Ford v. Brennan
Filing
42
OPINION AND ORDER by Judge Claire V Eagan ; denying 41 Motion to Amend (Re: 2 Complaint ) (RGG, Chambers)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA
TARA D. FORD,
Plaintiff,
v.
MEGAN J. BRENNAN,
POSTMASTER GENERAL,
Defendant.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
Case No. 15-CV-0268-CVE-FHM
OPINION AND ORDER
Now before the Court is Plaintiff’s Rule 15 Motion for Leave to Amend the Complaint to
Add the Hostile Work Environment (HWE) Claim and/or Theory of Liability and Brief in Support
(Dkt. # 41). Plaintiff asserts that she should be allowed to amend her complaint at this stage in the
litigation to add a hostile work environment claim because Rule 15(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure requires that leave to amend a complaint be “freely given when justice so requires.” Id.
This action arises out of plaintiff’s claims that she was sexually harassed by her female
superior while she was employed by the United States Postal Service. Dkt. # 2. Plaintiff originally
filed an agency action alleging discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, and
retaliation, specifically asserting a claim of hostile work environment. Dkt. # 2-1, at 18. She
received a final agency determination on February 9, 2015. Dkt. # 2, at 3. On March 24, 2015,
plaintiff received a right to sue letter, dated March 19, 2015, and she filed her complaint in this
Court on May 14, 2015, asserting that she had exhausted her administrative remedies. Id. Plaintiff’s
complaint asserted, inter alia, a claim of status-based discrimination under Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., pursuing theories of “race+sex protected-class
liability” and “quid pro quo and disparate treatment theory of liability.” Id. at 6. Although plaintiff
was fully aware of her hostile work environment theory when she filed her agency action, instead
of raising it in her complaint, she stated the following:
Plaintiff expressly reserves the right to pursue a hostile work environment theory of
liability, or any other applicable Title VII theory of liability. Notwithstanding this
reservation, [plaintiff] currently pursues the quid pro quo and disparate treatment
theory of liability.
Id.
Defendant filed an answer to plaintiff’s complaint (Dkt. # 9) and the Court entered a
scheduling order on July 31, 2015 (Dkt. # 12). Pursuant to this scheduling order, the deadline for
amendment to complaint was October 1, 2015. Id. On November 2, 2015, the Court entered an
amended scheduling order (Dkt. # 17), pursuant to which the discovery cutoff was January 29, 2016.
Because the deadline for amendment elapsed before the entry of this order, the Court did not reset
this deadline. Id. This Court entered an opinion and order (Dkt. # 25) on January 26, 2016, denying
defendant’s motion to dismiss. In that opinion and order, the Court explained that, although plaintiff
asserted that, in her complaint, she expressly reserved the right to pursue a claim of hostile work
environment at a later point, her attempt to raise the claim in her response to defendant’s motion to
dismiss was insufficient to bring the claim before the Court. Id. at 4 n.1. On February 11, 2016, the
parties held a settlement conference, but were unable to reach an agreement. Dkt. # 39. On March
1, 2016, over a month after this Court’s opinion and order, plaintiff filed this motion seeking to
amend her complaint to add a hostile work environment claim. Dkt. # 41.
Rule 15(a) provides that “leave [to amend] shall be freely given when justice so requires.”
Minter v. Prime Equip. Co., 451 F.3d 1196, 1204 (10th Cir. 2006); Bradley v. Val-Mejias, 379 F.3d
892, 900 (10th Cir. 2004). “In the absence of any apparent declared reason - such as undue delay,
bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by
2
amendments previously allowed, undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance . .
. the leave sought should, as the rules require, be ‘freely given.’”1 Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178,
182 (1962). In considering delay as the basis to deny a motion to amend, a court must consider the
length of the delay and the reason for the delay to determine if the moving party’s actions constitute
“undue” delay. Smith v. Aztec Well Servicing Co., 462 F.3d 1274, 1285 (10th Cir. 2006). A court
may deny leave to amend “when the party filing the motion has no adequate explanation for the
delay.” Minter, 451 F.3d at 1206 (quoting Frank v. U.S. West, 3 F.3d 1357, 1365-66 (10th Cir.
1993)).
