Pending before the Court is Defendants’ Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and Wal-Mart Associates, Inc. (collectively, “Defendants”) ex parte application seeking partial relief from Magistrate Judge Kenly Kiya Kato’s order compelling discovery. (Dkt. No. 66.) In the order, Magistrate Judge Kato ordered Defendants to produce payroll records and meal period waivers for approximately 2,500 putative class members within ten days. (See Dkt. No. 64.) Defendants filed their ex parte application on Friday, February 2, 2018, wherein they requested an extension of time to comply with the order compelling discovery. The discovery at issue was due yesterday, February 5, 2018. Plaintiff filed her Opposition on February 5, 2018. (Dkt. No. 68.)

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 6(b), when an act must be done within a specified time, “the court may, for good cause, extend the time ... with or without a motion or notice if the court acts, or if a request is made, before the original time or its extension expires.” “ ‘Good cause’ is a non-rigorous standard that has been construed broadly across procedural and statutory contexts.” Ahanchian v. Xenon Pictures, Inc., 624 F.3d 1253, 1259 (9th Cir. 2010) (citing Venegas–Hernandez v. Sonolux Records, 370 F.3d 183, 187 (1st Cir. 2004)).

Like all the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 6(b) “[is] to be liberally construed to effectuate the general purpose of seeing that cases are tried on the merits.” Rodgers v. Watt, 722 F.2d 456, 459 (9th Cir. 1983) (quoting Staren v. Am. Nat’l Bank & Tr. Co. of Chicago, 529 F.2d 1257, 1263 (7th Cir. 1976)). Accordingly, requests for extensions of time made before the applicable deadline has passed should “normally ... be granted in the absence of bad faith on the part of the party seeking relief or prejudice to the adverse party.” Ahanchian, 624 F.3d at 1259 (citation omitted).

However, ex parte motions for extraordinary relief are rarely granted. Mission Power Eng’g Co. v. Cont’l Cas. Co., 883 F. Supp. 488, 490 (C.D. Cal. 1995). The noticed motion procedure employed in this Court is important. Id. at 491. It ensures that the parties, and the Court, have sufficient time to thoroughly address the issues. Id. Serious fairness concerns arise when a party skips those procedures and forces an opposing party to prepare an opposition to substantive legal issues in a single day. Id. at 490.

Because noticed motion procedures are so critical, an applicant for ex parte relief must make two preliminary showings before a court even addresses the substance of the motion. Id. at 492. First, the applicant must show that it will be irreparably prejudiced if its motion is heard under regular noticed motion procedures. Id. Second, the applicant must establish that it is without fault in creating the urgency that necessitates ex parte relief, or that the urgency was a result of excusable neglect. Id.

*2 First, Defendants explain that they plan to challenge Magistrate Judge Kato’s order on the grounds that production of the payroll records is disproportionate to the needs of the case. However, given the 10-day deadline, Defendants will be required to comply with the discovery order before they could bring such a motion. Defendants ask this Court to relieve them from the 10-day deadline so they can bring the motion for review and avoid violating Judge Kato’s order. Second, Defendants assert that, regardless of whether the Court ultimately grants or denies its motion to review, Defendants are unable to comply with the current deadline of February 5, 2018, for the production of payroll records and meal period waivers. Thus, Defendants state that they will be in violation of Judge Kato’s order if their ex parte application is denied.

Plaintiff argues that Defendants’ alleged burden is self-imposed. Plaintiff requested the documents in their native electronic format, yet Defendants made the decision to print the documents. Plaintiff contends that exporting the data to a flash drive “typically takes only a few hours.” (Dkt. No. 68 at 2.) Defendants fail to address whether they would face the same purported burden if the documents were produced electronically as opposed to in hard copy. Lastly, Plaintiff states that the requested relief is futile, given that the deadline to produce the records has already passed. Thus, Defendants will have already failed to comply with Judge Kato’s order by the time the Court rules on the instant ex parte application.

First, the Court agrees that Defendants could have filed their application earlier. But, Plaintiff also filed her Opposition late, preventing the Court from ruling on the application by February 5. Regardless, the Court finds relief is warranted. Given the ten-day deadline, Defendants were unable to bring their motion for review before the deadline to produce the discovery. Defendants will suffer irreparable harm if they are ordered to produce the payroll records before their challenge is heard. Further, Defendants state that merely accessing each individual’s electronic records and personnel files is time consuming, even if some of the paperwork is ultimately transferred via flash drive instead of printed out in hard copy.

Moreover, the circumstances of Defendants’ situation demonstrate the “good cause” required by Rule 6(b)(1). Defendants were faced with a 10-day deadline to produce thousands of documents relating to the entire putative class. According to Defendants, each individual class member’s payroll record must be accessed individually; downloading or printing in batches is not an option. Given that there are over 2,500 putative class members, Defendants state that they cannot compile the payroll records before February 5. (See Dkt. No. 66-3, Declaration of Diana McChristian in Support of Defendants’ Ex Parte Application (“McChristian Decl.”) ¶¶ 3–11.) As to the meal period waivers, Defendants keep meal period waivers from terminated employees in the employee’s individual personnel file. Defendants assert that there are over 800 terminated employees in the putative class, and that it cannot gather all the waivers from their individual files within ten days. Based on the sheer volume of documents to be produced and the time in which Defendants were given to do so, the Court finds that good cause for an extension exists.

Further, absent from the record is any evidence that Defendants acted in bad faith or that an extension of time would prejudice Plaintiffs. For all of these reasons, the Court GRANTS in part Defendants ex parte application. The Court allows Defendants an extension of time to produce the payroll records, which shall continue until Defendants’ motion for review is decided. The Court also grants Defendants an extension time to produce meal period waivers. Defendant shall have thirty (30) days from the issuance of this Order to produce the requested meal period waivers.

*3 IT IS SO ORDERED.