Mornes v. Valdez, Case No. 3:17-CV-2333-N-BK

414 F.Supp.3d 888

Leonard MORNES, Plaintiff,

v.Lupe VALDEZ, et al., Defendants.

Case No. 3:17-CV-2333-N-BK

United States District Court, N.D. Texas, Dallas Division.

Signed October 25, 2019

Leonard Mornes, Beeville, TX, pro se.

John Butrus, J G Schuette, Dallas County District Attorney, Dallas, TX, for Defendants.

ORDER

RENÉE HARRIS TOLIVER, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b) and Special Order 3 , before the Court is Plaintiff's motion for leave to file another amended complaint, Doc. 101. For the reasons outlined below, the motion is DENIED .

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Given the parties' familiarity with the case, the Court will not recite the facts in detail. For purposes of this motion, it is sufficient to state that in the operative complaint, Plaintiff claims that the events giving rise to his civil rights claims brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 occurred in October 2015. Doc 85 at 6-7. He initiated this legal proceeding in September 2017. Doc. 3. Plaintiff now seeks leave to amend his complaint to add as a defendant Catherine Judd, P.A. ("Judd"), a physician's assistant who prescribed him the medication that he alleges led to his injuries in this case. Doc. 101 at 2.

II. APPLICABLE LAW

A. Magistrate Judge's Authority

As an initial matter, the Court recently has become aware of a divergence among district courts regarding whether a magistrate judge has the authority to rule on a motion for leave to amend a complaint or whether such a motion is dispositive in nature and, thus, must be decided by a district judge. See, e.g. , Roa v. City of Denison , No. 4:18-CV-00168-ALM-CAN, 2018 WL 8458124, at *1 (E.D. Tex. Nov. 2, 2018) (collecting cases and finding that "the law is not settled regarding whether a motion to amend that is denied is a case dispositive motion"), adopted by 2019 WL 1375177 (E.D. Tex. March 27, 2019).¹ However, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has addressed this issue, holding that a motion for leave to amend is not dispositive and, therefore, a magistrate may rule on it. See PYCA Indus., Inc. v. Harrison Cty. Waste Water Mgmt. Dist. , 81 F.3d 1412, 1420-21 (5th Cir. 1996) (holding that the district court erred in certifying for interlocutory appeal magistrate judge's order denying leave to amend because such motions are nondispositive and the order was thus not final); see also Cambridge Toxicology Gr., Inc. v. Exnicios , 495 F.3d 169, 177 (5th Cir. 2007) (affirming magistrate judge's order denying leave to amend and district judge's denial of the plaintiff's appeal); Aguilar v. Tex. Dept. of Crim. Justice , 160 F.3d 1052, 1053-54 (5th Cir. 1998) (affirming magistrate judge's order denying leave to amend where amendment would have prejudiced co-plaintiffs).² That being settled, the Court next considers the merits of Plaintiff's request.

B. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)

Rule 15(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires that a trial court grant a party leave to amend a complaint freely, and the language of the rule "evinces a bias in favor of granting leave to amend." Marucci Sports, L.L.C. v. Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n , 751 F.3d 368, 378 (5th Cir. 2014) (citation omitted). By no means is leave to amend automatic, but the court must have a "substantial reason" to deny a party's request to do so. Id. In deciding whether to grant or deny a motion to amend, the court may consider a variety of factors including "undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant, repeated failures to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed, undue prejudice to the opposing party ..., and futility of the amendment." Id. (quoting Jones v. Robinson Prop. Grp., LP , 427 F.3d 987, 994 (5th Cir. 2005) ). Further, denial of a motion for leave to file an amended complaint is within the Court's discretion when the amendment would be futile. See Briggs v. Mississippi , 331 F.3d 499, 508 (5th Cir. 2003). The "futility standard" is "the same standard of legal sufficiency as applies under Rule 12(b)(6)." Stripling v. Jordan Production Co., LLC , 234 F.3d 863, 873 (5th Cir. 2000).

III. ANALYSIS

Plaintiff asserts that he should be permitted to amend his complaint to add Judd as a defendant because he only recently learned of her identity through the affidavit of Defendant Bett, which was provided to him in conjunction with Defendant Bett's response to his discovery requests. Doc. 101 at 1-2. Defendant Bett opposes the motion, chiefly because any cause of action against Judd would be barred by the statute of limitations.³ Doc. 104 at 2.

