Sihler v. The Fulfillment Lab, Inc

• Court: District Court, S.D. California
• Decided: March 2, 2022
• Docket: 3:20-cv-01528
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 JANET SIHLER, individually and on Case No.: 20cv1528-LL-MSB behalf of all others similarly situated; 12 CHARLENE BAVENCOFF, individually ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ 13 and on behalf of all others similarly SECOND MOTION FOR LEAVE TO situated, AMEND THE COMPLAINT 14

Plaintiffs, 15 v. [ECF No. 115] 16

THE FULFILLMENT LAB, INC.; 17 RICHARD NELSON;

18 BEYOND GLOBAL, INC.,

19 Defendants. 20 21 Currently before the Court is Plaintiffs’ Second Motion for Leave to Amend the 22 Complaint (“Motion” or “Mot.”). ECF No. 115. No opposition has been filed. For the 23 reasons set forth below, the Motion is GRANTED. 24 Plaintiffs in this putative class action seek leave to amend their First Amended 25 Complaint to add additional Defendants whose identifies were uncovered in the discovery 26 process and to add claims against these Defendants. Mot. at 2. Plaintiffs attached to their 27 Motion a proposed Second Amended Complaint and a red-lined amended complaint. 28 ECF Nos. 115-1, 115-2. 1 A party may amend its pleading once as a matter of course within twenty-one days 2 after serving it. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a). When the time has passed for amendment as a matter 3 of course, a party may amend its pleading with the opposing party’s written consent or with 4 the court’s permission. Id. “The court should freely give leave when justice so requires.” 5 Id. The Ninth Circuit has stated that “this policy is to be applied with extreme liberality.” 6 Owens v. Kaiser Found. Health Plan, Inc., 244 F.3d 708, 712 (9th Cir. 2001) (citation 7 omitted). “Five factors are taken into account to assess the propriety of a motion for leave 8 to amend: bad faith, undue delay, prejudice to the opposing party, futility of amendment, 9 and whether the plaintiff has previously amended the complaint.” Johnson v. Buckley, 10 356 F.3d 1067, 1077 (9th Cir. 2004). 11 The Court does not find the presence of bad faith or undue delay. Plaintiffs request 12 to amend their complaint to add Defendants Brightree Holdings Corp., BMOR Global 13 LLC, David Flynn, and Rickie Joe James. Mot. at 4. Plaintiffs state that the identities of 14 these Defendants were unknown when they filed their complaint and the First Amended 15 Complaint (“FAC”), and were revealed only after Plaintiffs used non-public corporate 16 records produced by Defendants in discovery. Id. at 4–5. The Court notes that the motion 17 to amend was timely filed. See ECF No. 113. 18 Additionally, the Court does not find that granting leave to amend would prejudice 19 the opposing parties or be futile. In the parties’ joint discovery plan, Defendants agreed 20 that it was appropriate for Plaintiffs to add the new Defendants identified in their proposed 21 Second Amended Complaint. Mot. at 6; ECF No. 111 at 2–3. Adding new Defendants and 22 claims against them would not be futile because Plaintiffs describe the new Defendants as 23 individuals and corporations who were behind the activities previously alleged in the FAC 24 but who could not be identified from public information. Mot. at 6. 25 As to the last factor, although Plaintiffs amended their complaint once before, the 26 new information was unknown at that time. Id. Accordingly, the Court GRANTS 27 Plaintiffs’ Motion as follows: 28 l 1. The Court notes that Plaintiffs eliminated the sixth cause of action for 2 “violation of various consumer protection laws” in their proposed and redlined Second 3 Amended Complaint, but it remains in the caption. Plaintiffs shall correct the proposed 4 ||Second Amended Complaint by deleting the sixth cause of action from the caption. 5 2. Plaintiffs shall file and serve the corrected Second Amended Complaint on or 6 || before March 7, 2022. 7 IT IS SO ORDERED. 8 || Dated: March 2, 2022 NO 9 QF | 10 Honorable Linda Lopez 1 United States District Judge 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28