Opinion ID: 543772
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Plaintiff's Covert Conversion Claim

Text: 30 The Bank alleges that lurking in its complaint was a claim for conversion of collateral and not a claim for collection of accounts receivable. The Bank also asserts that the district court should have construed its motion for reconsideration, which was prompted by the district court's entry of summary judgment in RCS's favor on the Bank's claim for collection of accounts receivable, as an implicit motion for leave to amend the complaint to include a conversion claim. 31 A motion for reconsideration performs a valuable function where 32 the Court has patently misunderstood a party, or has made a decision outside the adversarial issues presented to the Court by the parties, or has made an error not of reasoning but of apprehension. A further basis for a motion to reconsider would be a controlling or significant change in the law or facts since the submission of the issue to the Court. Such problems rarely arise and the motion to reconsider should be equally rare. 33 Above the Belt, Inc. v. Mel Bohannan Roofing, Inc., 99 F.R.D. 99, 101 (E.D.Va.1983). Justice Cardozo also recognized the utility of the motion to reconsider to the misunderstood litigant: 34 Can it be that he is remediless? An appeal will not aid him, for that must be heard upon the papers on which the motion was decided.... A grievous wrong may be committed by some misapprehension or inadvertence by the judge for which there would be no redress, if this power did not exist. 35 Belmont v. Erie Ry., 52 Barb. 637, 641 (N.Y.App.Div.1869). The Bank was not a misunderstood litigant; the Bank was merely an irresolute litigant that was uncertain what legal theory it should pursue. The Bank never moved to amend its complaint nor did it submit an amended complaint. The district court was under no obligation to sua sponte amend the Bank's complaint. 36 Were we to construe the Bank's motion for reconsideration as containing an implicit post-judgment motion to amend the complaint, we would review the district court's decision not to allow amendment under the abuse of discretion standard. Twohy v. First Nat'l Bank of Chicago, 758 F.2d 1185, 1196 (7th Cir.1985); United States Labor Party v. Oremus, 619 F.2d 683, 690 (7th Cir.1980). In Oremus, we noted that [d]elay in presenting the post-judgment amendment when the moving party had an opportunity to present the amendment earlier is a valid reason for a district court not to permit an amendment. 619 F.2d at 690. The plaintiff here, like the plaintiffs in Oremus, failed to offer any explanation for its delay in seeking an amendment to the complaint. 37 We also doubt whether the Bank's suggestion that the district court enlarge the issues to be considered could fairly be construed as a motion to amend. The normal procedure for requesting an amendment to the complaint in federal court is to file a FED.R.CIV.P. 15 motion to amend together with the proposed amendment or new pleading. Twohy, 758 F.2d at 1197; 3 MOORE'S FEDERAL PRACTICE p 15.12 (1984). The Bank avoided the usual practice and opted to proceed indirectly by hinting in a motion for reconsideration that the district court should enlarge the issues to be considered to include a conversion claim. We noted in another context that [a] district court need not scour the record to make the case of a party who does nothing. Herman v. City of Chicago, 870 F.2d 400, 404 (7th Cir.1989). The Bank's oblique reference to enlarg[ing] the issues to be considered to include a conversion claim presented the district court with little support for granting a post-judgment amendment of the complaint. The Bank did next to nothing in seeking an amendment and now asks us to find that the district court abused its discretion in not rewarding it with an amended complaint. In light of the Bank's failure to explain its delay in seeking amendment, although it concedes that it believed it had a viable conversion claim many months prior to judgment, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to allow an amendment of the complaint. 38 The district court's entry of summary judgment in favor of the defendant is AFFIRMED.