Opinion ID: 1436492
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Order Denying the Motion to Amend

Text: This court reviews a trial court's decision to permit or deny an amendment of pleadings for abuse of discretion. See Briggs v. Israel Baptist Church, 933 A.2d 301, 2007 D.C.App. Lexis 580 (D.C.2007). Our task is to examine [] the record and the trial court's determination for those indicia of rationality and fairness that will assure it that the trial court's action was proper. Johnson v. United States, 398 A.2d 354, 362 (D.C. 1979). Although leave to file an amended complaint shall be freely given when justice so requires, Johnson v. Fairfax Vill. Condo. IV Unit Owners Ass'n, 641 A.2d 495, 501 (D.C.1994) (quoting Super. Ct. Civ. R. 15(a)), our case law recognizes that undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by previous amendments, and undue prejudice to the opposing party, are all valid grounds for refusing to allow amendment. Howard University v. Good Food Services, Inc., 608 A.2d 116, 120 (D.C.1992). As in Howard, we have found no abuse of discretion and have upheld a trial court's order denying leave to amend a complaint where the plaintiff had all the necessary facts to state the new claims it seeks to assert at the time it filed its previous complaint, id. ; where adding a new theory of liability would prejudice the defendant by causing additional discovery time and expense, could result [] in a fourth party complaint against [defendant's] liability insurance carrier, and would delay the pretrial conference and trial, id. at 121; and where the plaintiff failed to put forth any satisfactory reason for the delay in amending its complaint, id. at 122 (internal quotations and citation omitted). We have recognized that the moving plaintiff's lack of bad faith or dilatory motive in seeking to amend her complaint provide merely a sufficient and not a necessary basis to deny a motion to amend. Id. at 121-22. Here, considering all these factors, we cannot say that Judge Kravitz abused his discretion in denying Ms. Flax's motion to amend. Ms. Flax has cited no reason why her first Amended Complaint, which she filed when she had the benefit of counsel, could not have included the entirely new claims that she sought to add through a second Amended Complaint (claims that the Lawyers negligently pursued claims that failed as a matter of law, and failed to seek recovery of certain attorney's fees that Mr. Flax incurred in consulting with a securities attorney about NASD rules). The other purportedly new claims that Ms. Flax sought to add [11] were already fairly covered by the broad claims in Ms. Flax's first Amended Complaint. Moreover, as the court ruled in its final summary judgment order, Ms. Flax had no standard-of-care expert to support her claims of negligence. These were valid reasons for denying leave to amend the complaint so as to add additional negligence claims. [12] See Bennett v. Fun & Fitness, Inc., 434 A.2d 476, 479 (D.C. 1981) (court may consider the merit of the proposed new claim in determining whether to grant leave to amend). Furthermore, as the trial court noted, the case had been pending for two years and discovery had already closed when Ms. Flax sought to add her new claims. Allowing the new claims would have required not only a re-opening of discovery (as Ms. Flax acknowledges), but also, in all likelihood, a delay in the scheduled trial date. A court does not abuse its discretion in considering the likelihood of delay as a factor disfavoring leave to make a successive amendment to a complaint, because delay prejudices not only the defendant but also the ability of other persons . . . to utilize the [judicial] system. Perry v. Sera, 623 A.2d at 1219. Ms. Flax argues that if the court had clarified what claims remained at issue, she would have been able earlier to obtain replacement counsel, conduct adequate discovery and proceed without delay, so that it was not fair to deny her motion on the ground that amendments to the complaint would delay the litigation and cause a reopening of discovery. As already discussed, we are not persuaded by Ms. Flax's argument that her litigation efforts were stymied by the court's orders denying her requests for clarification, and the argument is equally unavailing to support her contention that the court abused its discretion in denying her request for leave to amend her complaint.