Velasco

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

GERONIMO VELASCO, Case No. 24-cv-05307-VC

Plaintiff,

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO

v. STRIKE

PENTAGON TECHNOLOGIES GROUP, Re: Dkt. No.

INC.,

Defendant.

The motion to strike is denied. While Pentagon shouldn’t have missed its deadline, this doesn’t merit striking its answer. It seems unlikely that the six-day delay caused Velasco any real prejudice. Even if it did, that prejudice is clearly less than the prejudice that would be caused to Pentagon by entering a default judgment and preventing it from defending the case on the merits. See Kirola v. City & County of San Francisco, No. C 07-3685, 2011 WL 89722, at *3 & n.2 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 11, 2011). Nor are Pentagon’s alleged evasive denials grounds for striking its answer. District courts cannot “examine statements in an answer” and “decide, on the basis of their own intuition, that the statements are implausible.” In re Mortgages Ltd., 771 F.3d 623, 632 (9th Cir. 2014). Nor does it make sense to strike Pentagon’s statements as “insufficient defense[s]” under Rule 12(f), because they aren’t defenses. Finally, it does seem…