WAINWRIGHT et al v. CITY OF SHARON et al

Filing 100

MEMORANDUM OPINION indicating that, for reasons more fully stated within, Plaintiffs' Motion for Leave to File Amended Complaint in Response to Defendants' Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings 57 is granted; An appropriate order follows. Signed by Judge Nora Barry Fischer on 1/11/16. (jg)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
SHAQUAN WAINWRIGHT and JAMAAL
RICHBERG,
Plaintiffs,
v.
CITY OF SHARON, DANIEL McEVOY, MARC
ANTHONY ADAMO and EDWARD STABILE,
Individually and in their official capacity,
Defendants.

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Civil Action No. 14-1212
Judge Nora Barry Fischer

MEMORANDUM OPINION
I.

INTRODUCTION
Plaintiffs Shaquan Wainwright (“Wainwright”) and Jamaal Richberg (“Richberg”)

(collectively, “Plaintiffs”) initiated this civil rights action against the City of Sharon and three
Sharon police officers: Daniel McEvoy, Marc Anthony Adamo, and Edward Stabile
(“Defendants”). The Complaint asserts nine separate causes of action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§
1983 and 1988 and the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States
Constitution. (Docket No. 1).
Presently pending before the Court is Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to File Amended
Complaint in Response to Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings (Docket No. 57),
Defendants’ Response (Docket No. 70), Plaintiffs’ Reply (Docket No. 77), and supplemental
briefs (Docket Nos. 91, 92) filed by the parties following an oral argument on August 31, 2015
(Docket No. 99).

For the reasons set forth below, Plaintiffs’ Motion to Amend will be

GRANTED.
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II.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND
According to the Complaint, Wainwright, an African-American, and Stanley Root, a

white man, had an altercation at Wainwright’s home that resulted in a call to the police. (Docket
No. 1 at ¶¶ 16-20). Three Sharon police officers, all white, arrived at the scene. (Id. at ¶ 21).
Despite the presence of several corroborating witnesses, the officers refused to believe
Wainwright’s version of the incident with Root, repeatedly asked him if he owned a firearm, and
ultimately searched his home and arrested him without a search warrant or probable cause. (Id.
at ¶¶ 27-30, 34, 35-36). The officers also made racially charged statements and directed several
racial slurs towards Wainwright and his friends and family. (Id. at ¶¶ 31, 37-38).
As Wainwright was being led to a police car in handcuffs, Richberg, an AfricanAmerican friend of Wainwright’s, arrived at the scene. (Id. at ¶ 39). One of the officers grabbed
Richberg, referred to him as “boy”, and demanded to see his identification. (Id. at ¶ 41).
Richberg was released after a police check on his identification came back clean. (Id.).
Following his arrest, Wainwright was charged with simple assault, terroristic threats, and
misdemeanor disorderly conduct. (Id. at ¶ 42). Wainwright was kept in handcuffs until his
hands went numb and was refused his diabetes medication. (Id. at ¶ 43). Officers searched his
home in a “brutal” fashion, breaking many of his personal possessions and destroying his sevenyear-old son’s bedroom. (Id. at ¶ 45). The search uncovered a shotgun that was later used by
police to have Wainwright removed from his home in public housing. (Id. at ¶¶ 44, 59).
Wainwright alleges that all of these actions stemmed from racial animosity on the part of the
Sharon police department and its officers.
III.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

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Plaintiffs filed their original Complaint on September 8, 2014. (Docket No. 1). On
November 19, 2014, the parties filed a Rule 26(f) report with a proposed deadline of March 1,
2015 for the addition of parties or amendment of pleadings. (Docket No. 12). On November 25,
2014, the Court issued a Case Management Order adopting the deadlines stated in the Rule 26(f)
report. (Docket No. 15).

The Case Management Order was later modified to extend the

discovery period, but the deadline for motions to amend/add parties was never altered. (Docket
No. 24).
Defendants filed a Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings pursuant to Rule 12(c) of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on July 1, 2015. (Docket No. 28). In response, Plaintiffs filed
the instant Motion to Amend. (Docket No. 57). The latter motion is now fully briefed and ripe
for review.
IV.

