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WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Martinho Rocha, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

Kataushia Thomas, et al., 

Defendants. 

No. CV-18-00155-PHX-ROS (DMF) 

ORDER 

Pending before the Court is Plaintiff’s motion to amend his complaint; the proposed 

First Amended Complaint is lodged with the Court (Docs. 33, 34). Because the motion 

was untimely filed without good cause, the Court will deny his motion. 

On June 19, 2018, the Court issued its Scheduling and Discovery Order in this 

matter which, among other thing, set the dispositive motion deadline at November 17, 2018 

(Doc. 12). On July 3, 2018, the Court struck Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint because 

it failed to comply with LRCiv. 15.1(a) (Doc. 16). In so doing, the Court provided Plaintiff 

with the complete text of LRCiv. 15.1. On Plaintiff’s request thereafter, on August 30, 

2018, this Court ordered that the Clerk of Court send Plaintiff a free copy of his original 

complaint (Doc. 26). Yet, Plaintiff’s current motion to amend (Doc. 33) and the lodged 

proposed amended complaint (Doc. 34) do not comply with LRCiv 15.1, which requires 

that Plaintiff “indicate in what respect it differs from the pleading which it amends, by 

bracketing or striking through the text to be deleted and underlining the text to be added.” 
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In other words, Plaintiff has repeatedly failed to comply with LRCiv. 15.1. On this basis 

alone, denial of the motion to amend is appropriate. 

At Plaintiff’s request and in light of what appeared to be unusual circumstances 

reported by Plaintiff, on October 1, 2018, the Court extended his deadline for filing an 

amended complaint to October 22, 2018 (Doc. 28). This Order was sent to Plaintiff in the 

usual course. In November, 2018, before the filing of Plaintiff’s motion to amend, the only 

named and served Defendant filed for summary judgment on all the claims against her and 

the Court set Plaintiff’s response deadline for the motion for summary judgment (Docs. 31, 

32). Plaintiff did not file his motion to amend his complaint until November 23, 2018 

(Doc. 33), which was also after the discovery deadline and dispositive motion deadline had 

passed (Doc. 12). If Plaintiff’s motion to amend were granted at this time, the case would 

have to be restarted in that all the deadlines, including for service and discovery, would 

likely need to begin again. 

Plaintiff justifies his delay in filing his First Amended Complaint by explaining that 

he had prepared his amended complaint before the Court’s extended deadline of October 

22, 2018, and the Unit Librarian had asked him about whether he wanted to file the 

amended complaint but had not done so because he had not received a copy of the Court’s 

Order extending his deadline (Doc. 33). It appears that there was nothing stopping Plaintiff 

from filing his motion earlier and that he had been repeatedly given the opportunity to do 

so by the Unit Librarian. The Court concludes that Plaintiff has not presented good cause 

for failing to comply with the Court’s deadline. 

For all the reasons above, the motion to amend (Doc. 33) will be denied. 

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED denying Plaintiff’s Motion to Amend (Doc. 33). 

Dated this 27th day of December, 2018.