Court Opinion

ID: 9475190
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:19:24.006249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:33.362511
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
Upon consideration of appellant’s petition for rehearing,
It is ordered that said petition be and the same hereby is denied.
In his petition for rehearing Attorney David Efron asserts that one of our reasons for assessing costs and attorney’s fees against him is that we misunderstood his statement on page 12 of his brief. This does not explain his heading on page 11, “The Court Did Not Allow Amendment,” and the first sentence immediately following it. Any attorney authorized to practice in the federal court should know that, in order to amend a complaint, a motion must be made to do so. In paragraph 5 of his petition for rehearing, Attorney Efron suggests that under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(d), the court should have ordered a motion to amend if a timely motion had not been made. Rule 15(d) reads as follows:
(d) Supplemental Pleadings. Upon motion of a party the court may, upon reasonable notice and upon such terms as are just, permit him to serve a supplemental pleading setting forth transactions or occurrences or events which have happened since the date of the pleading sought to be supplemented. Permission may be granted even though the original pleading is defective in its statement of a claim for relief or defense. If the court deems it advisable that the adverse party plead to the supplemental pleading, it shall so order, specifying the time therefore. [Emphasis added.]
Unless a motion is made to amend the pleadings, the district court has no duty to order or even suggest an amendment. In his brief, Attorney Efron referred to Feder*3al Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a). In the last sentence of the paragraph discussing that rule, Attorney Efron states:
Of course, the grant or denial of an opportunity to amend is within the discretion of the district court, but outright refusal to grant the leave without any justifying reason appearing for the denial is not an exercise of discretion and inconsistent with spirit of the federal rules.
This sentence suggests strongly that Attorney Efron had sought leave to amend the pleadings. Nowhere in his petition for rehearing does Attorney Efron state that he ever filed a motion to amend the pleadings. And, as we stated in our opinion, we have been unable to find any motion seeking leave to amend the pleadings in the record.
We also note that the petition for rehearing does not take issue with the second full paragraph supra, p. 2 discussing the representation that the district court dismissed the complaint, even though appellant was not allowed to take discovery when, in fact, the records show that the plaintiff had engaged in discovery and that the court had, in fact, denied a motion by the defendant seeking a protective order against further discovery by the plaintiff.