Encinas v. University of Washington

Opinion

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5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON 9 AT SEATTLE 10 11 JAMES ENCINAS, CASE NO. 2:20-cv-01679-TL 12 Plaintiff(s), ORDER GRANTING LEAVE v. TO AMEND 13 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, 14 Defendant(s). 15

17 Plaintiff James Encinas, having recently retained counsel (Dkt. No. 38), seeks leave to 18 amend his complaint. Dkt. No. 41. Defendants do not oppose. Dkt. No. 44. Plaintiff’s original 19 complaint was comprised of a seven-page form for employment discrimination and over 400 20 pages of exhibits, whose relevance was not always explained or evident. See Dkt. Nos. 5–5-6. 21 The proposed amended complaint names a corrected set of Defendants and sets out Plaintiff’s 22 allegations and claims in a 13-page document, which appears to be much improved in form. Dkt. 23 No. 41-1 (proposed amended complaint). 24 1 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2) provides that “[t]he court should freely give 2 leave when justice so requires.” This is a liberal standard, and a court should decline to grant 3 leave to amend only if there is strong evidence of undue delay, bad faith, prejudice to the 4 opposing party, or futility. See, e.g., Sonoma Cnty. Ass’n of Retired Emps. v. Sonoma Cnty., 708

5 F.3d 1109, 1117 (9th Cir. 2013) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted) 6 (quoting Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178. 182 (1962)). No such evidence exists here. 7 Accordingly, Plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend the complaint (Dkt. No.41) is 8 GRANTED. Plaintiff shall have fourteen (14) days from the date of this Order to file the amended 9 complaint. 10 Dated this 27th day of April 2023. 11 A 12 Tana Lin United States District Judge 13

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