Opinion ID: 2279668
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: whitener

Text: The District places heavy reliance on our decision in Whitener. That case, in my opinion, provides scant support for the District's position. The question presented in Whitener was whether WMATA's failure to raise the statute of limitations in its answer constituted a waiver of that defense. The trial judge granted WMATA's motion for judgment on the pleadings, in which WMATA did raise a limitations defense. This court affirmed [b]ecause appellants made no showing of prejudice, and the record disclose[d] none. 505 A.2d at 457. We relied on the same type of `prejudice' standard [trial] courts regularly employ in determining whether to permit amendments to pleadings. Id. at 459 (quoting LaPorte v. R.D. Werner Co., 561 F.Supp. 189, 191 (N.D.Ill.1983)). There is a critical and, to me, dispositive difference between Whitener and the present case. In Whitener, the trial judge had found that the belated assertion of a limitations defense would cause no prejudice, and she therefore permitted WMATA to assert that defense notwithstanding WMATA's failure to include it in its answer. In the present case, on the other hand, the trial judge found that the introduction of such a defense after discovery had been completed would cause prejudice to the plaintiff, and she denied the District's motion for leave to amend. Because, absent clear abuse or legal error, the disposition of a motion for leave to amend a pleading is basically the trial judge's call, Gordon, supra, 462 A.2d at 13, the deferential standard which I have described in Part I of this opinion dictated affirmance both in Whitener and in this case. Moreover, in the present case, the parties had effectively stipulated that the excessive force claims would be presented to the jury, and there was no comparable stipulation in Whitener.