Court Opinion

ID: 9443507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:23:39.07807+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:31.314423
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I agree with the decision, but think it should rest also on the showing that an undoubted controversy developed after this action was brought. Whatever doubt as to the existence of a controversy there may have been originally has been entirely removed — if we can look at actualities. And F.R.C.P., rule 15(d), carrying over into general practice the equity device of supplemental pleadings, is designed to give us just that power. The only suggested bar is a judicial gloss on the broad terms of the rule to the effect that only a “good” complaint may be supplemented. But to such a suggestion we gave the proper answer in the early days of the rules: “Defendants’ claim that one cannot amend a nonexistent action is purely formal, in the light of the wide and flexible content given to the concept of action under the new rules.” Hackner v. Guaranty Trust Co. of New York, 2 Cir., 117 F.2d 95, 98, certi-orari denied 313 U.S. 559, 61 S.Ct. 835, 85 L.Ed. 1520. That was the case of an amendment to substitute a new plaintiff showing requisite grounds of federal jurisdiction in place of an original one who did not; but the principle is applicable here, indeed, a fortiori, since the issue and the parties remain unchanged. No reason appears why the formality and expense of starting a new action should be compelled in order to bring the parties before the court in essentially the same posture except for a delay of a couple of years or more.
Of course if there is a real reason in the particular case why later matter should not be considered, that reason should be adduced and decision rest upon it, not on some formal generalization read into the rules contrary to their spirit. Moreover, usually such reason will be better developed, and with greater fairness to both sides, if the pleading change is actually allowed and the controversy permitted to go forward to a hearing on the merits, rather than be disposed of summarily upon a mere request for permission to amend or supplement; but however developed, the issue on the merits should be the only controlling one. Here, since there is so obviously a real dispute over patent validity which must be tried some time, one senses that the underlying struggle is to secure a priority which might give some advantage in determining the district where the battle is to be fought. But under the existing power of the federal court to transfer cases for the convenience of trial and the witnesses, cf. our recent decisions in Helene Curtis Industries v. Sales Affiliates, 2 Cir., 199 F.2d 732, and Ronson Art Metal Works, Inc., v. Brown & Bigelow, Inc., 2 Cir., 199 F.2d 760, the priority of one suit over another in point of time is only one of several factors to be considered. Here the dates would remain inviolate for whatever they might show, whether plaintiff is now allowed to complete his case or not; the facts will always be that he did start an action on a certain date and that this became more fully perfected later. Forcing plaintiff to start over will not add to or subtract from these facts; it will only cause judicial waste.
In addition to the Hackner case in our own court, there may be cited Porter v. Block, 156 F.2d 264, 271, where the Fourth Circuit appears to have reached a like conclusion without discussion or question. This view is supported in 3 Moore’s Federal Practice 858, 859, 2d Ed. 1948, and see 1951 Cum.Supp. 20. See also Commentary, Stating New Claim in Supplemental Pleading, 2 Fed.Rules Serv. 656. Opposed are certain district court cases, relying on precedents before the rules; and there is also a contrary statement by this court as one of two grounds of decision in Bonner v. Elizabeth Arden, Inc., 2 Cir., 177 F.2d 703, 705. Some grounds of distinction between this case and the present one seem available; moreover, the earlier decision did not discuss the considerations here advanced. In view of this and of the further fact that allowance of a supplemental pleading is a matter of the court’s wise discretion in the particular case, I do not think we are estopped on this record from consideration of the additional material brought to the attention of the district court and included in the record before us.