Opinion ID: 2980096
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Leave to Conduct Discovery.

Text: No. 10-5886 Patterson, et al. v. Novartis Pharm. Corp. Page 6 Patterson is not entitled to discovery to determine whether her doctors infused her with Aredia manufactured by Novartis. The Supreme Court’s decisions in Twombly and Iqbal do not permit a plaintiff to proceed past the pleading stage and take discovery in order to cure a defect in a complaint. E.g., Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1950; see New Albany Tractor, 2011 WL 2448909, at  (“The language of Iqbal, ‘not entitled to discovery,’ is binding on the lower federal courts.”). Therefore, the district court did not err by denying Patterson leave to conduct discovery. B. Reliance on Information Outside the Pleadings. Patterson argues that her medical records show that she received Aredia infusions before Novartis’s patent protection expired and, therefore, Novartis must have manufactured the drug she received at that time. However, Patterson never requested that Novartis’s motion to dismiss be converted to a motion for summary judgment. District courts may only consider matters outside the pleadings in deciding a motion to dismiss if they treat the motion as one for summary judgment under Rule 56. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(d); Jones v. City of Cincinnati, 521 F.3d 555, 562 (6th Cir. 2008). Therefore, because the district court did not convert the motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment, it properly ruled on this motion without considering these other documents. C. Leave to Amend. We review a district court’s denial of a motion for leave to amend a complaint for abuse of discretion unless the motion was denied on the grounds of futility, in which case this Court reviews de novo. Total Benefits Planning Agency, Inc. v. Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield, 552 F.3d 430, 437 (6th Cir. 2008). No. 10-5886 Patterson, et al. v. Novartis Pharm. Corp. Page 7 The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Patterson’s initial request for leave to amend because that request was not sufficiently particular. The Rules provide that when requested, courts “should freely give leave [to amend] when justice so requires.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). However, a motion for leave to amend must state with particularity the grounds for amendment. Fed. R. Civ. P. 7(b), 15(a)(2); Evans v. Pearson Enters., Inc., 434 F.3d 839, 853 (6th Cir. 2006). In Evans, this Court held that requesting leave to amend in a single sentence without providing the grounds for the amendment or a proposed amended complaint was not a sufficiently particular request, and the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying the motion. 434 F.3d at 853. Here, Patterson only mentioned the possibility of amendments in the very last sentence of her opposition brief to the district court when she stated, “[i]n the alternative, Plaintiffs request an opportunity to amend the Complaint.” This is not a sufficiently particular request. Additionally, Patterson also had not included a proposed amended complaint with this request. Therefore, because this request was not sufficiently particular, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying this request. Similarly, the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying the formal motion to amend that Patterson filed after the district court had already granted Novartis’s motion to dismiss. This Court has previously noted that ‘[p]laintiffs [are] not entitled to an advisory opinion from the district court informing them of the deficiencies of the complaint and then an opportunity to cure those deficiencies.” Winget v. JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., 537 F.3d 565, 573 (6th Cir. 2008) (alteration in original, citation and internal quotation marks omitted). After a district court grants a motion to dismiss, a party may not seek to amend his or her complaint without first moving to alter, No. 10-5886 Patterson, et al. v. Novartis Pharm. Corp. Page 8 set aside, or vacate the judgment pursuant to Rule 59 or 60. Benzon v. Morgan Stanley Distribs., Inc., 420 F.3d 598, 613 (6th Cir. 2005). The district court noted that Patterson had not shown a clear error of law, newly discovered evidence, intervening change in controlling law, or need to alter the opinion to prevent manifest injustice. Cf. Roger Miller Music, Inc. v. Sony/ATV Publ’g, LLC, 477 F.3d 383, 395 (6th Cir. 2007) (requiring that motion under Rule 59(e) establish a manifest error of law or present newly discovered evidence). Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Patterson’s motion to amend.