United States District Court, D. Arizona
ORDER
DAVID
G, CAMPBELL SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Burlington
Northern Santa Fe Railway (“BNSF”) has moved to
intervene in this longstanding litigation. Doc. 105. The
motion is fully briefed (Docs. 106, 107, 113), and no party
has requested oral argument. The Court will deny the motion.
I.
Background.
Plaintiffs
filed this action on January 18, 2012. After a round of
initial discovery, Defendant filed a motion to dismiss and
Plaintiffs filed a motion for partial summary judgment. Both
motions were denied by Judge Rosenblatt on September 30,
2014. On June 1, 2015, Judge Rosenblatt stayed the case on
stipulation of the parties to permit settlement talks. Status
reports were filed on February 17, June 2, and November 30,
2016, and on February 28, April 26, June 27, and October 25,
2017.
When
the case was reassigned to the undersigned judge on January
4, 2018 (Doc. 90), the Court promptly set a status conference
that resulted in the following order:
The Court held a status conference with the parties today. To
allow time for Plaintiffs to obtain an appraisal and
Defendant to consider any settlement offer based on the
appraisal, the Court will set a case management conference
for April 18, 2018, at 4:00 p.m. The Court will set a
schedule at the conference for resuming discovery and filing
dispositive motions. One week before the conference, the
parties shall jointly file a proposed schedule for completing
fact and expert discovery and filing motions for summary
judgment. The Court will not bifurcate discovery on
jurisdictional issues, but will require the parties to
proceed on all fronts to complete this longstanding
litigation.
Doc. 94 (emphasis added).
The
case did not settle within the time allowed by this order,
and the Court entered a Case Management Order which required
all fact and expert discovery to be completed by November 30,
2018. Doc. 97. The order required the parties to file letters
summarizing anticipated summary judgment arguments by
November 9, 2018, with summary judgment motions due on
December 21, 2018. Id. The Case Management Order
included this specific caution:
The Deadlines Are Real. The parties are advised that
the Court intends to enforce the deadlines set forth in this
Order, and should plan their litigation activities
accordingly. The parties are specifically informed that the
Court will not, absent truly unusual circumstances, extend
the schedule in this case to accommodate settlement talks.
Id., ¶ 8 (underscoring in original).
BNSF
did not move to intervene until October 12, 2018, more than
six years after the start of this case and only weeks before
the close of all discovery. Doc. 105.
II.
Analysis.
Timeliness
is a requirement for intervention of right and permissive
intervention. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 24(a), (b) (both
requiring a “timely motion”); Arakaki v.
Cayetano, 324 F.3d 1078, 1083 (9th Cir. 2003) (for
intervention of right, “the applicant must timely move
to intervene”); League of United Latin Am. Citizens
v. Wilson, 131 F.3d 1297, 1308 (9th Cir. 1997) (for
permissive intervention, the applicant must show that
“the motion is timely”). To determine whether a
motion is timely, courts consider three factors: “(1)
the stage of the proceeding at which an applicant seeks to
intervene; (2) the prejudice to other parties; and (3) the
reason for and length of the delay.” United States
v. Alisal Water Corp., 370 F.3d 915, 921 (9th Cir. 2004)
(quotation marks and citation omitted).
A.
Stage of ...