LEGAL STANDARDS
A party seeking leave to amend the pleadings after the deadline set by the Court’s Case

Management Order must satisfy the requirements of Rule 16(b)(4) of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure. See Walker v. Centocor Ortho Biotech, Inc., 558 Fed. App’x 216, 221–22 (3d Cir.
2014) (citing Race Tires Am., Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp., 614 F.3d 57, 84 (3d Cir. 2010).
A Case Management Order “may be modified only for good cause and with the judge’s consent.”
FED R. CIV P. 16(b)(4). Good cause requires a demonstration of due diligence. Race Tires Am.,
Inc., 614 F.3d at 84. “Many courts have recognized that ‘[w]here ... the party knows or is in
possession of the information that forms the basis of the later motion to amend at the outset of
the litigation, the party is presumptively not diligent.’” Graham v. Progressive Direct Ins. Co.,
271 F.R.D. 112, 119 (W.D. Pa. Sep.15, 2015) (Fischer, J.) (quoting Price v. Trans Union, LLC,
737 F.Supp.2d 276, 280 (E.D. Pa. 2010)).

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Only once the moving party demonstrates good cause under Rule 16(b)(4) can the Court
consider its Motion to Amend under Rule 15’s standard. See Walker, 558 Fed. App’x at 221–22
(citing Race Tires Am., Inc., 614 F.3d at 84). Rule 15(a)(2) provides that “a party may amend its
pleading only with the opposing party’s written consent or the court’s leave.” FED R. CIV P.
15(a)(2). “The court should freely give leave when justice so requires.” Id. “[M]otions to
amend pleadings should be liberally granted.” Long v. Wilson, 393 F.3d 390, 400 (3d Cir. 2004)
(citations omitted). “Leave to amend must generally be granted unless equitable considerations
render it otherwise unjust.” Arthur v. Maersk, Inc., 434 F.3d 196, 200 (3d Cir. 2006) (citing
Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962)). “Among the factors that may justify denial of leave
to amend are undue delay, bad faith, and futility.” Id. (citing Lorenz v. CSX Corp., 1 F.3d 1406,
1414 (3d Cir. 1993)). “It is well-settled that prejudice to the non-moving party is the touchstone
for the denial of [leave to file] an amendment.” Cornell & Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health
Review Com’n, 573 F.2d 820, 823 (3d Cir. 1978) (citations omitted). “As to prejudice, the Court
of Appeals has ‘considered whether allowing an amendment would result in additional
discovery, cost, and preparation to defend against new facts or new theories.” Graham, 271
F.R.D. at 123 (citing Cureton v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 252 F.3d 267, 273 (3d Cir.
2001)). “Given the liberal standard under Rule 15(a), ‘the burden is on the party opposing the
amendment to show prejudice, bad faith, undue delay, or futility.’ ” Id. (citing Chancellor v.
Pottsgrove Sch. Dist., 501 F.Supp.2d 695, 700 (E.D. Pa. 2007)). The test under Rule 15(a) “is in
the disjunctive, meaning that if [Defendants] meet[ ] [their] burden to prove any one of these
elements, the [amendment] should not be permitted.” Id.
V.

DISCUSSION

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Plaintiffs’ primary argument in support of their Motion to Amend is that amendment is
necessary in order to cure the pleading deficiencies highlighted by the Defendants in the pending
Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings. The proposed amendments clarify and refine Plaintiffs’
existing causes of action by including factual content allegedly adduced during discovery, rather
than adding new claims or parties. Plaintiffs support their request by citing the Third Circuit’s
liberal policy for permitting curative amendments in civil rights actions and argue that good
cause exists because, in the absence of amendment, they will be deprived of the opportunity to
use relevant and favorable evidence to respond to Defendants’ dispositive motion. Defendants,
in response, contend that Plaintiffs’ motion should be denied because Plaintiffs failed to exercise
due diligence to discover the newly proposed facts prior to the expiration of the deadline to
add/amend contained in the Case Management Order.
Plaintiffs’ Motion arrives in an unusual procedural posture.

When this action was

initiated, Defendants elected not to utilize Rule 12(b)(6) to challenge the sufficiency of the
Complaint.

The parties proceeded to discovery, and the deadline for filing an amended

complaint set forth in the Court’s Case Management Order expired. Several weeks later – and
almost ten months after the original complaint was filed – Defendants filed the pending Motion
for Judgment on the Pleadings. Plaintiffs acknowledge that Rule 12(c) permits the filing of such
a motion at any time “after the pleadings are closed . . . but early enough not to delay trial”, but
contend that Defendants intentionally timed their motion to prevent the Court from reviewing
relevant and favorable evidence adduced during discovery that supports Plaintiffs’ claims and
potentially entitles them to judgment in their favor. Such evidence may not be used to oppose a
motion challenging the sufficiency of the pleadings, and it is too late for Plaintiffs to amend their
complaint to include any curative facts adduced during discovery without showing “good cause.”

