Webb v. Armstrong et al

Filing 93

ORDER granting 81 Motion to Amend/Correct. See attached ruling. Signed by Judge Robert N. Chatigny on 3/23/2015. (Saner, K)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
DANIEL J.A. WEBB

:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:

Plaintiff,
v.
JOHN ARMSTRONG, ET AL.,
Defendants.

Case No. 3:11-cv-1557(RNC)

RULING AND ORDER
Plaintiff, an inmate at Northern Correctional Institution,
brings this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against employees of
the Department of Correction.

Pending is plaintiff’s motion for

leave to amend the complaint to add new claims.

For reasons that

follow, the motion is granted.
The original complaint in this case, filed when plaintiff
was proceeding pro se, joined a wide array of claims against a
large number of defendants alleging violations of plaintiff’s
constitutional rights spanning many years.

Following initial

review of the complaint as required by 28 U.S.C. § 1915, the
Court determined that the claims were insufficiently related to
be joined in one action.

Because the core of the complaint

concerned an altercation between plaintiff and defendant Jason
Cahill on March 29, 2010, plaintiff was ordered to file an
amended complaint asserting claims arising out of that
altercation and omitting other claims.

The present complaint

alleges that after the altercation on March 29, 2010, plaintiff
was severely beaten by Cahill and other officers, denied medical

treatment for his injuries, and held in inhumane conditions of
confinement.
Plaintiff seeks leave to amend the complaint to add claims
alleging a violation of his right to privacy under federal law
and his rights under state tort law to be free from unreasonable
publicity and unreasonable intrusion on seclusion.

The proposed

claims allege that in the wake of the altercation on March 29,
2010, Cahill gave his union representative an email he had
received from a DOC staff psychologist regarding a psychological
assessment of the plaintiff in violation of a DOC regulation
prohibiting disclosure of an inmate’s confidential medical
information.

Defendants argue that leave to amend should be

denied because the new claims are time-barred and would result in
delay.
Under Rule 15(a), leave to amend a complaint is to be freely
granted consistent with the strong policy favoring adjudication
of claims on the merits.

When a tailored scheduling order has

entered, the relatively lenient standard governing amendments
under Rule 15(a) must be balanced against the requirement of Rule
16(b) that the schedule not be modified except on a showing of
good cause.

See Grochowski v. Phoenix Construction, 318 F.3d 80,

86 (2d Cir. 2003).

Under Rule 16(b), a court has discretion to

deny leave to amend if the moving party has failed to act with
due diligence, see Gullo v. City of New York, 540 Fed. App'x. 45,

2

46-47 (2d Cir. 2013), or the amendment will cause undue
prejudice, see Fresh Del Monte Procude, Inc. v. Del Monte Foods,
Inc., No. 13 Civ. 8997(GPO)(GWG), 2014 WL 6886010, at *4
(S.D.N.Y. Dec. 8, 2014).
Before turning to the Rule(16)(b) analysis, it is necessary
to consider defendants’ argument that the proposed claims are
time-barred.

Defendants argue that the claims are barred by the

three-year statute of limitations in Connecticut General Statutes
§ 52-577, which provides the limitations period for state tort
claims as well as claims under § 1983.

See Lounsberry v.

Jeffries, 25 F.3d 131, 134 (2d Cir. 1994).

The allegedly

wrongful disclosure of confidential information for which
plaintiff seeks redress occurred more than three years before the
filing of the present motion.

Under § 1983, however, a claim

does not accrue until "the plaintiff 'knows or has reason to
know' of the harm."

Eagleston v. Guido, 41 F.3d 865, 871 (2d

Cir. 1994); see also Singleton v. City of New York, 632 F.2d 185,
192 (2d Cir. 1980) ("[T]he crucial time for accrual purposes is
when the plaintiff becomes aware that he is suffering from a
wrong for which damages may be recovered in a civil action.”).
Plaintiff states that he did not know about Cahill’s disclosure
of the email in question until DOC responded to a subpoena in
this case in 2014.

Defendants do not dispute his assertion.

Accepting the assertion as true, the § 1983 claim did not accrue

3

until 2014 and thus is not time-barred.
The federal law that governs accrual of claims under § 1983
does not apply to plaintiff’s new claims under state law.
Therefore, the timeliness of these claims must be analyzed
separately.

Under state law, the date these claims accrued does

not save them because § 52-577 is a statute of repose.

See

Rosenfield v. Rogin, Nassau, Caplan, Lassman & Hirtle, LLC, 69
Conn. App. 151, 158-59 (2002) (section 52-577 cannot be construed
to delay the start of the limitation period until the cause of
action has accrued).

As a result, the state law claims may be

time-barred even though the § 1983 claim is not.
Plaintiff urges that the state law claims are not timebarred because they relate back to the claims in the original
complaint.1

Under Rule 15(c)(1)(B), a claim relates back if it

arises “out of the conduct, transaction or occurrence set out or attempted to be set out - in the original pleading.”

Id.

This standard is met, plaintiff argues, because Cahill’s
disclosure of the email to his union representative arose out of
the events alleged in the complaint and may be seen as “an added
element of abuse” or “another piece of the puzzle.”