Plaintiff’s motion to amend her complaint should be denied based on plaintiff’s undue delay
in seeking leave to amend. Almost ten months have elapsed since plaintiff filed her complaint and
over six months have elapsed since the deadline for amendment. Plaintiff had full knowledge of all
of the activities relating to her claims prior to filing her complaint, specifically raised the claim of
hostile work environment in her agency action, specifically alleged in her complaint that she was
not stating a hostile work environment claim, although she attempted to “reserve” the right to raise
the claim at a later point, allowed the deadline for amendment to elapse, and allowed the discovery
1
Plaintiff does not assert that Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4) is relevant to the question of whether
plaintiff can amend the complaint. Rule 16(b)(4) states that a scheduling order “may be
modified only for good cause . . . .” In the Tenth Circuit, a plaintiff seeking to amend a
complaint after a scheduling order deadline must demonstrate that he has good cause for
doing so. Gorsuch, Ltd., B.C. v. Wells Fargo Nat. Bank Ass’n, 771 F.3d 1230, 1240-41
(10th Cir. 2014) (“We now hold that parties seeking to amend their complaints after a
scheduling order deadline must establish good cause for doing so.”). The scheduling order
in this case set the deadline of October 1, 2015 for amendments to the complaint. Dkt. # 12.
However, the Court need not address whether plaintiff satisfies Rule 16(b)(4)’s “good cause”
standard because plaintiff is unable to satisfy the more lenient standard of Rule 15(a)(2).
3
deadline to elapse. And plaintiff has presented no reason that would allow the Court to excuse such
a delay, arguing only that leave to amend should be freely given. See Dkt. # 41, at 3.
To the extent that plaintiff argues that Supreme Court precedent guides against decisions
based on “mere technicalities” and single, decisive “missteps” by counsel, this argument fails to
acknowledge that plaintiff made a strategic decision in crafting her complaint from which she
attempts to retreat nearly ten months later. See id. at 4. This Court does not misapprehend the
Supreme Court’s precedent regarding Rule 15(a). But this Court also does not consider plaintiff’s
strategic decision not to raise the hostile work environment in her complaint a “mere technicality”
or a single “misstep” in complying with the Rules of Civil Procedure. Plaintiff made the affirmative
decision not to plead the hostile work environment claim--and to expressly state that she was not
pursuing such a claim--in her complaint.2 If plaintiff wished to alter this decision, she had ample
opportunity to do so while still complying with the Court’s scheduling order. Her attempt to amend
her complaint now, after pertinent deadlines have elapsed, discovery has closed, and a settlement
2
In her motion, plaintiff asserts that “the Title VII hostile work environment (HWE) claim is
properly before the Court as factually pled.” Dkt. # 41, at 3 n.1 (emphasis added).
Plaintiff’s argument is inconsistent with Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a), which requires a pleading to
contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief
. . . .” This requirement serves two purposes: it informs defendants of the claims asserted
so that they may respond to the complaint, and it “appris[es] the court of sufficient
allegations to allow it to conclude, if the allegations are proved, that the claimant has a legal
right to relief.” Monument Builders of Greater Kan. City, Inv. v. Am. Cemetery Ass’n of
Kan., 891 F.2d 1473, 1480 (10th Cir. 1989). Plaintiff’s factual assertions in her complaint
and her express statement that she was not raising a hostile work environment claim cannot
be said to inform defendant of the claim asserted so as to allow defendant to respond. A
defendant need not be omniscient in reading a plaintiff’s complaint in order to divine
potential claims out of a broad recitation of factual assertions. It is a plaintiff’s burden to
inform the defendant of the claims he must defendant himself against, and a plaintiff must
do so by reciting “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is
entitled to relief.” Here, plaintiff has wholly failed to satisfy this burden, despite her
assertions to the contrary.
4
conference has been held, amounts to undue delay, a basis upon which this Court may decline to
give leave to amend.
In sum, the Court cannot conclude that plaintiff should be entitled to amend her complaint
when her continued inaction in seeking to amend her complaint amounts to undue delay. In
addition, allowing plaintiff to amend her complaint at this stage would cause “undue prejudice to
the opposing party.” Defendant has spent the last ten months defending itself against the claims
plaintiff raised in her complaint, not the claim that plaintiff disclaimed in her complaint. Discovery
has closed and the deadline for dispositive motions is quickly approaching. Requiring defendant
to now defend itself against an additional claim of which it had no notice--and in fact, of which
defendant had notice was not being raised--would cause defendant undue prejudice. Plaintiff’s
motion to amend her complaint should thus be denied.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Rule 15 Motion for Leave to Amend the
Complaint to Add the Hostile Work Environment (HWE) Claim and/or Theory of Liability and Brief
in Support (Dkt. # 41) is denied.
DATED this 3rd day of March, 2016.
5
Disclaimer: Justia Dockets & Filings provides public litigation records from the federal appellate and district courts. These filings and docket sheets should not be considered findings of fact or liability, nor do they necessarily reflect the view of Justia.
Why Is My Information Online?