Opinion ID: 3053959
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Motion to Amend the Answer

Text: Waldrip argues that the district court abused its discretion by granting the state leave to amend its answer to assert a statute of limitation defense. We disagree. [1] A party may amend its pleading once within 20 days after a responsive pleading has been served, or if that period has passed, then by leave of the court or by consent of the other party. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a). Courts may freely grant leave when justice so requires, and public policy strongly encourages courts to permit amendments. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a); Outdoor Sys., Inc. v. City of Mesa, 997 F.2d 604, 614 (9th Cir. 1993). The policy of allowing amendments “is to be applied with extreme liberality.” Owens v. Kaiser Found. WALDRIP v. HALL 15467 Health Plan, Inc., 244 F.3d 708, 712 (9th Cir. 2001). We review a district court’s decision to grant leave to amend an answer for abuse of discretion. Id. [2] In determining whether a court abused its discretion in allowing an amendment, “we often consider: bad faith, undue delay, prejudice to the opposing party, futility of the amendment, and whether the party has previously amended his pleadings.” Bonin v. Calderon, 59 F.3d 815, 845 (9th Cir. 1995). Here, nothing in the record indicates that the state sought the amendment in bad faith or that the amendment would have been futile. Any prejudice Waldrip may have suffered as a result of the amendment was mitigated by the opportunity afforded to him to respond to the amended answer. Further, the state had not previously amended the answer. Thus, whether the district court abused its discretion in granting leave to amend turns on whether the state’s motion to amend was unduly delayed. The district court concluded that “the delay in raising the statute of limitations defense is due to the recent decision in Evans, and not due to lack of diligence.” Waldrip challenges that conclusion, arguing that Hall should have known when he filed his initial answer that then-existing Supreme Court precedent in Carey v. Saffold, 536 U.S. 214 (2002), supported the argument that the federal petition was time-barred. [3] In Saffold, the Supreme Court held that, where a state court denies a state habeas petition using the words “ ‘on the merits,’ those words cannot by themselves indicate that the petition was timely.” 536 U.S. at 226. The Court noted that a state court may address the merits of a claim even if it was presented in an untimely way when the merits present no difficult issue, where the court wants to identify potential alternative grounds for decision, or where the court wants to explain to a prisoner that his claim failed for substantive reasons, not simply based on some procedural technicality. Because the state supreme court in Saffold denied the state 15468 WALDRIP v. HALL petition by “stating in a single sentence that it did so ‘on the merits and for lack of diligence,’ ” the Court held that those words did not necessarily establish that the state petition was timely. Id. at 217-18 & 226. Waldrip contends that, in light of Saffold, the state “knew full well that any decision that (either by express statement as in Saffold or by silence) could be construed to be ‘on the merits’ did not necessarily indicate that the petition was timely filed” and that the state should have known when it filed its initial answer to assert as a defense that the petition was timebarred. But Ninth Circuit cases following Saffold reflect that the law then was not so clear as Waldrip now contends. For example, in King v. Roe, 340 F.3d 821, 823 (9th Cir. 2003), we cited Saffold but nevertheless noted that courts must determine whether a state habeas petition is denied “on the merits” in deciding whether a petition is time-barred or whether the limitations period should be tolled. In Delhomme v. Ramirez, 340 F.3d 817, 819-21 & n.2 (9th Cir. 2003), where the state supreme court denied a state habeas petition without comment, we inferred from the court’s silence that there was “no indication that any of [the] petitions were untimely” and concluded that tolling was therefore proper. Later, in Chavis v. LeMarque, 382 F.3d 921, 926 (9th Cir. 2004), overruled by Evans v. Chavis, 546 U.S. 189 (2006), we again ruled that where a state petition was denied on the merits, tolling was appropriate. These cases suggested that tolling the time to file a federal petition was proper where a state court denies a state petition “on the merits” or without comment. After the state filed a motion to dismiss Waldrip’s federal petition as untimely, Waldrip responded with an argument to the contrary. At the time, Waldrip appeared to have the better of the argument, and it must be assumed that the district court would have denied the state’s motion had it followed existing Ninth Circuit precedent when the motion was originally filed. We cannot fault the state for not pursuing a motion which would have been futile at the time. WALDRIP v. HALL 15469 [4] It was not until Evans that the Supreme Court clarified that the Ninth Circuit cases were “not consistent with Saffold.” 546 U.S. at 197-98. Further, the Evans Court expressly addressed the effect of a state court’s silence as to whether a petition is denied on the merits: If the appearance of the words “on the merits” does not automatically warrant a holding that the filing was timely, the absence of those words could not automatically warrant a holding that the filing was timely. After all, the fact that the California Supreme Court did not include the words “on the merits” in its order denying Chavis relief makes it less likely, not more likely, that the California Supreme Court believed that Chavis’ 3-year delay was reasonable. Id. at 197 (emphases in original). Given that Evans reversed our court in clarifying the effect of the California Supreme Court’s unexplained denial of a state habeas petition, the state’s decision in this case to move for leave to amend in light of Evans was reasonable and not unduly delayed. See Jackson v. Bank of Hawaii, 902 F.2d 1385, 1388 (9th Cir. 1990) (noting that “whether the moving party knew or should have known the facts and theories raised by the amendment in the original pleading” is “relevant to evaluating” whether the party “unduly delayed in filing their motion”). Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting Hall’s motion to amend his answer. See Bonin, 59 F.3d at 845.