Senior v. Circles of Life Residential Care LLC et al

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WO
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA
Tinika Senior,
Plaintiff,
v.
Circles of Life Residential Care LLC, et al.,
Defendants.
No. CV-26-01714-PHX-KML
ORDER
Plaintiff Tinika Senior filed this suit seeking unpaid wages. Senior named as
defendants three limited liability companies (“LLCs”) and two individuals. On April 21,
2026, the individuals filed a joint answer, and each LLC attempted to file an answer. (Docs.
11-14.) The answers were prepared by a certified legal document preparer. See Sobol v.
Alarcon, 131 P.3d 487, 488 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2006) (describing certified legal document
preparer program). While the answers filed by the individuals are appropriate, the answers
allegedly filed by the LLCs are not.
The LLCs can proceed in federal court only through counsel. See Rowland v.
California Men’s Colony, Unit II Men’s Advisory Council, 506 U.S. 194, 203 (1993). A
certified legal document preparer does not qualify as “counsel” for purposes of this
requirement because the preparer cannot provide “any kind of specific advice . . . about
possible legal rights, remedies, defenses, options, or strategies.” Ariz. Code of Judicial
Administration § 7-208(F)(1)(b). The answers filed by the LLCs are stricken and the LLCs
must appear through counsel within fourteen days.
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IT IS ORDERED the answers found at Docs. 12, 13, 14 are STRICKEN. The
companies shall appear through counsel within fourteen days of this order.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED as follows:
The parties are directed to meet, confer, and develop a Rule 26(f) Joint Case
Management Report, which must be filed within 4 weeks of the date of this order. It is
the responsibility of plaintiff(s) to initiate the Rule 26(f) meeting and prepare the Joint Case
Management Report. Defendant(s) shall promptly and cooperatively participate in the Rule
26(f) meeting and assist in preparation of the Joint Case Management Report.
The Joint Case Management Report shall contain the following information in
separately-numbered paragraphs.
1. The parties who attended the Rule 26(f) meeting and assisted in developing
the Joint Case Management Report;
2. A list of all parties in the case, including any parent corporations or entities
(for recusal purposes);
3. Any parties that have not been served and an explanation of why they have
not been served, and any parties that have been served but have not answered
or otherwise appeared;
4. A statement of whether any party expects to add additional parties to the case
or otherwise amend pleadings;
5. The names of any parties not subject to the court’s personal (or in rem)
jurisdiction;
6. A description of the basis for the court’s subject matter jurisdiction, citing
specific jurisdictional statutes. If jurisdiction is based on diversity of
citizenship, the report shall include a statement of the citizenship of every
party and a description of the amount in dispute. See 28 U.S.C. §1332;
7. A short statement of the nature of the case (no more than three pages),
including a description of each claim, defense, and affirmative defense;
8. A listing of contemplated motions and a statement of the issues to be decided
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by those motions;
9. Whether the case is suitable for reassignment to a United States Magistrate
Judge for all purposes or suitable for referral to a United States Magistrate
Judge for a settlement conference;
10. The status of any related cases pending before this or other courts;
11. A discussion of any issues relating to preservation, disclosure, or discovery
of electronically stored information (“ESI”), including the parties’
preservation of ESI and the form or forms in which it will be produced;
12. A discussion of any issues relating to claims of privilege or work product;
13. A discussion of necessary discovery, which should take into account the
December 1, 2015 amendments to Rule 26(b)(1) and should include:
a. The extent, nature, and location of discovery anticipated by the parties
and why it is proportional to the needs of the case;
b. Suggested changes, if any, to the discovery limitations imposed by the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure;
c. The number of hours permitted for each deposition. The parties also
should consider whether a total number of deposition hours should be
set in the case, such as twenty total hours for plaintiffs and twenty
total hours for defendants. Such overall time limits have the advantage
of providing an incentive for each side to be as efficient as possible in
each deposition, while also allowing parties to allocate time among
witnesses depending on the importance and complexity of subjects to
be covered with the witnesses;
14. Proposed deadlines for each of the following events. In proposing deadlines,
the parties should keep in mind the Case Management Order will contain
deadlines to govern this case and once the dates have been set the court will
vary them only upon a showing of good cause. A request by counsel for
extension of discovery deadlines in any case that has been pending more than
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two years must be accompanied by a certification stating the client is aware
of and approves of the requested extension. The court does not consider
settlement talks or the scheduling of mediations to constitute good cause for
an extension. The parties must propose the following:
a. A deadline for the completion of fact discovery, which will also be
the deadline for pretrial disclosures pursuant to Rule 26(a)(3). This
deadline is the date by which all fact discovery must be completed.
Discovery requests must be served and depositions noticed
sufficiently in advance of this date to ensure reasonable completion
by the deadline, including time to resolve discovery disputes. Absent
extraordinary circumstances, the court will not entertain discovery
disputes after this deadline;
b. Dates for full and complete expert disclosures and rebuttal expert
disclosures, if any;
c. A deadline for completion of all expert depositions;
d. A date by which any Rule 35 physical or mental examination will be
noticed if such an examination is required by any issues in the case;
e. A deadline for filing dispositive motions;
f. Case-specific deadlines and dates, such as the deadline to file a motion
for class certification or a date on which the parties are available for a
Markman (patent claim construction) hearing;
g. A date by which the parties shall have engaged in face-to-face good
faith settlement talks;
h. Whether a jury trial has been requested and whether the request for a
jury trial is contested, setting forth the reasons if the request is
contested;
i. Any other matters that will aid the court and parties in resolving this
case in a just, speedy, and inexpensive manner as required by Federal
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Rule of Civil Procedure 1;
15. A statement indicating whether the parties would prefer that the court hold a
case management conference before issuing a scheduling order—and, if so,
an explanation of why the conference would be helpful.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED the parties shall file a proposed Case Management
Order containing all the proposed dates at the same time they file the Rule 26(f) Case
Management Report. The proposed Case Management Order must also be emailed in Word
format to Lanham_Chambers@azd.uscourts.gov.
Dated this 27th day of April, 2026.
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