Opinion ID: 33264
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Amendment of Pleadings

Text: Barnes had repeatedly been given leave to amend her pleadings. On April 15, 2002, she requested leave to file a Fifth Amended Complaint that would add claims involving new events and defendants. The district court denied this request by order dated May 24, 2002. Barnes argues that the district court abused its discretion in doing so. Although the general rule is that leave to amend pleadings should be freely granted when justice requires, see FED. R. CIV. P. 15(a), in this case Barnes was also required to show “good cause” why her request should be granted, because her request 11 came after the scheduling order’s January 27 deadline for amendments. See FED. R. CIV. P. 16(b) (providing that a scheduling order “shall not be modified except upon a showing of good cause”); S&W Enters. v. SouthTrust Bank of Ala., 315 F.3d 533, 536 (5th Cir. 2003) (stating that “Rule 16(b) governs amendment of pleadings after a scheduling order deadline has expired. Only upon the movant’s demonstration of good cause to modify the scheduling order will the more liberal standard of Rule 15(a) apply to the district court’s decision to grant or deny leave.”).7 Having assumed that Barnes could show good cause under Rule 16(b), the district court nonetheless found that Barnes’s request to amend should be denied. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Barnes’s request. Even if we assume, as did the district court, that Barnes can overcome the hurdle of Rule 16(b), her request did not satisfy the requirements of Rule 15(a). While Rule 15(a) provides a rather liberal standard for granting leave to amend, 7 Barnes points out that she had previously moved for leave to amend on December 5, 2001, before the scheduling order’s deadline. The December 5 motion was not accompanied by a proposed amended complaint, nor did it describe when she wished to file one. Rather, the motion prayed generally for leave to file an indeterminate number of “further amendments” at unspecified future dates when “Plaintiffs have adequate time to accomplish this task and as discovery develops.” The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying this extraordinary open-ended request. The district court’s decision was justified by the same considerations that, as we explain in the text, justified the denial of Barnes’s more conventional April 15 motion for leave to amend. 12 it has long been recognized that certain factors weigh against granting leave. These factors include “undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed, undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment, [and] futility of amendment.” Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962). The district court found that several of these factors were present, and we find that its determination is amply supported by the record. For example, we note that Barnes’s previous amended complaints did not comport with the district judge’s instructions to streamline and clarify her averments. On the contrary, the amended complaints continued to make conclusory allegations and refer to extraneous matters. Barnes’s motion for leave to amend suggested that further amendments would be necessary as discovery revealed more defendants and further wrongs. Given the risk of an unending stream of unsatisfactory amendments, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finally calling a halt to the amendment process.