Tellabs Ops., Inc. v. Fijitsu, Ltd., No. 09 C 4530, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Feb. 13, 2014) (Cole, Mag. J.).
Judge Cole denied plaintiff/counter-defendant Tellab’s motion to expedite ruling upon Tellab’s motion to reclassify certain confidential documents or that Tellab’s executives could review the documents before a looming mediation. The Court denied the motion for several reasons:
- Tellabs should not have waited until four weeks before a mediation to complete briefing about documents that were reviewed as much as one year ago.
- With the motion noticed four days before the mediation and eight categories and hundreds of pages to review, the Court could not meaningfully consider the issues.
- The motion to expedite was the 1,185th document filed in the five-year-old case, with two prior mediations. Parties and counsel should already be well-versed in the case and ready for mediation based upon the already extensive schedule to date.
- Tellabs offers no reason it could not postpone the mediation instead of expending the Court’s limited resources.
Having denied to expedite its decision, the Court said it would attempt to decide the motion before the mediation.