Order Granting Motion to Stay Proceedings — East Bay Sanctuary v. Trump (2019-03-05)

Record facts

N.D. Cal. · No. 3:18-cv-06810-JST · Doc. 113 · 2019-03-05 · Docket on CourtListener

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United States District Court 
Northern District of California 
 
 
 
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 
 
EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT, 
et al., 
Plaintiffs, 
v. 
 
DONALD J. TRUMP, et al., 
Defendants. 
Case No. 18-cv-06810-JST   
 
 
ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO 
STAY PROCEEDINGS 
Re: ECF No. 109 
 
 
Before the Court is Defendants’ unopposed motion to stay proceedings.  ECF No. 109.  
Defendants request that the Court stay further proceedings pending the resolution of their 
interlocutory appeal of the Court’s temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.  See E. 
Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump, Nos. 18-17274, 18-17436 (9th Cir.).  The Court will grant the 
motion.1 
I. 
BACKGROUND 
The substance of this action is set forth in detail in, among other places, the Court’s 
December 19, 2018 order granting Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.  See E. Bay 
Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump, No. 18-CV-06810-JST, 2018 WL 6660080 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 19, 
2018).  In short, the case concerns the validity of a regulation that renders aliens categorically 
ineligible to receive asylum if they violate the terms of a presidential proclamation prohibiting or 
otherwise limiting entry into the United States through the southern border.  See Aliens Subject to 
a Bar on Entry Under Certain Presidential Proclamations; Procedures for Protection Claims, 83 
                                                 
1 Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 78(b) and Civil Local Rule 7-1(b), the Court finds 
this motion suitable for disposition without oral argument.  Accordingly, the Court hereby vacates 
the hearing currently scheduled for March 18, 2019.   
 
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United States District Court 
Northern District of California 
Fed. Reg. 55,934 (Nov. 9, 2018) (to be codified at 8 C.F.R. pts. 208, 1003, 1208) (the “Rule”).  
Defendants have appealed the Court’s temporary restraining order and subsequent preliminary 
injunction.  ECF Nos. 51, 100. 
On February 11, 2019, Defendants filed this motion to stay the proceedings pending the 
resolution of that interlocutory appeal.  ECF No. 109.  In the motion, Defendants represented that 
Plaintiffs took no position on the motion.  Id. at 1 n.1.  The deadline to oppose the motion has 
passed, and Plaintiffs have not filed an opposition.2  Defendants did not file a reply. 
II. 
LEGAL STANDARD 
A district court’s discretion to stay proceedings “is incidental to the power inherent in 
every court to control the disposition of the causes on its docket with economy of time and effort 
for itself, for counsel, and for litigants.”  Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254 (1936).  
Whether to stay proceedings is entrusted to the discretion of the district court.  See id. 254-55 
(“How this can best be done calls for the exercise of judgment, which must weigh competing 
interests and maintain an even balance.”). 
In deciding whether to stay proceedings, a district court must weigh various competing 
interests, including “the possible damage which may result from the granting of a stay, the 
hardship or inequity which a party may suffer [if the case is allowed] to go forward, and the 
orderly course of justice measured in terms of the simplifying or complicating of issues, proof, and 
questions of law which could be expected to result from a stay.”  Lockyer v. Mirant Corp., 398 
F.3d 1098, 1110 (9th Cir. 2005) (quoting CMAX, Inc. v. Hall, 300 F.2d 265, 268 (9th Cir. 1962)).  
The burden is on the movant to show that a stay is appropriate.  See Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 
681, 708 (1997). 
III. 
DISCUSSION 
Balancing the relevant factors, the Court concludes that a stay is warranted. 
First, Plaintiffs are unlikely to suffer harm if the Court stays these proceedings because the 
preliminary injunction preventing Defendants from enforcing the Rule will remain in place.  While 
                                                 
