Jones

DISCUSSION

24 Rule 56(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides a procedure by which a party 25 may avoid summary judgment when such party has not had sufficient opportunity to discover 26 affirmative evidence necessary to oppose the motion. See Garrett v. San Francisco, 818 F.2d 27 1515, 1518 (9th Cir. 1987). In particular, Rule 56(d) provides that a court may deny a summary 28 judgment motion and permit the opposing party to conduct discovery where it appears that the opposing party, in the absence of such discovery, is unable to present facts essential to opposing the motion. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(d). A pending discovery motion is sufficient to raise a question as to whether the party opposing summary judgment should be permitted additional discovery, even if no request under Rule 56(d) has been made. See Garrett, 818 F.2d at 1518. The Ninth Circuit has made clear that in cases involving pro se prisoners, summary judgment is not favored when discovery requests for relevant evidence are pending. In particular, the Ninth Circuit has noted: Under Rule 56(f) [(the predecessor to current Rule 56(d))], the court may postpone ruling on a…