Court Opinion

ID: 9446223
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:49:28.753653+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:34.419766
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The cardinal rule of construction of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is to secure a just determination of every action. Rule 1. Specifically, the courts should grant leave to amend “freely * * * when justice so requires.” Rule 15(a). Here, after only one amendment, the district court dismissed the complaint “without leave to amend.” To be sure, the allowance of an amendment after dismissal lies within the discretion of the trial court, but usually the court denies leave to amend only “where plaintiff has had several opportunities to state a claim and has not been able to do so.” 3 Moore’s Federal Practice, 2nd ed., Paragraph 15.10, p. 839.
The complaint alleged that the plaintiff, a single woman, was severely and permanently crippled and rendered completely unable to earn a livelihood. As I understood appellant’s female counsel, upon oral argument, her real complaint was that no facilities were provided in appellee-defendant’s store building for female employees to go to the toilet or to attend to necessities of personal hygiene, and that they had to go across the boulevard during the so-called “coffee break” for such purposes. I think that she should be given an opportunity to amend her complaint to make such a charge plain.
Unless this Court so orders, she cannot, after affirmance, make that amendment in the district court. See Von Wedel v. McGrath, D.C.N.J.1951, 100 F.Supp. 434, affirmed 3 Cir., 1952,194 F.2d 1013. The suggestion toward the close of the majority opinion that the denial of leave to amend “would not affect any right appellant might have to bring a new action if new facts should be discovered” probably affords no comfort to the appellant-plaintiff in view of the statute of limitations, F.S.A., Sec. 95.11, and the date of injury, May 27, 1954. In my opinion, justice requires that appellant-plaintiff be given leave to amend, and I, therefore, respectfully dissent from the affirmance of the denial of such leave.