Opinion ID: 771584
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: 20 Plaintiff argues that the district court erred by denying his motion to file a second amended complaint. In his proposed second amended complaint Plaintiff sought to add a claim under Bivens. 1 We hold that the district court properly denied Plaintiff's motion to amend his complaint. 21 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a) provides that a district court shall freely grant leave to amend a complaint when justice so requires. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a). Nevertheless, the party requesting leave to amend must act with due diligence if it wants to take advantage of the Rule's liberality. Midwest Suspension & Brake, 49 F.3d at 1202. 22 At the outset, we note that Plaintiff's June 8, 1999 motion to amend his complaint came almost nine months after he filed his first amended complaint and well over a year after he filed his original complaint. Moreover, at the time Plaintiff filed his motion to amend, the district court had granted summary judgment to Defendants two and one-half months earlier as well as denied Plaintiff's motion for reconsideration. 23 Plaintiff in the instant case argues that a § 1983 claim, raised in his original complaint but deleted from his first amended complaint, was similar to the Bivens claim that he now wishes to assert inasmuch as the § 1983 claim alleged a constitutional claim in a general sense. He argues that this similarity affords Defendants sufficient and fair notice. Plaintiff's argument is flawed for two reasons. First, the §1983 claim alleged in Plaintiff's original complaint arose from Defendant Pritchard's purported filing of a false police report in which Pritchard accused Plaintiff of stealing Pritchard's truck by driving it across state lines to New York. The facts underlying the § 1983 claim are not the basis for his Bivensclaim, which arose from the administration of his drug test. Thus, Plaintiff's argument that the two actions are similar enough to provide Defendants sufficient and fair notice is artful, but unpersuasive. Second, Plaintiff's first amended complaint, not his original complaint, was the legally operative complaint for purposes of his motion to amend. See In re Atlas Van Lines, Inc., 209 F.3d 1064, 1067 (8th Cir. 2000) (when plaintiff files amended complaint, new complaint supersedes all previous complaints and controls case from that point forward); Massey v.Helman, 196 F.3d 727, 735 (7th Cir. 1999) (same). Therefore, Plaintiff is effectively attempting to add a new legal theory after the grant of summary judgment and denial of his motion for reconsideration. We therefore conclude that Defendants did not have fair notice of the Bivens claim and would be prejudiced by the addition of this new legal theory nine months after the filing of the first amended complaint. See Duggins v. Steak 'N Shake, Inc., 195 F.3d 828, 834 (6th Cir. 1999) (allowing amendment would create prejudice to defendants in having to reopen discovery and prepare a defense for a claim quite different from sex-based retaliation claim that was before the court); Priddy v. Edelman, 883 F.2d 438, 446 (6th Cir. 1989). 24 Moreover, we agree with the district court that Plaintiff's amendment would be futile inasmuch as he has not stated a claim under Bivens. This Court has previously determined that a Bivens claim, under appropriate circumstances, may be brought against a private corporation that engages in federal action. See Hammons v. Norfolk S. Corp., 156 F.3d 701, 704 (6th Cir. 1998); see also Malesko v. Correctional Servs. Corp., 229 F.3d 374, 379-81 (2d Cir. Oct. 06, 2000) (citing Hammons, supra). Nevertheless, in order to state a claim under Bivens, Plaintiff must allege that there was federal action in contravention of a constitutional right. See Hammons, 156 F.3d at 704. We do not decide whether Defendants' actions constitute federal action for purposes of a Bivens claim because, even assuming that they did, Plaintiff has failed to allege and we do not believe that Plaintiff can allege and prove a violation of his constitutional rights. Although Plaintiff has not alleged a violation of any specific constitutional right, this Court assumes, based on the facts, that Plaintiff would argue that his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches was violated by the random drug test that he was required to take. Under the circumstances of this case, where Plaintiff, who occupies a safety sensitive position, was randomly chosen pursuant to federal regulations to take a single drug test and there is no showing of abuse of that process, we would not find a Fourth Amendment violation. See Skinner v. Ry. Labor Executives' Ass'n, 489 U.S. 602 (1989) (holding that random, systematically applied drug tests conducted under federal regulations to ensure safety did not violate Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches); Nat'l Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656 (1989) (same); Drake v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 147 F.3d 169 (2d Cir. 1998). 25 Therefore, we conclude that the district court properly denied Plaintiff's motion to amend his complaint.