dkt. No. 33 at 6.) Plaintiff indicates he 4 wishes to extend the deadline in order to facilitate mediation, but Defendants assert that Plaintiff 5 did not respond to their earlier contact regarding mediation, only replying four days prior to the 6 discovery deadline in order to communicate its wish to move that deadline. (See Dkt. Nos. 28 at 7 2, 33 at 7.) This timeline suggests Plaintiff was not diligent in complying with the Court’s 8 scheduling order. 9 Further, Defendants had already started preparing to file their motion for summary 10 judgment, (see id.), which is currently before the Court. (Dkt. No. 29.) Accordingly, the Court 11 finds Plaintiff has not demonstrated good cause to continue the trial date or modify the current 12 scheduling order and that doing so would unnecessarily prejudice Defendants. 13 For the reasons described above, Plaintiff’s motion (Dkt. No. 28) is DENIED. 14 DATED this 27th day of December 2021. 15 16 17 A 18 19 20 John C. Coughenour 21 UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 22 23 24 25 26