Bell et al v. Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital et al

Filing 42

ORDER granting 29 Motion to Amend 1 Complaint. So Ordered by Judge Steven J. McAuliffe.(lat)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

Darcie Bell and Timothy Bell,
Plaintiffs
v.

Case No. 14-cv-551-SM
Opinion No. 2016 DNH 158

Upper Connecticut Valley
Hospital Association d/b/a
Upper Connecticut Valley
Hospital and Dartmouth
Hitchcock Medical Center,
Defendants

O R D E R

Plaintiffs seek leave of the court to file an amended
complaint.

Defendants object, claiming the deadline for

amending the pleadings, as established in the court’s original
scheduling order, passed more than six months before plaintiffs
filed the pending motion.

See Parties’ Discovery Plan (document

no. 14), approved and adopted as the court’s scheduling order on
April 1, 2015.

And, say defendants, plaintiffs have not shown

“good cause” for their failure to amend the complaint before
that deadline passed, as required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 16.

Defendants’ reliance upon the court’s original scheduling
order (and plaintiffs’ silence on the issue) is a bit puzzling
since the court has amended that order several times, each time

extending various pre-trial deadlines.

The most recent

scheduling order adopted by the court specifically provides that
plaintiffs may amend their complaint through June 1, 2016.

See

Motion to Extend Time (document no. 21), granted by order dated
April 26, 2016.

Plaintiffs’ pending motion to amend was filed on May 6,
2016 - plainly before the June 1 deadline established by the
court.

Yet, in their motion, plaintiffs ignore that revised

deadline.

And, defendants barely acknowledge it, referencing it

only once (in a footnote) in Dartmouth Hitchcock’s memorandum.
There, Dartmouth Hitchcock suggests that, despite explicit
language to the contrary, “the parties never intended to extend
the November, 2015 date originally outlined in the parties’
Joint Discovery Plan for amendment of the Complaint.”
Defendant’s memorandum (document no. 36) at 1 n.1.

That claim

is, however, completely undeveloped and appears to be
inconsistent with earlier representations made by Dartmouth
Hitchcock.

See Partial Objection to Motion to Extend (document

22) at 1 (in which Dartmouth Hitchcock noted that, “We can agree
to an extended schedule” for “everything but the trial date.”)
(emphasis supplied).
The court approved and entered a scheduling order that
permitted plaintiffs to amend their complaint on or before June
2

1, 2016.
deadline.

Their pending motion to amend was filed prior to that
That motion (document no. 29) is granted.

See Fed.

R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2).

SO ORDERED.

____________________________
Steven J. McAuliffe
United States District Judge
September 8, 2016
cc:

Kelly E. Reardon, Esq.
Robert I. Reardon, Jr., Esq.
Leslie C. Nixon, Esq.
David J. Krolikowski, Esq.
Melissa M. Hanlon, Esq.
Stephen A. Ryan, Esq.
Gregory G. Peters, Esq.
Pierre A. Chabot, Esq.

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