Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-alsd-2_07-cv-00436/USCOURTS-alsd-2_07-cv-00436-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 110
Nature of Suit: Insurance
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Insurance Contract

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA

NORTHERN DIVISION

WILLIAM D. SUDDUTH, etc., )

 )

Plaintiff, )

 )

v. ) CIVIL ACTION 07-0436-WS-C

 )

EQUITABLE LIFE ASSURANCE )

SOCIETY, etc., et al., )

 )

Defendants. )

ORDER

This matter is before the Court on the defendants’ motion for leave to amend their

answer in order to raise defenses under ERISA. (Doc. 25 & Exhibit 1 at 16). The motion

is based on responses to third-party discovery promulgated by the defendants sometime

after September 6, 2007 and received by them on or about November 7, 2007. The

plaintiff has filed a response and the defendants a reply, (Docs. 27, 28), and the motion is

ripe for resolution. 

The motion was filed before the deadline established by the Magistrate Judge

(upon the parties’ joint request) for filing such motions. (Doc. 15 at 3, ¶ 5; Doc. 16 at 2, ¶

4). Thus, the “good cause” requirement for amending a scheduling order is not in play,

Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b), and the motion is governed only by Rule 15(a).

The defendants may amend “only by leave of court,” but “leave shall be freely

given when justice so requires.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a). Thus, leave should be given “[i]n

the absence of any apparent or declared reason — such as undue delay, bad faith or

dilatory motive on the part of the movant, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by

amendments previously allowed, undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of

allowance of the amendment, futility of the amendment, etc.” McKinley v. Kaplan, 177

F.3d 1253, 1258 (11th Cir. 1999) (internal quotes omitted). The plaintiff invokes both

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Local Rule 26.1(c). 

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undue delay and undue prejudice. (Doc. 27 at 1).

As for delay, the plaintiff notes that he filed suit in state court in November 2006

and that the defendants could have discovered the information made the basis of the

proposed defenses much earlier than they did. The case, however, was timely removed

three weeks after it was filed and was pending in this Court, without discovery, until it

was remanded in February 2007. Immediately upon remand, the defendants served a

notice of deposition of the plaintiff, but he filed an objection to the notice, (Doc. 1,

Exhibit B, Part 2 at 98-106), and the deposition was delayed until May 2007. The

defendants timely removed in June 2007, based on the fraudulent joinder of the resident

defendant as exposed by that deposition. Back in federal court, discovery was held in

abeyance pending the parties’ Rule 26(f) meeting,1

 which did not occur until September

6, 2007. (Doc. 15 at 1). The third-party discovery that revealed the factual basis of the

defendants’ ERISA defenses was promulgated shortly thereafter, and the responses

received on or about November 7, 2007. The instant motion was filed 23 days later.

Given this history of methodical efforts in the short period available for discovery;

the recent discovery of a factual basis for the ERISA defenses; and the prompt filing of a

motion for leave to amend thereafter, there is no basis for asserting that the defendants

have unduly delayed in asserting ERISA defenses. The plaintiff cites no case finding

undue delay as a basis for denying leave to amend on even remotely similar facts, and his

unsupported suggestion that the defendants were required to plead ERISA defenses

before they had any basis for doing so must be summarily rejected as proposing that

parties violate Rule 11 in order to satisfy Rule 15(a).

As for prejudice, the plaintiff asserts that he has “nicely boxed and packaged” his

claim for breach of contract in his pending motion for partial summary judgment, which

could be undone if the defendants are allowed to assert ERISA defenses to that claim (and

his tort claims). (Doc. 27 at 4). That may be inconvenient to the plaintiff, but it does not

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unduly prejudice him. As his own authority states, “the fact that one party has spent time

and money preparing for trial will usually not be deemed prejudice sufficient to warrant a

deviation from the rule broadly allowing amendment to pleadings.” Monahan v.

Department of Corrections, 214 F.3d 275, 284 (2nd Cir. 2000).

Finally, there is no rule, as the plaintiff suggests, that an affirmative defense not

asserted in the original answer in forever waived. In the plaintiff’s cited cases, waiver

was found only when the defendant never moved to amend the answer or did so late in

the proceedings. 

For the reasons set forth above, the defendants’ motion for leave to amend their

answer is granted. The defendants are ordered to file and serve the amended answer on

or before December 21, 2007.

DONE and ORDERED this 17th day of December, 2007.

s/ WILLIAM H. STEELE

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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