Opinion ID: 3012663
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Claims for Invasion of Privacy and Conversion

Text: Fraser sought to amend his complaint a third time to assert common law claims for invasion of privacy and conversion. The District Court, however, first granted Nationwide’s motion for summary judgment on all of Fraser’s other claims, then denied leave to amend. We review the District Court’s denial of leave to amend for abuse of discretion. Lake v. Arnold, 232 F.3d 360, 373 (3d Cir. 2000). Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a plaintiff is entitled to amend his complaint once; courts may grant subsequent amendments “when justice so requires.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a). While this Rule also states that leave to amend should be “freely given,” a district court has discretion to deny a request to amend if it is apparent from the record that (1) the moving party has demonstrated undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motives, (2) the amendment would be futile, or (3) the amendment would prejudice the other party. See, e.g., Grayson v. Mayview State Hosp., 293 F.3d 103, 108 (3d Cir. 2002) (citing Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962)). Nationwide contends that Fraser presented no support for its argument that the Court abused its discretion. Moreover, Fraser sought leave to file a third amended complaint to state these two additional causes of action at the eleventh hour — the day before his opposition to Nationwide’s summary judgment motion was due. In this context, we do not believe the District Court abused its discretion. As noted, the Court allowed Nationwide to amend its complaint two times previously. This third — and untimely — effort to amend appears dilatory. While Fraser argues that Nationwide committed discovery violations, mentioned below, it is unclear how these alleged violations adversely affected Fraser’s ability to assert his conversion and invasion of privacy claims in an earlier amendment — as all the claims are based on the 15 same facts and events as the federal ECPA claims and parallel state claims he asserted at the outset.