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See Mayer v. Belichick, 605 F.3d 223, 230 (3d Cir. 2010) (noting that a Court reviewing a Rule
12(c) motion may only consider “the complaint, exhibits attached to the complaint, matters of
public record, [and] undisputedly authentic documents if the complainant’s claims are based
upon those documents.”); FED R. CIV P. 16(b)(4) (stating that the deadlines in a Case
Management Order may be modified “only for good cause and with the judge’s consent”).
Consequently, Plaintiffs accuse Defendants of attempting to employ “sharp pleading practices”
to effectuate a denial of justice:
[A] defendant, knowing that a Plaintiff would have essentially an
automatic right to amend if a Rule 12(b)(6) motion were filed, might
deliberately withhold challenges to pleadings, permit discovery
proceedings and then seek to preclude the court from reviewing the
evidence that discovery has produced, by filing a 12(c) motion. The
Defendants actually claim here that Plaintiffs are foreclosed from
disclosing evidence which favors their case, in responding to the belated
motion on the pleadings (evidence which is so strong that it may entitle
them to summary judgment), because they are bound and limited by the
allegations made in the pleadings, before there was any discovery.
(Docket No. 57 at 5).
This Court recently addressed a similar scenario in Gaston v. Caugherty, 2015 WL
8601232 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 14, 2015).

In Gaston, the defendants filed a dispositive motion

challenging the sufficiency of the pleadings after the deadline for amendments had passed. Id. at
*5. As in the instant case, the timing of the motions was atypical “in that Plaintiff had already
amended her Complaint twice, and Defendants had already filed an Answer, prior to Defendants
filing Motions to Dismiss.” Id. at *6. Plaintiff responded by seeking leave to file a Third
Amended Complaint. Id. at *5. The Court held that good cause supported the plaintiff’s request
to amend:
[U]nder Rule 16, Gaston must show good cause in order to be granted
leave to amend. The Court finds that she has done so here. In [Karlo v.
Pittsburgh Glass Works, LLC, 2011 WL 5170445 (W.D. Pa. Oct. 31,
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2011)], this Court found that the plaintiffs had not been diligent in
seeking the discovery that led to their motion to amend. Karlo, 2011
WL at *3-4; see also Graham v. Progressive Direct Insurance Co., 271
F.R.D. 112, 119-20 (W.D. Pa. 2010) (finding no good cause where
motion for leave was based on newly discovered evidence which the
Court found not to have actually been newly discovered). Here, Gaston
seeks to amend in order to cure possible pleading deficiencies as
attacked by motions to dismiss. Since the Proposed Third Amended
Complaint and the instant Motion for Leave were filed in direct response
to Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, the Court finds that Plaintiff has
shown good cause, in that she should be provided the opportunity to
respond to Defendants’ dispositive motions.
Id. at *6.
Several other courts have reached the same conclusion. In Ross v. Volusia County, 2013
WL 1187537 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 21, 2013), the deadline for motions to amend pleadings had
already passed when the defendants moved for partial judgment on the pleadings. Id. at *1.
Plaintiff sought leave to amend in order to remedy the deficiencies in the complaint by supplying
additional facts adduced during discovery.

Id.

The Court granted the motion over the

defendant’s objection:
Rule 16 and its accompanying diligence standard govern the instant
motion for leave to amend. On that note, the Court reminds Plaintiff that
Defendant is under no obligation to file an early motion to dismiss in
order to notify Plaintiff of pleading deficiencies. The absence of such a
motion certainly does not absolve Plaintiff of his responsibility to
correctly plead facts to support his claims or to timely identify
deficiencies in his Complaint. On the other hand, identifying such a
jurisdictional deficiency, lying in wait until the deadline has passed, and
then filing a motion to catch one’s opponent unawares with the time
deadline for amendment down river hardly seems like a course of
conduct that should be rewarded.
Ultimately, in view of the fact that Plaintiff has not previously amended
his Complaint, the communication difficulties faced because of
Plaintiff's disabilities, and the potential injustice to Plaintiff of denying
an amendment as compared to the relative lack of substantial injury to
Defendant in granting it, the Court finds that there is good cause to grant
Plaintiff leave to amend his Complaint.

