The Court shall review each of Plaintiff’s arguments.

       A.      Plaintiff’s Failure to File a Timely Opposition

       Plaintiff offers the following explanation for his failure to file a timely opposition. At the

time Defendants filed their motion (July 12, 2010), Plaintiff’s counsel was engaged in a wrongful

death trial before the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. Shortly after that

trial concluded, Plaintiff’s counsel went on a previously arranged family vacation on July 27,

2010 and did not return to the office until August 4, 2010. As a consequence of these events,

Plaintiff’s counsel “inadvertently overlooked” Defendants’ motion. Plaintiff’s counsel has

provided an affidavit from the employee at his office who is responsible for keeping his calendar;

she explains that in order to maintain an accurate and timely calendar of deadlines, she reviews

all cases in litigation on a weekly basis on Fridays. See Pl.’s Mot., Ex. 1 (Aff. of Susan Berk)


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¶ 2. However, she explains that she did not perform this function during the week that

Defendants’ motion was filed because she was busy assisting Plaintiff’s counsel with his

wrongful death trial. Id. ¶ 3. She did perform this function the following Friday, July 23, 2010,

although she did not complete the task on that date. Id. ¶ 4. She continued to work on updating

the deadlines on Sunday, July 25, 2010, but her work was interrupted by a thunderstorm that

caused a loss of power and resulted in a shutdown of the computer server. Id. When she

reconstructed the calendar on Monday, July 26, 2010, she believed that the calendaring work she

had performed on Sunday had not been lost when the server shut down. Id. After being out of

the office between July 27 and August 2, 2010, she discovered on Friday, August 6, 2010 that the

deadline for this case had been missed. Id. ¶ 5.

       Plaintiff’s excuse for his failure to file a timely opposition