Imming v. De La Vega et al

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO
ASHLEY IMMING,
Plaintiff,
v. 	No. 2:25-cv-411-KWR-KRS
OSVALDO DE LA VEGA; MESILLA CAPITAL
INVESTMENTS, LLC; KIDNEY WELLNESS
CENTER, LLC; KIDNEY WELLNESS CENTER, L.C.;
and KIDNEY WELLNESS CENTER LC,
Defendants.
ORDER DENYING [29] MOTION TO STAY DISCOVERY
THIS MATTER is before the Court on Defendants’ Motion To Stay Discovery Pending
Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, And On The Basis Of Concurrent Proceedings, And For
Protective Order As To Plaintiff’s Discovery (“Motion”) (Doc. 29), filed November 17, 2025.
Plaintiff filed a response opposing the Motion on November 19, 2025, and Defendants filed a reply
on November 26, 2025. (Docs. 30 and 32). The Court held a hearing on the Motion on December
10, 2025. Having considered the parties’ briefing and oral arguments, the record of the case, and
the relevant law, the Court denies the Motion.
Background
Plaintiff Ashley Imming sued Defendant Osvaldo De La Vega and his company, Southwest
Health Services, P.A., in New Mexico state court, alleging various claims for workplace sexual
harassment, gender discrimination, and violations of the New Mexico Human Rights Act
(“NMHRA”). A jury returned a verdict for Plaintiff on her hostile work environment claim and
awarded $250,000 in damages, to which the state trial court added attorney fees and costs of more
than twice that amount, for a total judgment of $867,971.07. See (Doc. 32 at 3); Imming v. De La
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Vega, No. A-1-CA-39116, 2023 WL 1434061, at *9 (N.M. Ct. App. Feb. 1, 2023), cert. denied,
2023-NMCERT-008, ¶ 41, 547 P.3d 98.
Following the state court verdict, Plaintiff filed several actions against Mr. De La Vega
and his various companies in efforts to recover on the state court judgment, this action among
them. Another such action is pending in state court in Texas, while a third—Imming v. De La Vega,
No. 2:23-cv-378-GJF-DLM (D.N.M., filed May 3, 2023)—has been pending before Judge Fouratt
for the past two years. In the case before Judge Fouratt, Plaintiff sought to pierce the corporate veil
between Mr. De La Vega and two other companies—Mesilla Capital Investments, LLC (“MCI”)
and Mesilla Capital Investments De Mexico, S. DE. R.L. (“MCI-MX”)—as well as to have the
sale of Mr. De La Vega’s former medical practice, Southwest Health, declared void under New
Mexico’s Uniform Voidable Transfer Act. See id., Dkt. # 116, Amended Complaint (June 25,
2024). After a bench trial on March 24-25, 2025, Judge Fouratt ruled in Plaintiff’s favor on her
claims for piercing MCI’s veil; voiding the $1.2 million transfer to MCI and MCI-MX of the
proceeds from Southwest Health’s asset sale; and voiding Mr. De La Vega’s transfers of four
personally-held real properties to MCI-MX. See Imming v. De La Vega, No. CV 23-378 GJF/DLM,
2025 WL 2731023, at *10–29 (D.N.M. Sept. 24, 2025). Judge Fouratt also found that Plaintiff is
entitled to recover attorney fees in an amount to be determined. See id. at *29-31. Currently
pending in that action is a sale of corporate real property, which had been identified by Mr. De La
Vega to satisfy the state court judgment, and which Judge Fouratt approved provided the sale
would close no later than December 31, 2025, and the net sale proceeds would be deposited into
the Court’s Registry. See Imming, supra, Dkt. # 281, Stipulated Order Authorizing Sale of 3875
Foothills Road, Las Cruces, NM (Dec. 3, 2025).
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Discussion
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not expressly provide for a stay of proceedings.
