Opinion ID: 690784
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Four Unnamed Defendants

Text: 11 Stanko contends the district court erred by dismissing his action against the four unnamed defendants after denying him an opportunity to conduct discovery. 12 As a general rule, the use of Doe defendants to identify a defendant is not favored. Gillespie v. Civiletti, 629 F.2d 637, 642-43 (9th Cir.1980). Unknown defendants may be included in a complaint in certain circumstances, however, such as when the identity of the alleged defendants is not known prior to the filing of the complaint, but may be identified through discovery. Id. 13 In his amended complaint, Stanko alleged that the four unnamed defendants were Fisher's supervisors and would be named or excluded from the complaint once pretrial discovery was completed. Given that Stanko attempted to discover the identity of the four unnamed defendants, but was prevented from doing so by the district court's protective order, the district court erred by dismissing Stanko's complaint against the four unnamed defendants. See id. 14 VACATED and REMANDED.