United States District Court, S.D. California
ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO AMEND THIRD
AMENDED COMPLAINT (ECF NO. 81)
Hon.
Janis L. Sammartino, United States District Judge
Clause.
(See generally ECF No. 59.) Currently pending before
the Honorable Jill L. Burkhardt are the fully-briefed Motion
to Dismiss Claims Against Defendants Glynn and Seeley in
Plaintiff’s Third Amended Complaint (ECF No. 63) and
Motion to Dismiss Claims Against Defendant Zamora in
Plaintiff’s Third Amended Complaint (ECF No. 69). On
February 16, 2016, Plaintiff filed the instant Motion to
Amend. (ECF No. 81.)
LEGAL
STANDARD
Pursuant
to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a), a plaintiff may
amend his complaint once as a matter of course within
specified time limits. Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a)(1). “In all
other cases, a party may amend its pleading only with the
opposing party’s written consent or the court’s
leave. The court should freely give leave when justice so
requires.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 15 (a)(2).
While
courts exercise broad discretion in deciding whether to allow
amendment, they have generally adopted a liberal policy.
See United States ex rel. Ehmcke Sheet Metal Works v.
Wausau Ins. Cos., 755 F.Supp. 906, 908 (E.D. Cal. 1991)
(citing Jordan v. Cnty. of L.A., 669 F.2d 1311, 1324
(9th Cir.), rev’d on other grounds, 459 U.S.
810 (1982)). Accordingly, leave is generally granted unless
the court harbors concerns “such as undue delay, bad
faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant, repeated
failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously
allowed, undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of
allowance of the amendment, futility of amendment,
etc.” Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182
(1962). “Amendments seeking to add claims are to be
granted more freely than amendments adding parties.”
Union Pac. R.R. Co. v. Nev. Power Co., 950 F.2d
1429, 1432 (9th Cir. 1991) (citing Martell v. Trilogy
Ltd., 872 F.2d 322, 324 (9th Cir. 1989)).
ANALYSIS
Plaintiff
notes that he only recently “found out that this
Deffendants [sic] didn’t only might have violated the
8th Amendment of cruel and unusual punishment but
also Due Process.” (Mot. to Amend 1, ECF No. 81.)
Plaintiff therefore seeks leave to amend his complaint as
“to all deffendants [sic] except for deffendant [sic]
Officer Hodge . . . to add the Due Process violation base[d]
on the facts already stated on the allegations [he]
previously and recently submitted.” (Id.)
Defendants
oppose Plaintiff’s Motion to Amend, arguing that all of
the cases upon which Plaintiff relies involved pretrial
detainees, who therefore “could not bring their
[inadequate medical care] claims under the Eighth Amendment,
but could only do so under the Due Process Clause.”
(Opp’n 3, ECF No. 84 (citing City of Revere v.
Mass. Gen. Hosp., 463 U.S. 239, 243-44 (1983)).)
“In his Motion to Amend, Plaintiff does not claim that
he is actually a pre-trial detainee, nor does he seek to
allege any additional facts that would implicate procedural
due process.” (Id.) “Thus, i[t] appears
that Plaintiff is simply seeking to bring his medical-care
claim under both the Eighth Amendment and substantive due
process . . . .” (Id.) Consequently,
“amending the Third Amended Complaint would be
futile” because “Plaintiff’s
inadequate-medical-care claim can be analyzed under the more
explicit Eighth Amendment.” (Id. at 4.)
Although
leave to amend should be freely given, “[f]utility
alone . . . is a sufficient basis upon which to deny a motion
for leave to amend.” Richey v. Thaut, No.
C11-5680 RBL/KLS, 2012 WL 527521, at *2 (W.D. Wash. Feb. 16,
2012) (citing Roth v. Garcia Marquez, 942 F.2d 617,
628 (9th Cir. 1991)); see also Saul v. United
States, 928 F.2d 829, 843 (9th Cir. 1991) (“A
district court does not err in denying leave to amend where
the amendment would be futile . . . or would be subject to
dismissal.”). “[A] court may exercise its
discretion to deny leave to amend where the amendment is
duplicative of existing claims[ and] . . . may also look to
the sufficiency of allegations in a proposed amended
complaint to determine if they would be futile.”
Gragossian v. Cardinal Health Inc., No. 07-CV-1818-H
(LSP), 2008 WL 2157004, at *1 (S.D. Cal. May 21, 2008)
(citing Bonin v. Calderon, 59 F.3d 815, 846 (9th
Cir. 1995); Jones v. Cmty. Redevelopment Agency, 733
F.2d 646, 650-51 (9th Cir. 1984)).
The
Court concludes that Plaintiff’s proposed amendment
would be futile and therefore DENIES Plaintiff’s Motion
to Amend. (ECF No. 81.) Defendants are correct that the cases
cited by Plaintiff involve pre-trial detainees, see City
of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 381 {1989); City
of Revere, 463 U.S. at 243-44; Smith v. Knox Cnty.
Jail, 666 F.3d 1037, 1039 (7th Cir. 2012); Phillips
v. Roane Cnty., 534 F.3d 531, 536, 539 (6th Cir. 2008);
Thomas v. Kippermann, 846 F.2d, 1009, 1010-11 (5th
Cir. 1988), and that “i[t] appears that Plaintiff is
simply seeking to bring his medical-care claim under both the
Eighth Amendment and substantive due process”
(see Opp’n 3, ECF No. 84). “A claim that
the defendants failed to provide a state prisoner with
adequate medical care is asserted as an Eighth Amendment
claim, and not as regarding procedural or substantive due
process.” Williams v. Allen, No. CV
05-1652-PHX-PGR, 2006 WL 3499924, at *3 (D. Ariz. Dec. 5,
2006) (citing Jones v. Blanas, 393 F.3d 918, 931
(9th Cir. 2004); Robinson v. Pickett, 16 Fed.
App’x 577, 579 (9th Cir. 2001)). “Therefore,
Plaintiffs motion to amend his complaint to state a claim
that his right to due process was violated by Defendants
should be denied for failure to state a claim on which relief
may be granted.” Id; see also Spinks v. Lopez,
No. 1:10-CV-01886-AWI, 2013 WL 1876003, at *3-4 (E.D. Cal.
May 3, 2013).
CONCLUSION
In
light of the foregoing, the Court DENIES Plaintiffs Motion ...