Croskey v. United States

24 Cl. Ct. 420, 1991 U.S. Claims LEXIS 465, 1991 WL 203491
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedOctober 9, 1991
DocketNo. 90-3841C
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 24 Cl. Ct. 420 (Croskey v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Croskey v. United States, 24 Cl. Ct. 420, 1991 U.S. Claims LEXIS 465, 1991 WL 203491 (cc 1991).

Opinion

ORDER

REGINALD W. GIBSON, Judge.

This case is before the court on Plaintiff’s Motion For Leave Of Court To Amend Plaintiff’s Complaint pursuant to RUSCC 15, filed on July 30, 1991. The record shows, with respect thereto, that Lori Croskey filed her original complaint on October 9,1990, seeking monetary relief under the Back Pay Act, 5 U.S.C. § 5596. On March 29, 1991, she filed an unopposed motion to amend her complaint (after defendant’s February 28, 1991 motion to dismiss was filed) which was allowed on April 4, 1991.

The plaintiff is now before the court on a Motion For Leave To File A Second Amended Complaint. In this instance, however, and unlike the first amended complaint, the defendant has filed an Opposition To Plaintiff’s Second Motion To Amend Her Complaint. According to the defendant, the plaintiff's first motion to amend her complaint was unopposed because the modifications made were truly minor in character and were made only to correct technical errors in the original complaint. However, the defendant opposes this second motion to amend because, despite plaintiff’s contention otherwise, the corrections made in this amended complaint are far from minor in character nor do they seek to merely correct clerical errors. Rather, the defendant points out, the proposed amendments seek to include an additional basis for recovery, namely, a constitutional claim under the first amendment and under the due process clauses of the fifth amendment, as well as increase the amount of damages the plaintiff seeks to recover.

Essentially, defendant contends, inter alia, that plaintiff’s motion to file a second amended complaint should be denied because it is “futile” in light of the fact that the constitutional claims which Ms. Croskey proposes to incorporate into her amended complaint will not cure the court’s lack of subject matter jurisdiction.1 Plaintiff, on the other hand, states that her [422]*422second amended complaint is not an attempt to “cure jurisdictional defects,” as contended by the defendant, but rather for clarification purposes only. Accordingly, plaintiff contends that the defendant will not suffer any prejudice by the filing of this second amended complaint because “the constitutional claims were again for strictly clarification purposes, since they form only part of plaintiff’s claim, and do not stand alone ...,” as specified in defendant’s opposition to plaintiff’s motion to amend.

DISCUSSION

Having previously granted plaintiff’s motion for leave of court to file a first amended complaint on April 4, 1991, we now address plaintiff’s second motion to amend her complaint. After a full and thorough review, RUSCC 15(a) and related case law compel this court to conclude that said motion must be granted for two reasons: (i) defendant will not be prejudiced; and (ii) the amended complaint is not “futile.”

Our threshold question is one of interpretation of RUSCC 15(a). RUSCC 15(a) states in pertinent part:

A party may amend his pleadings once as a matter of course at any time before a response is served or____within 20 days after it is served. Otherwise, a party may amend his pleadings only by leave of court ... and leave shall be freely given when justice so requires

(emphasis added). When ruling on a motion to amend, this court in both Effingham County Board of Education v. United States, 9 Cl.Ct. 177 (1985), and State of Alaska v. United States, 15 Cl.Ct. 276 (1988), has focused upon the following operative language set forth in Foman v. Davis,2 371 U.S. 178, 182, 83 S.Ct. 227, 230, 9 L.Ed.2d 222 (1962):

In the absence of any apparent or declared reason—such as undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed, undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment, futility of amendment, etc.—the leave should, as the rules require, be “freely given. ” Of course, the grant or denial of the opportunity to amend is within the discretion of the ... Court, but outright refusal to grant the leave without any justifying reason appearing for the denial is not an exercise of discretion; it is merely abuse of that discretion and inconsistent with the spirit of the Federal Rules.

(emphasis added).

Given this well-established principle and the nature of the Court’s litany of suggestive extenuating circumstances for the denial of a motion to amend, we find that to justify such a denial the non-movant must explicitly indicate a reason for the court to deny the movant’s motion to amend. Absent such an explicit indication, the denial would result in an abuse of discretion. Effingham, 9 Cl.Ct. at 180. In accordance with this principle, it is clear that the burden for obtaining the denial of a motion to amend rests upon the nonmovant, in that “the party must demonstrate that it will be severely disadvantaged or incapable of presenting facts or evidence” with regard to the issues at hand. Cornell and Co., Inc. v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, 573 F.2d 820, 823 (3d Cir.1978). In addition, the non-movant may show that he will be prejudiced by the plaintiff’s amendment by demonstrating that the new legal theories set forth by the plaintiff will require him to conduct extensive research shortly before trial. State of Alaska, 15 Cl.Ct. at 280. See Johnson v. Oroweat Foods Co., 785 F.2d 503, 510 (4th Cir.1986). More importantly, however, if the non-movant is unable to make a firm “showing of undue or substantial prejudice,” as a matter of law, the amendment must be allowed. State of Alaska, 15 Cl.Ct. at 280.

On the facts of the case at bar, it is quite clear that the United States will not be “unduly burdened or substantially prej[423]*423udiced” if Ms. Croskey is permitted to amend her complaint for a second time. In fact, the United States has failed to even set forth such an argument in any of its pleadings. It appears, therefore, to be very unlikely that any foreseeable prejudice will inure to the defendant because of the plaintiffs filing of a second amended complaint. Accordingly, we are constrained to conclude that the defendant has not met its burden. In addition, the defendant’s defense of “futility” is completely groundless. Most courts when considering a "futility” defense to a motion to amend a complaint will discern “whether a pleading is frivolous and insufficient on its face or has been adequately addressed in the prior complaint.” Johnson, 785 F.2d at 510. There is no evidence here, nor has the defendant alleged, that the plaintiff’s complaint is “frivolous and insufficient” on its face or that the issues have been adequately addressed previously. In fact, the defendant specifically indicates that the plaintiff is attempting to add on additional theories of recovery in order to correct jurisdictional defects.

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Bluebook (online)
24 Cl. Ct. 420, 1991 U.S. Claims LEXIS 465, 1991 WL 203491, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/croskey-v-united-states-cc-1991.