Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_10-cv-01632/USCOURTS-azd-2_10-cv-01632-3/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 28:1446 Petition for Removal

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 The various requests for oral argument are denied because the issues have been

thoroughly briefed and argument will not aid the Court’s decision. Fed. R. Civ. P. 78(b).

WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Leanna Smith, individual and as the

mother of CR, a minor,

Plaintiff, 

vs.

Barrow Neurological Institute of St.

Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center

owned and operated by Catholic

Healthcare West, an Arizona

Corporation, et al., 

Defendants. 

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No. CV10-1632-PHX-DGC

ORDER

Plaintiff has filed a motion to amend her complaint. Doc. 82. The motion has

spawned much dispute among the parties, including two motions to strike. Docs. 88, 98.

Having considered the many briefs filed in connection with the motion to amend and the

motions to strike, as well as the lengthy history of this litigation, the Court will deny the

motion to amend, deny the motions to strike, and establish a schedule for the completion of

this case.1

This case has been pending in this Court since early August of 2010 (Doc. 1), and was

first filed in state court on March 22, 2010 (Doc. 1 at 2). Plaintiff has filed three different

complaints – her initial complaint in state court (Doc. 1-2 at 7), an amended complaint in

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state court (Doc. 1-5 at 2), and a second amended complaint in this Court (Doc. 32). These

complaints, which name 20 defendants including hospitals, state agencies, and numerous

doctors, focus primarily on the defendants’ allegedly wrongful conduct in causing Plaintiff

to lose custody of her minor child, CR. 

Progress in this case has been slow. Part of the delay has been caused by an ongoing

state court proceeding to sever Plaintiff’s relationship with CR and the desire of the parties

to see the state case concluded before this case proceeds. Part of the delay has resulted from

the confidentiality of state records relating to CR and the parties’ less than speedy efforts to

obtain permission from the juvenile court to use the records in this case. The Court has held

three case management conferences, each time urging the parties to move the case forward

and ordering Plaintiff to take steps to secure information needed for discovery to proceed.

See Docs. 57, 70, 85. Among other things, the Court has expressly advised the parties that

this case will be resolved within three years of its removal to this Court – an effort to abide

by the requirements of Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the three-year

objective of the federal courts’ CJRA system, and, with some leeway given the complexity

of this lawsuit, the ABA’s two-year goal for completing civil cases. Doc. 85 at 2.

Plaintiff, unfortunately, has not been as responsive as the Court would hope. Plaintiff

did not file the second amended complaint on the schedule required by the Court, resulting

in additional and unnecessary litigation. See Docs. 30-44. Plaintiff has not acted as promptly

as the Court required to obtain records from the juvenile court. And Plaintiff disregarded the

Court’s directive that Plaintiff’s counsel confer with defense counsel before filing the

proposed third amended complaint in an effort to clarify and simplify the proposed additions

to this case. See Doc. 85. This not only resulted in a lost opportunity to simplify the

proposed amendment, but also spawned much unnecessary litigation. See Docs. 85, 88, 91-

93, 97, 98, 101, 102. 

Plaintiff’s proposed third amended complaint is expansive. It contains 449 paragraphs

and eight separate counts, as opposed to 246 paragraphs and three separate counts in the

second amended complaint. Compare Docs. 32 and 86. More importantly, it proposes to add

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entirely new claims about the removal of another of Plaintiff’s minor children (JS); add 24

new defendants, including numerous doctors and other health care professionals, companies,

UCLA, the California Board of Regents, and foster parents for Plaintiff’s children; and add

claims for Racketeering and other wrongs that range far beyond the issues that have been the

focus of this case from the beginning. See Doc. 86. Some of the new parties could have

been added to earlier complaints, such as some of the doctors whose actions were involved

in events giving rise to this case and who were even mentioned in earlier versions of

Plaintiff’s complaint. Other Defendants are named as part of an entirely new lawsuit that

Plaintiff seeks to graft onto this case – claims arising from the removal of JS from Plaintiff’s

custody.

This case has been pending for 22 months. Plaintiff and her counsel have had three

opportunities to plead her claims. Now is not the time to more than double the size of the

case, adding claims and many defendants related to a minor child whose removal has never

been part of this litigation and adding expansive new legal theories and claims. What is

more, this case has been delayed considerably by the complications of obtaining confidential

state documents related to the removal of CR; adding the removal of JS to this case would

only compound these confidentiality problems and introduce an entirely new set of sensitive

state records and an entirely new source of protracted delay.

Granting Plaintiff’s proposed amendment would, in effect, require this litigation to

start over. New defendants would need to be served. Motions to dismiss would surely be

filed, by new defendants in the case and existing defendants against whom new claims are

asserted, replicating two rounds of such motions already completed. See Docs. 30, 58. 

Courts may deny a motion to amend when it involves undue delay and prejudice to

opposing parties. Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962). Seeking to double the size and

complexity of this case some 22 months into the litigation constitutes undue delay. To the

extent Plaintiff believes that some of the claims have been discovered only recently, such as

the claims related to the removal of JS, she can assert those claims in new litigation.

Moreover, the existing defendants, after litigating this case for some time and testing the

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various complaints through motions to dismiss – a process that has resulted in simplifying

and clarifying of the claims in this case – would be prejudiced by being required to start over

and to do so along side 24 new defendants. 

Rule 1 calls for the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of this case. That goal

cannot be achieved by permitting Plaintiff to file the expansive third amended complaint.

The Court will deny the motion and establish a schedule that will result in resolution of

claims asserted in the second amended complaint within three years of the removal of this

action to federal court.

IT IS ORDERED:

1. Plaintiff’s motion to amend (Doc. 82) is denied.

2. The pending motions to strike (Docs. 88, 98) are denied.

3. The Court will establish a litigation schedule by separate order.

DATED this 17th day of January, 2012.

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