Summary
Judge Becerra’s April 3, 2025 scheduling order (docketed April 4, 2025) setting the pretrial deadlines and trial date in Doe v. Bonnell. The order locks in a May 18, 2026 trial date, a December 16, 2025 discovery cutoff, and a January 30, 2026 dispositive motion deadline. It explicitly warns that “the Court has selected the trial date and dispositive motion deadline that the Parties proposed in their Joint Scheduling Report” and will not extend those deadlines absent extraordinary circumstances.
Key Points
- Trial: two-week period beginning May 18, 2026 at 9:30 a.m.
- Calendar Call: May 12, 2026 at 10:00 a.m.
- Discovery cutoff: December 16, 2025 — gives parties from scheduling order entry (April 4, 2025) through December 16, 2025 for fact/expert discovery, ~8.5 months from the scheduling order and ~10 months from the complaint filing (February 18, 2025).
- Expert disclosures: October 16, 2025 (initial); November 16, 2025 (rebuttal).
- Mediation: December 23, 2025.
- Dispositive motions / Daubert: January 30, 2026.
- Pretrial motions: March 30, 2026. Joint pretrial stipulation: May 5, 2026.
- Continuance warning: “A motion for continuance will not be considered unless it is filed at least thirty days prior to the scheduled trial date.”
- Discovery matters referred to Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres.
Newsletter Angles
- The scheduling order is the baseline against which the plaintiff’s April 8, 2026 continuance motion (ECF 227) must be judged: the deadlines were set by the parties’ own joint scheduling report, and Judge Becerra flagged in April 2025 that she would not extend them.
- The ten-month discovery window is the “clock” an essay on litigation-as-punishment can anchor to.
Entities Mentioned
- Hon. Jacqueline Becerra — presiding U.S. District Judge
- Hon. Edwin G. Torres — Magistrate Judge for discovery
- Doe v. Bonnell (1-25-cv-20757) — the case
Notes
- This is the operative scheduling order; all subsequent deadline disputes (ECF 227 continuance motion, ECF 235 opposition) reference it.