Rule 26, however, allows the Court, for good cause, to “issue an order to protect a party or person
from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense” by forbidding
disclosure or discovery. FED. R. C IV. P. 26(c)(1)(A). The moving party bears the burden of
demonstrating good cause for the requested protective order. Benavidez v. Sandia Nat’l
Laboratories, 319 F.R.D. 696, 721 (D.N.M. 2017). The decision to issue a protective order and
stay discovery rests within the sound discretion of the trial court. Wang v. Hsu, 919 F.2d 130, 130
(10th Cir. 1990). In exercising its discretion, the Court considers such factors as: “(1) the plaintiff’s
interests in proceeding expeditiously with the civil action and the potential prejudice to plaintiff of
a delay; (2) the burden on the defendants; (3) the convenience to the court; (4) the interests of
persons not parties to the civil litigation; and (5) the public interest.” Mestas v. CHW Grp. Inc.,
No. CV 19-792 MV/CG, 2019 WL 5549913, at *1 (D.N.M. Oct. 28, 2019) (quotation marks and
brackets omitted). In this case, the Court finds that Plaintiff’s interests in proceeding expeditiously
with this case and the potential prejudice to Plaintiff of a delay outweighs any burden on
Defendants of proceeding with discovery.1
1 Although the Court declines to resolve the parties’ dispute over whether Defendants complied with their duty under
D.N.M. LR-Civ. 7.1(a) to confer with opposing counsel before filing the motion, see (Doc. 29 at 1-2; Doc. 32 at 1),
the Court cautions the parties, as Judge Fouratt did in the related case, that they should make reasonable and good
faith efforts to fully comply. See, e.g., Imming v. De La Vega, No. CV 23-378 GJF/DLM, 2023 WL 8650372, at *5
(D.N.M. Dec. 14, 2023) (“Although the Court does not condone the practice of assuming non-concurrence, even in
the context of a motion to dismiss, there is as a practical matter no question that the issues in Defendants’ Motion are
hotly contested. Defense counsel would do well to remember in the future that failure to comply with Local Rule
7.1(a) risks the requested relief being summarily denied.”); Imming v. De La Vega, No. CV 23-378 GJF/DLM, 2025
WL 722342, at *10 (D.N.M. Mar. 6, 2025) (“issu[ing] a second warning to Defendants and their counsel to heed Local
Rule 7.1(a), even with respect to dispositive motions”).
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A. 	Pending Motion to Dismiss
Generally speaking, a stay may be justified by a pending motion to dismiss where “the case
is likely to be finally concluded as a result of a ruling on [the motion to dismiss]; where the facts
sought through uncompleted discovery would not affect the resolution of the motion; or where
discovery on all issues of the broad complaint would be wasteful and burdensome.” Valtierra v.
Nyamsuren, No. CV 24-899 DHU/JFR, 2025 WL 754169, at *3 (D.N.M. Mar. 10, 2025) (quoting
Wolf v. United States, 157 F.R.D. 494, 495 (D. Kan. 1994)). In order to evaluate these factors, the
court typically will “take a ‘preliminary peek’ at the underlying motion to dismiss …[,] … not …
to predict the outcome of the motion, but rather to evaluate whether a stay is consistent with the
goal of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure of securing a just, speedy and inexpensive
determination of the case.” Davis v. Nevada, No. 3:13-CV-00559-MMD, 2014 WL 1308347, at
*2 (D. Nev. Mar. 31, 2014) (quoting Tradebay, LLC v. eBay, Inc., 278 F.R.D. 597, 603 (D. Nev.
2011)). Without prejudging how the presiding judge might rule on the pending motion to dismiss,
the Court concludes that Judge Fouratt’s well-reasoned opinion denying a similar motion to
dismiss in the related case2 raises serious questions regarding the likelihood that the current motion
to dismiss will be granted.
Furthermore, Judge Fouratt made the following finding in the related action:
[De La Vega made] efforts before and after the trial of the state case
and before the trial of this case to do whatever possible to
complicate, frustrate, and stymie Plaintiff’s ability to collect on any
judgment she obtained against [De La Vega] or Southwest Health.
The Court finds that, in furtherance of that endeavor, [De La Vega]
