Opinion ID: 1224637
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Joinder of Additional Parties and Claims

Text: R & R contends that the trial court erred by refusing to allow it to amend its complaint to include additional parties and claims. Specifically, R & R moved the court to allow it to add Cove Creek Geothermal, Portanova, Canada, and Provo City and to allege fraud against MEI and Provo. The motion was dated January 30, 1991, and was filed subsequent to the minitrial and just over four years after the complaint was filed. After a responsive pleading has been filed, ... `a party may amend his pleading only by leave of court or by written consent of the adverse party; and leave shall be freely given when justice so requires.' Hill v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 829 P.2d 142, 149 (Utah.Ct.App.1992). However, it has long been this court's position that [r]ule 15(a), Utah of Rules of Civil Procedure,... is to be applied with less liberality when the amendments are proposed during or after trial, rather than before the trial. In any event, the granting of leave to amend is a matter which lies within the broad discretion of the court, and its rulings are not to be disturbed in the absence of a showing of an abuse of discretion resulting in prejudice to the complaining party. Girard v. Appleby, 660 P.2d 245, 248 (Utah 1983); see also Hill, 829 P.2d at 149 (A trial court's discretion to deny a motion for leave to amend is broad and its decision will not be disturbed absent an abuse of discretion. (citation omitted)). We cannot find that the trial court's refusal to allow plaintiff to amend its complaint was an abuse of discretion given the facts of this case. The trial court was within its powers to deny R & R's motion to add new parties and claims more than four years after the case commenced and after a trial had been held to resolve the fundamental issue in the case. This is especially true given the fact that R & R's complaint demonstrates that it knew that all of the parties it sought to add were involved with each other from the outset of the case and therefore that they could have been joined in a timely manner.