2 Counsel for Plaintiffs also stated in an e-mail to the Courtroom Deputy that they did not intend to 
take any action to oppose the motion.   
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United States District Court 
Northern District of California 
a delay in the ability to “seek[] injunctive relief against ongoing and future harm” militates against 
a stay, Lockyer, 398 F.3d at 1112, Plaintiffs have already secured such relief, albeit in preliminary 
form.  Cf. CMAX, 300 F.2d at 268-69 (reasoning that a delay in recovering money damages was 
not sufficient harm to support reversal of a stay).  The Court also takes into account that Plaintiffs 
do not oppose the stay.  This factor thus weighs in favor of granting the stay. 
The second factor, however, does not.  Defendants have not identified a relevant “hardship 
or inequity” they will suffer if required to go forward.  Id. at 268.  Defendants argue that they will 
suffer hardship in proceeding without further guidance from the Ninth Circuit.  ECF No. 109 at 5.  
“[B]ut being required to defend a suit, without more, does not constitute a clear case of hardship or 
inequity within the meaning of Landis.”  Lockyer, 398 F.3d at 1112; cf. Washington v. Trump, No. 
C17-0141JLR, 2017 WL 2172020, at *4 (W.D. Wash. May 17, 2017) (finding hardship where 
plaintiffs intended to seek “up to 30 depositions of government officials, including White House 
staff and Cabinet-level officers”). 
In sum, the parties have not identified measurable harm that will result to either side, 
whether or not the case proceeds.  The Court will nonetheless grant a stay primarily because it will 
best serve “the orderly course of justice.”  CMAX, 300 F.2d at 268.  The Court is mindful that the 
Ninth Circuit has “repeatedly admonished district courts not to delay trial preparation to await an 
interim ruling on a preliminary injunction.”  California v. Azar, 911 F.3d 558, 583 (9th Cir. 2018).  
In so doing, the Ninth Circuit has explained that “[b]ecause of our limited scope of review and the 
paucity of the factual record on a preliminary injunction application, our disposition ‘may provide 
little guidance as to the appropriate disposition on the merits’ and will often ‘result in unnecessary 
delay to the parties and inefficient use of judicial resources.’”  Glob. Horizons, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t 
of Labor, 510 F.3d 1054, 1058-59 (9th Cir. 2007) (quoting Sports Form, Inc. v. United Press Int’l, 
Inc., 686 F.2d 750, 753 (9th Cir. 1982)). 
Though the Court takes seriously these concerns, it concludes that they carry less force in 
this particular case.  First, as the Court has previously observed, the central legal issue here – 
whether the Rule violates the Immigration and Nationality Act – presents an issue of pure 
statutory interpretation.  See E. Bay Sanctuary Covenant, 2018 WL 6660080, at *10.  The parties’ 
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disputes over threshold questions of standing are likewise predominantly legal at this point.  Id. at 
*8-9.  Absent contrary guidance, the Court is unlikely to depart from its own conclusions on these 
issues, particularly given that higher courts have previously declined to stay injunctive relief 
premised on those conclusions.   
Second, this is an administrative record case.  See E. Bay Sanctuary Covenant, 2018 WL 
6660080, at *5; 5 U.S.C. § 706.  The administrative record was before the Court when it issued its 
preliminary injunction.  ECF Nos. 60, 99.  Accordingly, that record is also now before the Ninth 
Circuit on appeal.  The parties have not expressed any intent to supplement the record going 
forward.  In other words, it is unlikely that “the fully developed factual record [will] be materially 
different from” the record presented at the preliminary injunction stage.  Sports Form, 686 F.2d at 
753.  Given the legal nature of the issues presented and the relatively fixed state of the record, the 
Court anticipates that unlike “appeals form most preliminary injunctions,” the Ninth Circuit’s 
resolution of the pending appeal will provide significant, and possibly conclusive, “guidance as to 
the appropriate disposition on the merits.”  Id. 
CONCLUSION 
 
For the foregoing reasons, the Court GRANTS Defendants’ unopposed motion to stay 
these proceedings. 
IT IS SO ORDERED. 
Dated:  March 5, 2019 
______________________________________ 
JON S. TIGAR 
United States District Judge 
Case 3:18-cv-06810-JST   Document 113   Filed 03/05/19   Page 4 of 4

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