PRODOX, LLC, Plaintiff, v. PROFESSIONAL DOCUMENT SERVICES, INC., Defendant Case No. 2:20-cv-02035-JAD-NJK United States District Court, D. Nevada Filed June 22, 2021 Counsel F. Christopher Austin, Weide & Miller, Ltd., Las Vegas, NV, Lance C. Venable, Pro Hac Vice, Law Office of Lance C. Venable, PLLC, Chandler, AZ, for Plaintiff. Brent Blakely, Pro Hac Vice, Blakely Law Group, Manhattan Beach, CA, Brian K. Walters, Craig J. Mariam, Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, LLP, Las Vegas, NV, for Defendant. Koppe, Nancy J., United States Magistrate Judge ORDER *1 Pending before the Court is Defendant's motion for a protective order. Docket No. 33. For the reasons discussed more fully below, the motion is hereby DENIED. “[I]t is useful to reiterate a settled and universally recognized proposition: a party is not empowered to grant itself, de facto, the relief it seeks from the Court by delaying in filing a motion to such an extent that it cannot be resolved prior to the scheduled event.” Nationstar Mtg., LLC v. Flamingo Trails No. 7 Landscape Maintenance Assoc., 316 F.R.D. 327, 336 (D. Nev. 2016). “The odor of gamesmanship is especially pronounced in the context of discovery disputes where it appears parties routinely seek to delay their discovery obligations by filing [a] motion for protective order on the eve of a ... noticed deposition.” Cardoza v. Bloomin' Brands, Inc., 141 F. Supp. 3d 1137, 1141 (D. Nev. 2015); see also Caraway v. Chesapeake Exploration LLC, 269 F.R.D. 627, 628 (E.D. Tex. 2010) (decrying the filing of a motion for protective order the evening before a deposition as embodying tactics “dredged up from the cesspool of ‘Rambo’ litigation [that] cannot be countenanced” and as an improper attempt to “present an opponent with a fait accompli”). “When an attorney knows of the existence of a dispute and unreasonably delays in bringing that dispute to the Court's attention until the eleventh hour, the attorney has created the emergency situation and the request for relief may be denied outright.” See Cardoza, 141 F. Supp. 3d at 1143. The instant motion seeks relief from a Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) deposition set for June 24, 2021. Docket No. 33-1 at 6. Defendant has known of Plaintiff's intent to take this deposition since at least June 2, 2021. See id. at 8 (proof of service). Further, the parties' meet and confer efforts with respect to the instant motion were purportedly completed on June 4, 2021.[1] Id. at 2. Nonetheless, Defendant did not file the instant motion until June 22, 2021, at 1:10 p.m., two days before the date set for the Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) deposition. See Docket No. 33 (notice of electronic filing). Defendant submits that its counsel “was under the impression that Plaintiff had taken Defendant's deposition off calendar pending the resolution of Defendant's motion for summary judgment.” Docket No. 33 at 5. Defendant, however, fails to offer any reasonable explanation for how, and why, its counsel came to that erroneous conclusion. Nonetheless, any informal agreement to stay the Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) deposition until the Court resolves Defendant's pending motion for summary judgment would be improper, particularly as any agreement would necessarily result in the deposition being taken after the close of discovery. See Docket No. 17. Parties may not unilaterally agree to stay discovery absent a Court order. See Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. Tracinda Corp., 175 F.R.D. 554, 555 (D. Nev. 1997) (“[T]he moving party must show good cause in order for a court to justify staying discovery”); see also Johnson v. Mammoth, 975 F.2d at 604, 610 (quoting Gestetner Corp. v. Case Equip. Co., 108 F.R.D. 138, 141 (D. Me. 1985)) (“A scheduling order ‘is not a frivolous piece of paper, idly entered, which can be cavalierly disregarded by counsel without peril’ ”); Tradebay, LLC v. eBay, Inc., 278 F.R.D. 597, 601 (D. Nev. 2011) (“The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not provide for automatic or blanket stays of discovery when a potentially dispositive motion is pending”). The parties have not requested, and the Court has not ordered, a stay of discovery in this case. See Docket. The parties, therefore, are required to diligently engage in discovery. The instant motion is untimely, and the Court will not reward Defendant by granting the requested relief at the eleventh hour. See Allstate Ins. Co. v. Nassiri, 2011 WL 4905639, at *1 (D. Nev. Oct. 14, 2011) (overruling objections to a magistrate judge's order that denied as untimely a motion seeking relief from a deposition, when the attorney had three weeks' notice of the deposition, but filed the motion for relief from that deposition three days before it was scheduled to take place). *2 Accordingly, Defendant's motion for protective order, Docket No. 33, is hereby DENIED. The Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) deposition must proceed as scheduled, and any failure to appear may result in the imposition of sanctions. IT IS SO ORDERED. Footnotes [1] Defendant submits that, at the meet and confer, it threatened to seek relief from the Court by filing a motion for protective order. Docket No. 33 at 4.