Court Opinion

ID: 9693154
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:26:41.025006+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:03:12.298640
License: Public Domain

*445FISHER, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
For me, the crucial procedural fact is that appellant never sought leave to amend her complaint. “A [trial] court is not required to grant a plaintiff leave to amend [her] complaint sua sponte when the plaintiff, who is represented by counsel, never filed a motion to amend nor requested leave to amend before the [trial] court.” Wagner v. Daewoo Heavy Industries America Corp., 314 F.3d 541, 542 (11th Cir.2002) (en banc).
Stepping back for a moment, it is clear to me that the present (amended) complaint does not allege that the doctor proceeded without the patient’s informed consent. Those words do not appear in the complaint, nor is that claim fairly inferred from the words that do appear. See Cleary v. Group Health Ass’n, Inc., 691 A.2d 148, 155 (D.C.1997) (“informed consent claims concern a duty of the physician which is completely separate and distinct from his responsibility to skillfully diagnose and treat the patient’s ills” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)); see also note 3, supra (quoting from amended complaint). We may have “liberal” rules of pleading, see generally In re Estate of Curseen, 890 A.2d 191 (D.C. 2006), but Civil Rule 8 still requires “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief[.]” Super. Ct. Civ. R. 8(a)(2). The complaint in this case fails even that very lenient test.
It is not enough that appellant articulated that theory in discovery. She still is required to plead it, and deposition testimony and answers to interrogatories are not pleadings. See Super. Ct. Civ. R. 7(a). This is not a technicality, but rather a fundamental principle of our rules for conducting civil litigation.
The majority acknowledges what it calls “the prevalent rule,” that “[a]bsent exceptional circumstances, a [trial] court has no obligation to invite a plaintiff to amend his or her complaint when the plaintiff has not sought such amendment.” Karvelas v. Melrose-Wakefield Hosp., 360 F.3d 220, 242 (1st Cir.2004). We part company when the majority concludes that “exceptional circumstance[s]” are present here— that the trial court, in effect, “lulled” appellant into complacency. With respect, that conclusion is not fair to the trial court.
It is true that the court’s order of April 11, 2005, stated that the plaintiff could “go forward on the lack of informed consent issue....” This ruling was based on the court’s conclusion that defendants “had notice of this theory” from discovery. If the trial court thereafter had changed its mind sua sponte and dismissed for failure to state a claim, that would have been unfair. But on April 28, 2005, appellees filed a renewed motion to dismiss and/or for summary judgment arguing, among other things, that plaintiff was required to plead her claims and that her “failure to amend her complaint to allege Lack of Informed Consent is fatal.” Appellant responded on June 27, arguing first that appellees had been put on notice of that claim through discovery and also that “[i]n her complaint, the plaintiff clearly alleges medical negligence, and lack of informed [sic] is clearly a form of medical negligence.” Appellant had a full opportunity to brief the issue (and to make any related motions) before the court ruled (correctly, in my view) “that the Complaint did not state a claim for lack of informed consent.”
Appellant may have been startled by that ruling, but she cannot claim unfair surprise. She knew her complaint had been attacked for failure to state a claim, and she was not entitled to assume that the trial court would deny the motion. Even if he chose to defend the complaint as drafted, a prudent attorney would have, *446in the alternative, sought leave to amend if the court ruled otherwise. If he had not taken this precaution, the attorney could have filed a timely motion under Civil Rule 59 or 60, seeking leave to amend. At no time did appellant ask the trial court for leave to amend her complaint, and the trial court was not obliged to invite her to do so. Karvelas, 360 F.3d at 242. See also James Cape & Sons Co. v. PCC Construction Co., 453 F.3d 396, 400-01 (7th Cir. 2006) (rejecting argument that “even though [plaintiff] did not properly request leave to amend its complaint, the district court was required by Rule 15 to dismiss without prejudice and/or sua sponte grant leave to amend the complaint”).
Under the circumstances, it is likely that the plain error standard governs our review instead of the already deferential abuse of discretion standard. I need not resolve that question, however, because the Superior Court neither abused its discretion nor committed plain error by failing to grant relief that was never requested. See Greenidge v. Allstate Insurance Co., 446 F.3d 356, 361 (2d Cir.2006) (“a district court does not abuse its discretion when it fails to grant leave to amend a complaint without being asked to do so”); Karvelas, 360 F.3d at 242 n. 32 (deciding appeal without resolving whether court should review for plain error or abuse of discretion); Emérito Estrada Rivera-Isuzu de P.R., Inc. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 233 F.3d 24, 30 (1st Cir.2000) (pointing out that plaintiff did not amend complaint as of right — as it could have — or “formally ask the district court after judgment to permit such an amendment,” citing Rules 59 and 60; “we cannot say that the district court committed error, let alone plain error, by fading to invite Emérito to replead.”).
I also am skeptical that appellant can prove her belated claim of lack of informed consent without testimony from an expert witness of her own. I would not reach this complicated issue, however, because I would uphold the trial court’s dismissal of the complaint.
I respectfully dissent.