Opinion ID: 3013952
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Leave to Amend and Supplement

Text: We first address Dongelewicz’s motion to amend the complaint to include allegations that the mortgage payments received by First Eastern from lot owners were fraudulently concealed from the bankruptcy court. (App 2341) The District Court denied Dongelewicz’s motion to amend holding that the supplemental RICO claims were barred by the statute of limitations and therefore “amendment would be futile. (App 171) We review this decision for abuse of discretion. The four-year statute of limitations for RICO claims begins to run when a plaintiff knew or should have known that he has been injured. Mathews v. Kidder, Peabody Co., 260 F.3d 239, 247 (3d Cir. 2001). In the proposed supplement, Dongelewicz alleges that First Eastern violated RICO, injuring the bankruptcy estate and the lot owners by receiving payments on the mortgage notes after CBG had filed for bankruptcy. These allegations do not arise from the same conduct alleged in the Complaint, so the supplement cannot relate back under Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c)(2) to the date of filing. However, as the District Court found, all of the allegations made in the proposed 7 supplement concern conduct which came to the attention of the lot owners over six years before they moved for leave to supplement in 1998. The supplemental claims were therefore untimely. The lot owners knew that CBG was in bankruptcy as of its filing on March 30, 1992. By April 1992, the lot owners’ mortgage checks were made payable to and endorsed for deposit by First Eastern (App 5558-61), and the bankruptcy stay, which they now allege First Eastern was violating by cashing their checks, was issued on March 30, 1992. Because we agree that the supplemental claims were untimely, we affirm the District Court’s denial of leave to amend.