Because section 1983 does not provide its own statute of limitations, the general limitations period governing personal injury claims in the forum state applies. Piotrowski v. City of Houston , 237 F.3d 567, 576 (5th Cir. 2001). Texas has a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. Id. As such, the statute of limitations for Plaintiff's claims expired in October 2017, one month after he filed suit but well before he moved to add Judd as a defendant in October 2019. Thus, unless an exception created by the relation-back doctrine, estoppel, or equitable tolling applies, any claims against Judd would be time-barred and it would be futile to allow Plaintiff to amend his complaint to name her as a defendant. See Crostley v. Lamar Cty. Tx. , 717 F.3d 410, 419, 421-22 (5th Cir. 2013) (setting forth exceptions).

Addressing the first exception, when a plaintiff attempts to add a defendant after the limitations period has run, Rule 15(c) permits the claim against the "new" defendant to relate back to the date of the original complaint under some circumstances. See FED. R. CIV. P. 15(c). In particular, the plaintiff must show both that said defendant (1) received adequate notice of the original lawsuit; and (2) knew that, but for a mistake concerning her identity, the action would have originally been brought against her. Jacobsen v. Osborne , 133 F.3d 315, 319-22 (5th Cir. 1998). Rule 15(c) does not allow an amended complaint to relate back if the new defendant was not initially named simply because the plaintiff did not know her identity. Winzer v. Kaufman County , 916 F.3d 464, 470 (5th Cir. 2019). In this case, Plaintiff alleges that he only recently learned of Judd's identity, not that he was mistaken as to her identity. Thus, the relation-back doctrine does not apply. Id.

Similarly, the estoppel exception only applies if the new defendant misrepresented her identity to the plaintiff, which Plaintiff does not allege. Crostley , 717 F.3d at 421.

Finally, the application of equitable tolling is not justified in this case as there are no "extraordinary circumstances" presented. See Pace v. DiGuglielmo , 544 U.S. 408, 418, 125 S.Ct. 1807, 161 L.Ed.2d 669 (2005) (explaining that equitable tolling generally requires a showing that "(1) [a litigant] has been pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way" and prevented timely filing.). As Defendant Bett points out, Plaintiff has had full access to his medical records since November 2018, and those records plainly state that Judd prescribed him the medication that he alleges caused his injuries. Doc. 81 at 19. Indeed, in June 2019, when Plaintiff moved for leave to amend his complaint to name the correct doctors as defendants, he had gleaned their names from those same records. Doc. 74. Plaintiff was permitted to amend in that instance, but the instant motion to add yet another medical defendant, filed four months later, simply comes too late. Marucci Sports , 751 F.3d at 378. Moreover, as stated previously, the statute of limitations would bar any potential claims against Judd, rendering her addition as a defendant futile. Id.

IV. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff's Motion: Leave to Amend Complaint , Doc. 101, is DENIED .

SO ORDERED on October 25, 2019.

1 Indeed, in the order adopting the magistrate judge's recommendation, the district judge concluded that a motion to amend is a non-dispositive matter. 2019 WL 1375177, at *1 n.1.

2 Additionally, every circuit court opinion reviewed by the Court is in agreement on this point. See Patel v. Meridian Health Sys., Inc. , 666 Fed. App'x 133, 135-36 (3d Cir. 2016) ; Palmore v. Hicks , 383 Fed. App'x 897, 899-900 (11th Cir. 2010) ; Franke v. ARUP Labs., Inc. , 390 Fed. App'x 822, 828-29 (10th Cir. 2010) ; Fielding v. Tollaksen , 510 F.3d 175, 178-79 (2d Cir. 2007) ; Hall v. Norfolk S. Ry. Co. , 469 F.3d 590, 595 (7th Cir. 2006) ; Daley v. Marriott Intern., Inc. , 415 F.3d 889, 893 n.9 (8th Cir. 2005) ; Pagano v. Frank , 983 F.2d 343, 346 (1st Cir. 1993).

3 Defendant Bett also correctly observes that...