Opinion
No. CIV S-07-0898 MCE EFB P.
March 23, 2009
ORDER
Plaintiff is a state prisoner proceeding without counsel in an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiff has moved to compel discovery, asserting that defendants have not responded to his discovery requests. He seeks an order compelling them to serve responses. As explained below, the motion is denied.
It appears that plaintiff intended to file copies of his discovery requests as exhibits in support of his motion. Pl.'s Mot. to Compel, at 1. However, the docket does not reflect that exhibits were filed with this motion. Defendants do not contest the allegation that plaintiff served discovery requests. Rather, they merely assert that they were not obliged to respond.
On July 11, 2008, the court issued a schedule governing this case. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 16(b). Pursuant to that schedule, all motions to compel discovery had to be filed no later than November 7, 2008. All discovery requests had to be filed no later than 60 days before that date, which was September 8, 2008. Plaintiff asserts that he served his discovery requests on September 18, 2008, ten days after they should have been served. On September 25, 2008, plaintiff requested that the court modify the schedule to permit him to file discovery requests beyond the time permitted in the schedule. The court denied this request because plaintiff failed to explain what he had done to comply with the schedule. In short, plaintiff served his discovery requests late and failed to obtain a modification of the schedule. Therefore, defendants were not obliged to respond to the discovery requests. See Harris v. City of Seattle, 315 F. Supp.2d 1112, 1118-1119 (W. D. Wash. 2004) (denying motion to compel discovery on the ground that discovery requests were served the date discovery closed). There is no basis for granting plaintiff's motion to compel.
Accordingly, it is ORDERED that plaintiff's November 5, 2008, motion to compel responses to his discovery requests is denied.