Opinion ID: 5126740
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Armatas’s Motions for Leave to Amend

Text: We review for abuse of discretion the district court’s denial of leave to file an amended complaint. Pulte Homes, Inc. v. Laborers’ Int’l Union of N. Am., 648 F.3d 295, 304 (6th Cir. 2011). “Abuse of discretion is defined as a definite and firm conviction that the trial court committed a clear error of judgment.” Bowling v. Pfizer, Inc., 102 F.3d 777, 780 (6th Cir. 1996) (quotation omitted). Ordinarily, the district court “should freely give leave [to amend] when justice so requires.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). However, if a plaintiff seeks leave to amend after the pleadings deadline, then the plaintiff must show “good cause” for not seeking leave earlier as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4). Inge v. Rock Fin. Grp., 281 F.3d 613, 625 (6th Cir. 2002). “The primary measure of Rule 16’s ‘good cause’ standard is the moving party’s diligence in attempting to meet the case management order’s requirements.” Id. (quotation omitted). Another important measure under Rule 16’s good-cause standard is whether modification of the scheduling order would prejudice the nonmoving party. Marcilis v. Township of Redford, 693 F.3d 589, 597 (6th Cir. 2012). Notably, the moving party must meet a “higher threshold” in showing good cause under Rule 16 than it would under Rule 15. Shane v. Bunzl Distrib. USA, -5- No. 21-3190, Armatas v. Haws Inc., 275 F. App’x 535, 536 (6th Cir. 2008) (citing Leary v. Daeschner, 349 F.3d 888, 906–07 (6th Cir. 2003)). Armatas filed two separate motions for leave to amend after the pleadings deadline. We find no abuse of discretion in the district court’s order as to either. Armatas has not demonstrated diligence in attempting to meet the requirements of the scheduling order with regard to either of his motions to amend. As to the first, the magistrate judge correctly found that well before the April 30, 2020, scheduling deadline, Armatas knew of the factual bases for the first proposed amendment, which would have added the Plain Township Board of Trustees as a new defendant, a fraud claim against a new defendant, Lisa Campbell, the Plain Township Administrator, and three new constitutional claims against the existing defendants. But he failed to provide any explanation for his failure to seek leave to file the first amended complaint earlier. As to the second motion to amend, the magistrate correctly found that the procedural due process claim that Armatas sought to add relied in part on the same facts he relied on in his first motion for leave to amend, facts he had known well before the pleadings deadline. Armatas fares no better with regard to the other consideration under Rule 16’s good-cause standard—potential prejudice to the defendant. See Marcilis, 693 F.3d at 597. As to the first motion to amend, the magistrate judge noted that Armatas stated in a brief filed with the district court on May 20, 2020, that he planned to seek leave to amend his complaint to add new claims and parties, but he waited “almost another two months,” until after the parties had fully briefed Defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings, before he sought leave to amend—that is, as the district court put it, “Armatas awaited the entirety of Defendants’ arguments for judgment on the pleadings before proposing amendments seeking to avoid such judgment.” The district court’s conclusion that such “gamesmanship does not meet the ‘good cause’ standard required to obtain -6- No. 21-3190, Armatas v. Haws leave” after the pleadings deadline is clearly—albeit implicitly—a finding of prejudice to the Defendants. See Leary, 349 F.3d at 908–09 (affirming denial of a motion to amend the pleadings after finding that the district court implicitly considered potential prejudice to the defendant based on the district court’s language in its order). As to the second motion to amend, which sought to add a procedural due process claim based on a vexatious-litigator lawsuit that several of the named defendants sought to join after the pleadings deadline, the magistrate judge found that adding a new claim based in part on facts different from those alleged in the complaint a mere two weeks before the discovery deadline would require extension of that deadline to permit significant discovery beyond the scope of the original complaint. We have held that allowing new claims “quite different” from the original claims can result in significant prejudice to the defendants because of the need to reopen discovery and to raise new defenses. See Duggins v. Steak ‘N Shake, Inc., 195 F.3d 828, 834 (6th Cir. 1999); see also Hetep v. Warren, 27 F. App’x 308, 309 (6th Cir. 2001) (finding no abuse of discretion in denying leave to amend where the plaintiff sought leave to add unrelated claims against new defendants). Here, Armatas sought to add a procedural due process claim against the Defendants based on a vexatious-litigator lawsuit that is only tangentially related to his original claims. Finally, Armatas argues that the district court erred by failing to consider the so-called “public welfare exception.” But Armatas neither defines the exception nor provides any authority for his view that a district court abuses its discretion by denying leave to amend the pleadings without considering the exception. Accordingly, we do not find error on this basis either. -7- No. 21-3190, Armatas v. Haws