Briggs v. Jones

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI EASTERN DIVISION

RONNIE EUGENE BRIGGS, JR., ) ) Plaintiff(s), ) ) v. ) Case No. 4:21-cv-01200-SRC ) CO1 WILLIAM JONES, et al., ) ) Defendant(s). )

Memorandum and Order

This matter is before the Court on Briggs’s motion for leave to file an amended complaint. Doc. 22. The Court is unsure whether Briggs seeks to amend his complaint by interlineation, or whether he seeks to file his motion to amend as a stand-alone amended complaint. In either case, the Court denies Briggs’s motion. Briggs’s entitles his filing, “Motion for Leave to File an Amended Complaint,” and he seeks to “file an amended complaint adding parties.” Id. at p. 1. To the extent Briggs seeks to amend by interlineation (that is, by adding language to the pending complaint), the Court denies the motion because amendment by interlineation creates confusion in the record, both for the Court and the responding parties. The Court also denies the motion to the extent Briggs seeks to file his motion to amend as a stand-alone amended complaint. Briggs fails to include information or facts related to the additional defendants whom he wishes to sue. Additionally, if the Court construed Briggs’s motion as an amended complaint, it would strike the document as defective because Briggs did not draft it on a Court-provided form. See E.D. Mo. Local Rule 2.06(A) (“the Court . . . may order the pro se plaintiff . . . to file the action on a Court-provided form”). In the future, if Briggs wishes to seek leave to file an amended complaint, he must file a motion for leave to file an amended complaint and submit (as an attachment to the motion) the proposed amended complaint. See Popoalii v. Corr. Med. Servs., 512 F.3d 488, 497 (8th Cir. 2008) (finding it appropriate to deny leave to amend a complaint when no proposed amendment submitted with the motion). Briggs must draft his proposed amended complaint on a Court- provided form, and he must sign it. The proposed amended complaint must also contain a complete caption, that is, the proposed amended complaint must list all of the defendants Briggs wishes to sue. Additionally, Briggs must write all of his claims on one, complete complaint form. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 7(a)(1), 8(a). For these reasons, the Court denies Briggs’s [22] motion for leave to file an amended complaint. So Ordered this 20th day of April 2022.

= 2 CL eee TEPHEN R. CLARK ee UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE