SCHEDULING NOTES FOR JUDGE P. CASEY PITTS
Courtroom 8, 4th Floor, San José
(Rev. August 5, 2024)

HEARINGS

Counsel need not request a civil or criminal motion hearing date in advance and may notice non-discovery motions for any non-holiday Wednesday (criminal motions) or Thursday (civil motions) at 10:00 a.m., consistent with the 35-day notice period in Civil Local Rule 7-2(a), the 14-day notice period in Criminal Local Rule 47-2(a), or any other applicable timeline. Before filing any civil or criminal motion, however, counsel should check Judge Pitts’s calendar on the Court’s website (https://apps.cand.uscourts.gov/CEO/cfd.aspx?B410) for unavailability. Counsel for the moving party should confer with opposing counsel about a mutually convenient hearing date before noticing any motion. The Court may vacate any hearing date and rule on the papers, or may otherwise reset the hearing date as its calendar requires.

The Court may notify the parties in advance of a setting that it will be conducted via Zoom teleconference rather than in person, but the default is that all settings are held in person. All in-person settings will be heard in Courtroom 8 on the 4th Floor of the Robert F. Peckham Courthouse, located at 280 South First Street, San José, CA, 95113.  

The parties may jointly request to have a setting by Zoom teleconference rather than in person. Such a joint request must be made at least one week in advance of the setting, and must be prepared and filed in the form of an Administrative Motion under Civil Local Rule 7-11. The Court retains full discretion to grant or deny such a joint request.

Requests to appear by telephone or Zoom teleconference may also be entertained upon a showing of good cause by one party (e.g., to limit burdensome travel expenditures, reduce the costs of litigation for resource-poor litigants, allow mobility-limited attorneys to participate, or increase party access to proceedings). Such requests are more likely to be granted for case management and status conferences than for motion hearings.

If a motion will be argued either by an attorney who has 7 years of experience or less, counsel may notify the Courtroom Deputy Nicole Coleman at (408) 535-5346 or pcpcrd@cand.uscourts.gov of that fact no later than 7 days before the hearing, and the Court will take this into account in deciding whether to vacate the hearing and submit the motion on papers, applying a presumption in favor of holding the hearing. In such a hearing, co-counsel with more than 7 years of experience may offer additional argument for a few minutes at the end of the hearing.

CALENDAR DATES

Civil and Criminal Pretrial Conferences: Tuesdays at 10:00 a.m.

Criminal Law and Motion: Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m.

Civil Law and Motion: Thursdays at 10:00 a.m.

Civil Case Management and Status Conferences: Thursdays at 1:00 p.m.

Trials: Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., and Fridays 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., unless otherwise ordered by the Court.

CERTIFICATE OF UNAVAILABILITY

This is to certify that the Honorable P. Casey Pitts will be unavailable on the following date(s):

May 22-26, 2025

June 12-13, 2025

July 2-4, 2025

July 21-24, 2025

August 15, 2025

September 24-26, 2025

All counsel are hereby given notice that they may, if urgency requires, request a hearing before the General Duty Judge pursuant to Civil Local Rule 7-1(c).