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529US2

Unit: $U49

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NELSON v. ADAMS USA, INC.

Opinion of the Court

fore moved to amend its pleading to add Nelson, personally,
In this post-
as a party from whom fees could be collected.
judgment endeavor, Adams reasoned that Nelson was the
ﬂesh-and-blood party behind OCP, the person whose conduct
in withholding prior art precipitated the fee award, and a
person with funds sufﬁcient to satisfy that award. The Dis-
trict Court granted the motion.

Adams’ motion, however, sought more than permission to
It sought simultaneously an amended
amend the pleading.
judgment, subjecting Nelson to liability as soon as he was
made a party. See Record, Doc. No. 126, p. 1 (“Defendants
[i. e., Adams] hereby move the Court . . . for an order grant-
ing Defendants leave to amend their third party complaint
to name Donald E. Nelson (Nelson) as a third party defend-
ant in his individual capacity, and amending the judgment in
this action to include Nelson as an additional party against
In presenting the motion,
whom judgment is entered.”).
Adams offered no reason why the judgment should be al-
tered immediately. See id., at 7–8. The motion did contend
that an amendment to the judgment was “necessary to pre-
vent manifest injustice,” id., at 8 (internal quotation marks
omitted), but it did not explain why Nelson, once joined as a
party, should not be permitted to state his side of that argu-
ment. The District Court seems not to have paused over
this question, for it allowed the pleading amendment and al-
tered the judgment at a single stroke. Record, Doc. No. 131.
The memorandum explaining the District Court’s decision
addressed only the propriety of adding Nelson as a party.
It did not address the propriety of altering the judgment at
the very same time. Record, Doc. No. 130, at 3–7.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit afﬁrmed the
amended judgment against Nelson. Ohio Cellular Prods.
Corp. v. Adams USA, Inc., 175 F. 3d 1343 (1999).
It was
“uncommon,” the appeals court acknowledged, to add a party
Id., at 1348. The court con-
after the entry of judgment.