Judge: Mark H. Epstein, Case: 22SMCV02596, Date: 2024-08-21 Tentative Ruling

If the parties wish to submit on the tentative ruling and avoid a court appearance on the matter, the moving party must contact the opposing party and all other parties who have appeared in the action and confirm that each will submit on the tentative ruling. Please call the court no later than 4:30 p.m. on the court day before the hearing, leave a message with the court clerk at (310) 260-3629 advising her that all parties will submit on the tentative ruling and waive hearing, and finally, serve notice of the Court's ruling on all parties entitled to receive service. If any party declines to submit on the tentative ruling, then no telephone call is necessary, and all parties should appear at the hearing.

Case Number: 22SMCV02596    Hearing Date: August 21, 2024    Dept: I

The court would normally DENY the motion.  Good cause has not been shown.  The fact that defense lead counsel has another trial is not sufficient.  For that to be sufficient, counsel would have to explain why that was not brought to the court’s attention when the trial was set last August.  If the other case was set for trial after this case was set for trial, the court would need to understand why it is that the other judge was not made aware of the conflict with the instant case.  The fact that defense counsel double books is not really this court’s concern.  (The court also notes that the counsel with the conflict did not provide a declaration, so as a technical matter there is no evidence of the conflict, but the court will overlook that.)  The defense also states it has not finished discovery.  But that was the whole point of showing diligence.  The case has been pending for over two years.  The court has no reason to believe that defense counsel began moving forward with diligence until the last few months.  What the court was expecting to see was the efforts that have been made for at least the last year to get the discovery done.  As to mediation, the court ordered mediation to be completed no later than February 29, 2024.  The fact that the parties elected to view that order as more of a suggestion is, again, no cause to continue the trial.  In short, there has been no showing of diligence or cause made.  

But that said, there is a very good chance that the court will be engaged in trial on September 30, 2024.  While the court could simply deny the motion and wait and see, there is a point at which denying the motion serves no truly useful purpose other than to make the parties’ lives miserable.  Because the court will likely be unavailable for trial on September 30, 2024, the court will reluctantly GRANT the motion.  The court will discuss convenient dates with the parties, but the court will have little tolerance for anything but truly unavoidable conflicts.  The court makes no promise as to what the continued date might be—it could well be during the holiday season.  Further, on whatever day is chosen, this case will have the lowest priority of the cases ready for trial and where the parties want to go to trial.  The court will not bump a case being handled by diligent parties and counsel for a case where that was not done.