Court Opinion

ID: 9498687
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:25:17.192772+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:00.624541
License: Public Domain

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I am pleased to concur in Judge Williams’s thorough opinion in this case. I do note that motions filed post-judgment for leave to amend a complaint are not favored under law. It takes a great deal of time and effort for a party to win any judgment. This effort should not be rou-*433finely undone after a decision of the district court alerts a losing party to the deficiencies in its case.
Provision is made in the Rules for automatic amendment of the complaint in certain circumstances and for a liberal granting of leave to amend in other circumstances, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a), but the interest in finality that attaches to every judgment must of necessity weigh in the exercise of the district court’s discretion in a filing such as this. See, e.g., Benzon v. Morgan Stanley Distribs., Inc., 420 F.3d 598, 613 (6th Cir.2005) (noting that “in the post-judgment context” the court “must also take into consideration the competing interest of protecting the finality of judgments and the expeditious termination of litigation”) (internal quotation marks omitted); Doe v. Howe Military Sch., 227 F.3d 981, 989 (7th Cir.2000) (although “leave to amend shall be freely granted when justice so requires, justice may require something less in post-judgment situations than in pre-judgment situations”) (internal quotation marks omitted); Vielma v. Eureka Co., 218 F.3d 458, 468 (5th Cir.2000) (noting that the district court’s discretion to allow amendments “narrows considerably after entry of judgment”). Abuse of discretion is, after all, a deferential standard, and district courts are in the best position to determine “when justice so requires” that a litigant be permitted to amend his complaint. Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a).
In this case, I concur in Part IV’s reversal for abuse of discretion solely because a special circumstance exists — namely, as Judge Williams points out, that Morris v. Rice, 985 F.2d 143 (4th Cir.1993), and Pecker v. Heckler, 801 F.2d 709 (4th Cir.1986), appeared to squarely and affirmatively authorize plaintiffs attempt to seek additional relief without putting the agency finding of defendant’s liability at issue. Indeed, Laber’s initial complaint may have been proper prior to today’s ruling, and this would have obviated the need to amend the complaint in the first place. In this -unique set of circumstances, I agree that Laber should be allowed to amend his complaint. In ordinary circumstances, post-judgment motions for-leave to .amend serve only to string litigation out.