took at least the following steps: (a) liquidated personally owned
assets (including artwork, vehicles, aircraft, watercraft, and a stock
portfolio) in a largely undocumented way so as to leave no paper
trail; (b) liquidated the assets of the medical practice he had owned
and operated for 25 years only to launch a virtually identical practice
2 See Imming, 2023 WL 8650372.
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in the same building serving the same patient base with some of the
same employees well before his covenant not to compete expired;
(c) knowingly provided false information to a Texas state court to
the effect that a residential dwelling in El Paso (5717 Green Castle
Rd.) that he knew he owned personally was instead owned by MCI;
(d) fraudulently invoked a Texas homestead exemption for the same
dwelling even though he knew it was not his primary residence;
(e) sought bankruptcy protection for Southwest Health for the
primary purpose of delaying the resolution of Plaintiff’s multiple
cases then pending against him; (f) just eight months before the trial
of the state case that featured the possibility of an uncapped damages
verdict against him, [De La Vega] formed a Mexican business entity
to serve as a limited liability holding company into which he
transferred properties with a combined value of more than $21
million that theretofore he had owned in his personal capacity;
(g) restructured his financial life that had featured a personal net
worth in the tens of millions before the state court trial but which he
now insisted was in the few thousands after the trial; (h) knowingly
provided false discovery answers to the effect that his two adult sons
each owned 1% of MCI, despite his knowledge that his sons had
immediately rejected his offered gifts of percentage ownership; and
(i) reconfigured his financial life to minimize to the greatest extent
possible any personal income (other than Social Security payments
of $3,548/month, which began eight months before the trial of this
case) and any personally owned assets.
The Court finds that there is no single, coherent explanation that
supplies the connective tissue for this constellation of circumstances
other than that they were the components of a purposeful and
systematic effort by [De La Vega] to protect himself and his former
medical practice from an adverse judgment in Plaintiff’s state case
against them. No other explanation—including that offered by [De
La Vega] during his trial testimony—squares with this Court’s
common sense or life experience.
Imming, 2025 WL 2731023, at *7-8 (emphasis in original) (footnotes omitted).
In light of these findings, the Court concludes that the prejudice Plaintiff would likely
suffer if discovery were to be stayed and the motion to dismiss is later denied, exceeds the costs
Defendants will incur if discovery is not stayed and the motion to dismiss is later granted. Mr. De
La Vega’s actions over the last almost six years, as determined by Judge Fouratt in the related
action, strongly support Plaintiff’s argument that she should be allowed to pursue her available
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legal remedies towards collection without delay. The parties have already agreed to numerous
discovery deadlines, and the Court has entered a Scheduling Order setting deadlines in this case.
Staying the case for any amount of time would prejudice Plaintiff if the motion to dismiss is later
denied, as it will result in either: (1) significant truncation of time in which she can conduct
discovery if the Scheduling Order is not altered; or, (2) significant delay of the case if the
Scheduling Order is reset once the stay is lifted.
B. 	Pending Related Actions
Defendants argue they will be prejudiced by duplicative discovery in this case, but they
fail to support that assertion by demonstrating that the discovery requests in this case in fact are
duplicative of discovery in any other collection action filed by Plaintiff. Moreover, logically, it is
not likely that discovery in this case would duplicate discovery in the pending case before Judge
Fouratt, as the present case relates to a different corporate entity than the defendants named in the
case before Judge Fouratt. While there is some overlap in parties, this case is essentially a
collection action against Mr. De La Vega’s current medical practice, Kidney Wellness Center,
which is not a named defendant in the related case. And the primary legal issue on which discovery
is needed in this case—whether Plaintiff can pierce Kidney Wellness Center’s corporate veil—
was never before Judge Fouratt in the related federal case.
The Court also rejects Defendants’ argument that “any relief requested in the present case
is already assured by the relief and remedies already decided by Judge Fouratt.” (Doc. 29 at 2).
This suggestion that Plaintiff’s collection efforts in the related federal case will ultimately moot
the present collection action (presumably as a result of the state court judgment having been
satisfied) is speculative at best. This case will not be moot until both the state court judgment and
the anticipated judgment in the related case are satisfied. The amount of the state court judgment
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apparently has climbed to approximately $1.7 million as a result of collections costs and accrued
interest, with approximately $360.00 in interest continuing to accrue on a daily basis.3 And while
the amount of the anticipated judgment in the related action before Judge Fouratt will reflect that
state court judgment, it will also include an additional amount for attorney fees incurred in that
case. Defendants have offered no evidence to support a finding that the anticipated sale of real
property in the related action will result in sufficient funds being available to pay these amounts.
Nor does the Court think it proper to put a temporary halt to Plaintiff’s collection efforts in these
proceedings while waiting to find out whether the sale of property in the related case actually goes
through and ultimately results in a total satisfaction of amounts owed by Defendants to Plaintiff.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, Defendants’ Motion To Stay Discovery Pending Defendants’
Motion to Dismiss, And On The Basis Of Concurrent Proceedings, And For Protective Order As
To Plaintiff’s Discovery (Doc. 29) is denied.
IT IS SO ORDERED, this 11th day of December, 2025.
___________________________________
KEVIN R. SWEAZEA
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
3 See Imming v. De La Vega, supra, Dkt. # 282, Clerk’s Minutes (Dec. 3, 2025).
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