GMS INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY, INC., Plaintiff, v. G&S SUPPLY, LLC, ET AL., Defendants Civil Case No.: 2:19cv324 United States District Court, E.D. Virginia Filed May 14, 2021 Counsel William A. Lascara, Thomas Saunders Berkley, Jesse Brian Gordon, Jeffrey Dennis Wilson, Daniel Tennyson Berger, Pender & Coward P.C., Virginia Beach, VA, for Plaintiff. James Patrick McNichol, Kelly Guzzo PLC, Fairfax, VA, V. Kathleen Dougherty, Micaylee Alexa Noreen, Jeanne Elizabeth Noonan, Robert William McFarland, McGuireWoods LLP, Norfolk, VA, for Defendants. Leonard, Lawrence R., United States Magistrate Judge ORDER *1 Before the Court is GMS Industrial Supply, Inc.'s motion to compel, filed on April 21, 2021. ECF No. 177. By its motion Plaintiff seeks an Order from the Court compelling Defendants G&S Supply, LLC, et al. to more fully respond to interrogatories and requests for production of documents issued to each Defendant. Id. Plaintiff contends that Defendants' objections to such discovery are impermissible boilerplate or otherwise improper. Id. at 1-5. Plaintiff further contends that Defendants have improperly withheld documents they are obligated to produce. Id. at 5-7. Defendants filed a memorandum in opposition on May 5, 2021, contending that Plaintiff's motion was untimely since it was filed after the close of discovery. ECF No. 180 at 1-4. They further defended their objections and responses on the merits. Id. at 4-7. Plaintiff filed a reply on May 11, 2021, contending that its motion was timely under the Court's Scheduling Order, that Defendants waived their right to rely on the close of discovery as a bar to Plaintiff filing its motion, and that certain evidence suggests Defendants may not have produced all relevant documents. ECF No. 181. Having been fully briefed, the motion is ripe for disposition. Plaintiff proffered substantial numbers of interrogatories and requests for production of documents to each Defendant in this case, including second sets to Defendants G&S Supply, Greer, and Spires. ECF No. 177, attach. 13. According to the spreadsheet submitted by Plaintiff, in the first round of discovery submitted last summer, Defendants provided their answers and objections to the first set of discovery on August 13, 17, and 19, 2020. Id. Dissatisfied with these objections and responses, Plaintiff's counsel sent a lengthy letter to Defendants' counsel detailing the perceived inadequacies on September 24, 2020. Id., attach. 14. Plaintiff served additional written discovery later that year, to which Defendants answered and objected on January 7 and 21, and February 1 and 18, 2021. Id., attach. 13. The Court will not reach the merits of Plaintiff's motion because it is plainly untimely. On December 15, 2020 the Court issued its Rule 16(b) Scheduling Order unambiguously setting out the relevant discovery deadlines in this case. ECF No. 159. Pursuant to that Order, any motion to compel discovery was required to be filed “pursuant to an agreed briefing schedule that provides sufficient time for the Court to rule on the motion before the deadline for the completion of the discovery as set forth in paragraph 5(a).” Id. at ¶ 5. Plaintiff argues that this provision means any such motion must be filed in sufficient time to be resolved before the deadline of expert discovery, which is May 24, 2021, and that they have done so. This argument is a patent misreading of the Court's Order under the circumstances presented here. Pursuant to the Scheduling Order, Plaintiff's fact discovery cutoff date was March 15, 2021.[1] Id. Plaintiff's motion to compel is directed explicitly towards its fact discovery, not its expert discovery. Consequently, this motion should have been submitted long before April 21, 2021. *2 This is all the more apparent based on Plaintiff's failure to justify why it did not file the motion sooner. As early as August 2020 Plaintiff contested Defendants' answers and objections. Even in February 2021, when Defendants responded to Plaintiff's subsequent discovery, Plaintiff knew it had a dispute regarding Defendants' responses, yet still waited for two more months before submitting its motion. Moreover, despite the Court's admonition that motions to compel should be submitted jointly if at all possible “so that the dispute can be addressed in an expedited manner,”[2] Plaintiff apparently was unable to reach an agreement with Defendants to do so, and thus submitted its motion so that full briefing was required and with it, further delay. Even then, Plaintiff failed to ask for expedited resolution to the motion. Plaintiff contends that Defendants “waived” their right to rely on the close of discovery as a bar to Plaintiff's motion. Defendant's cannot “waive” the deadlines imposed by the Court to control and protect its docket. Motions to compel impact the Court's resources at least every bit as much as they do the parties. As the Scheduling Order explicitly advised, “Counsel are reminded that discovery disputes requiring judicial intervention are strongly disfavored.” Id. This dispute was proffered well after deadline for bringing such disputes to the Court's attention, and thus runs afoul of the Court's Scheduling Order. Accordingly, Plaintiff's motion to compel, ECF No. 177, is DENIED. The Clerk is DIRECTED to forward a copy of this Order to all counsel of record. It is so ORDERED. Norfolk, Virginia Footnotes [1] The Court notes that on February 17, 2021, it approved an Order extending the time to complete certain discovery. ECF No. 170. However, that Order only extended the deadlines for taking depositions and conducting expert discovery. Id. at 1. Even in that regard, the Order only extended Plaintiff's deadline for taking fact depositions to April 15, which deadline passed a week before Plaintiff filed its motion. Id. The Order did not extend discovery deadlines in any other respects, specifically providing: “All other deadline requirements in the Scheduling Order shall remain in effect.” Id. at 2. [2] ECF No. 159,¶ 5.