1

Defendants

Plaintiff also argues that the claims are timely based on
equitable tolling. But plaintiff does not identify a potential
basis for equitable tolling and there appears to be none. There
is no indication that this case involves a continuing course of
conduct, breach of a fiduciary relationship, or fraudulent
concealment. Thus, the state law claims are barred unless they
relate back to the claims in the original complaint.
4

argue that adequate notice of the proposed claims was not
provided by the allegations in the original complaint, which is
the key consideration in determining whether claims relate back.
See Slayton v. Am. Express Co., 460 F.3d 215, 225 (2d Cir. 2006).
Relation back under Rule 15 serves the interest in
adjudicating claims on the merits when they are sufficiently
related to the allegations in the original complaint to avoid
unfair prejudice to the defense based on lack of notice.
case, the claims are sufficiently related.

In this

Plaintiff alleges

that Cahill agreed to disclose the email to his union
representative during a discussion of the events that had just
taken place between Cahill and the plaintiff, and that Cahill
released the email knowing its contents would be used in
connection with union business in violation of a regulation
protecting inmate privacy.

Crediting these allegations, Cahill’s

disclosure of the email arose out of the conduct, transaction or
occurrence alleged in the complaint for purposes of Rule
15(c)(1)(B).
Defendants’ argument that the allegations in the original
complaint did not provide adequate notice has some force.
However, plaintiff alleges that Cahill has long been on notice of
a need to defend his disclosure of the email because it was the
subject of an internal DOC investigation that was resolved
adversely to him.

In this context, it is not unfairly

5

prejudicial to Cahill to require him to defend the claims on the
merits.2
Turning to the Rule 16(b) analysis, plaintiff argues that he
satisfies the good cause standard because he did not discover the
facts supporting the proposed claims until 2014.
(ECF. No. 84) at 5.

As mentioned earlier, defendants do not

dispute plaintiff’s statement.
unduly delayed.

See Pl.'s Reply

Therefore, the amendment is not

Compare Securities and Exchange Comm'n v. DCI

Telecomms., Inc., 207 F.R.D. 32, 34-35 (S.D.N.Y. 2012) (allowing
amendment when plaintiff obtained discovery supporting amendment
four months before motion), and Am. Med. Assoc. v. United
Healthcare Corp., No. 00 Civ. 2800, 2006 WL 3833400, at *4
(S.D.N.Y. Dec. 29, 2006) (no undue delay when party moved to
amend several months after learning relevant facts in discovery),
with Acri v. Int'l Ass'n of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, 781
F.2d 1393, 1398 (9th Cir. 1986) (affirming denial of leave to add
new claims known since beginning of case), and Evans v. Syracuse
City Sch. Dist., 704 F.2d 44, 46-48 (2d Cir. 1983) (affirming
denial of leave when defendant sought to add an affirmative
defense it could have asserted two years earlier).
The remaining issue is whether allowing the proposed claims

2

Defendants’ objection that the original complaint did not
provide adequate notice of the proposed claims does not apply to
the claim under § 1983, which serves to inject Cahill’s
disclosure of the email into this case regardless of whether the
state law claims relate back.
6

would be unduly prejudicial under Rule 16(b).

The prejudice

analysis "involv[es] a balancing process 'which weighs the
potential for prejudice resulting from granting the amendment
against the risk of prejudice to the moving party if the
amendment is denied.'"

H.L. Hayden Co. of New York, Inc. v.

Siemens Med. Sys., Inc., 112 F.R.D. 417 (S.D.N.Y. 1986) (quoting
L.D. Schreiber Cheese Co., Inc. V. Clearfield Cheese Co., Inc.,
495 F. Supp. 313, 315 (W.D. Pa. 1980)).

Prejudice results when

the proposed amendment would "'(i) require the opponent to expend
significant additional resources to conduct discovery and prepare
for trial; (ii) significantly delay the resolution of the
dispute; or (iii) prevent the plaintiff from bringing a timely
action in another jurisdiction.'"

Monahan v. New York City Dep’t

of Corr., 214 F.3d 275, 284 (2d Cir. 2000) (quoting Block v.
First Blood Assoc., 988 F.2d 344, 350 (2d Cir. 1993)).
Defendants argue that granting leave to amend will
significantly delay resolution of the case because the new § 1983
claim may be the subject of a motion to dismiss based on
qualified immunity, which, if unsuccessful, could lead to an
interlocutory appeal.
to be well-founded.

Defendants’ concern about delay may prove

But the affirmative defense of qualified

immunity does not provide a valid basis for denying leave to
amend.

See Oliver Schools, Inc. v. Foley, 930 F.2d 248, 253 (2d

Cir. 1991).

7

Defendants also argue that permitting the new claims will
require additional discovery.

It appears that the discovery

deadline will have to be extended as a result of the new claims.
Balancing the parties’ interests, however, the need for some
additional discovery does not justify denying leave to amend.
Accordingly, the motion for leave to amend is hereby
granted.
So ordered this 23rd day of March 2015.

/s/RNC
Robert N. Chatigny
United States District Judge

8