Judge: Mark H. Epstein, Case: 22SMCV00470, Date: 2025-05-27 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22SMCV00470    Hearing Date: May 27, 2025    Dept: I

This is a stipulated motion to continue the trial.  Right now, the trial date is October 13, 2025.

This is an employment law action.  And the trial date was set long ago.  Indeed, the court held its CMC on December 2, 2022, and set the original trial date at that time.  The original trial date was August 25, 2025, so the trial has already been continued for a couple of months.

In any event, the court requested information as to the parties’ diligence in preparing the case for trial.  The court is not convinced that there has been diligence here.  Plaintiff contends that she intends to amend her complaint.  Maybe, but the court has not seen the amendment nor does the court understand why an amendment is needed or is being brought so late.  The parties also state that discovery is ongoing, but again, the court sees no evidence of diligence.  Trial continuances are disfavored; they are granted only on an affirmative showing of good cause.  (Cal. R. Ct. 3.1332.(c).)  There are a number of factors the court should consider in deciding whether to continue a trial, and the court has considered them.  But the court cannot get past the notion that the case has been pending for three years and it is still not ready. 

Defendants also suggest that the resolution of a case pending in Contra Costa provides a reason to continue.  That case, Murdock v. Aspen Surgery Center, LLC is over and the judgment was issued in September 2024.  There is no explanation as to why the resolution of that class action case requires a continuance of this case.  It could well be that the Murdock case bars plaintiff from litigating some causes of action, but that hardly warrants a trial continuance.

The court is not trying to be difficult.  Back when the court had a reasonably sized docket, the court might well have granted this motion just on the ground that the court’s job is not to make counsel’s life miserable.  The problem is that the court has over 1250 cases on its docket and they all want trial dates.  Right now, the court is setting initial trial dates 21 months after the CMC.  And even that type of setting assumes that 95% of the court’s cases will resolve short of trial and without a continuance.  In other words, the court simply has no room to move a case absent a showing of an unforeseen and unforeseeable circumstance and there is no such showing here.

That said, in a sense, the court has already granted the motion in part by moving the trial from August to October.  The court sees no reason to move it further.  But that said, there is some reason to believe that the court will be otherwise engaged on that date.  If such is the case, the court will revisit the motion to continue.

The motion is DENIED for now.