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Id. at *2. See also Martinez v. City of Denver, 2012 WL 4097298, at *2 (D. Col. Sep. 18, 2012)
(finding good cause for plaintiff’s request to amend where defendants waited until one year after
the pleading amendment deadline to point out deficiencies in the complaint and plaintiff acted
promptly to cure the deficiencies); Wright v. Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div., 2012 WL
3683484, at *2 (W.D. Tenn. Aug. 24, 2012) (finding good cause to amend in response to a
dispositive motion because plaintiff had recently added new counsel and was not seeking to add
new claims or parties and discovery remained ongoing); Rehberg v. City of Pueblo, 2011 WL
4102287, at * (D. Col. Sep. 14, 2011) (finding good cause where plaintiff sought to amend in
response to a dispositive motion “to add information learned during discovery – eight months of
which occurred after the pleading amendment deadline”).
On balance, the Court finds that the standard for good cause under Rule 16(b)(4) is
satisfied here. Upon being served with Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings,
Plaintiffs acted diligently to file their Motion to Amend within the timeframe for responses to
Defendants’ dispositive motion. As in Gaston, Plaintiffs’ motion was filed in direct response to
a dispositive motion filed after the deadline for amendment had passed. Plaintiffs are not
seeking to add additional parties or claims to this action, but merely to utilize facts adduced
during discovery to clarify and refine their claims in response to the deficiencies highlighted in
Defendants’ motion. The proposed amendments will not unduly prejudice the Defendants,
particularly as discovery remains ongoing. Moreover, the Court recognizes that the Third Circuit
has counseled strongly in favor of providing civil rights plaintiffs with an opportunity to amend
their complaint in response to a dispositive motion on the pleadings. Alston v. Parker, 363 F.3d
229, 235 (3d Cir. 2004) (“We have held that . . . if a complaint is vulnerable to 12(b)(6)
dismissal, a District Court must permit a curative amendment, unless an amendment would be

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inequitable or futile.”); Andela v. Am. Ass’n for Cancer Research, 389 F. App’x 137, 142 (3d
Cir. 2010) (Rule 12(c) context). In the absence of an opportunity to amend, Plaintiffs will be
deprived of an opportunity to meaningfully respond to Defendants’ dispositive motion with the
benefit of the current record. Each of these factors supports a finding of good cause.
Having determined that Plaintiffs have demonstrated good cause, the Court next must
consider Plaintiffs’ Motion to Amend pursuant to Rule 15’s liberal standards. “Among the
grounds that could justify a denial of leave to amend are undue delay, bad faith, dilatory motive,
prejudice, and futility.” In re Burlington Coat Factory Sec. Litig., 114 F.3d 1410, 1434 (3d Cir.
1997). “As to prejudice, the Court of Appeals has ‘considered whether allowing an amendment
would result in additional discovery, cost, and preparation to defend against new facts or new
theories.” Graham, 271 F.R.D. at 123 (citing Cureton, 252 F.3d at 273).
As explained above, Plaintiffs’ Motion to Amend is not dilatory or unduly prejudicial.
To the contrary, the motion was filed for the express purpose of incorporating facts disclosed
during discovery that would otherwise be shielded from the Court’s review by the standards
governing Rule 12(c). See, e.g., Gaston, 2015 WL 8601232 at *6-7 (granting leave to amend
under Rule 15 where the plaintiff “attempted to file her Third Amended Complaint as a timely
response to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss”).

Permitting the requested amendment is

consistent with both the liberal approach embodied in Rule 15 and the Third Circuit’s strong
policy in favor of permitting curative amendments in civil rights cases. Dole v. Arco Chemical
Co., 921 .2d 484, 486-87 (3d Cir. 1990) (pursuant to Rule 15, “leave shall be freely given when
justice so requires”); Alston, 363 F.3d at 235 (3d Cir. 2004) (“We have held that . . . if a
complaint is vulnerable to 12(b)(6) dismissal, a District Court must permit a curative

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amendment, unless an amendment would be inequitable or futile.”).

For these additional

reasons, Plaintiffs’ Motion to Amend will be granted.
VI.

CONCLUSION
For all of the foregoing reasons, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to File Amended Complaint

in Response to Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings (Docket No. 57) is
GRANTED.
An appropriate order follows.
/s/ Nora Barry Fischer
Nora Barry Fischer
United States District Judge
CC/ECF:
Date:

All parties of record.
January 11, 2016

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