Reed v. The City of New York

Background

Calvin Reed, proceeding without a lawyer, brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law allowing claims against state or local officials for violating federal rights. He alleged that members of the New York Police Department violated his constitutional rights during arrests on September 9, 2019, July 17, 2020, and August 3, 2020.

Reed amended his complaint twice. The second amended complaint named the City of New York, several identified police officers and detectives, and six unidentified police officers. The court repeatedly instructed Reed to identify the people he intended to sue, describe each person’s conduct, provide relevant dates and locations, and explain how each person violated his rights.

At an August 2023 conference, Reed said he wanted to add Officer Ortiz as a defendant. The court gave him a deadline to seek permission to amend and required him to attach a proposed third amended complaint and explain why a late amendment should be allowed. Reed’s September 2023 motion instead sought to add 12 defendants: 11 NYPD officers and an assistant district attorney, Melissa Vo.

The Proposed Amendment

Reed said he had recently learned through discovery that the proposed defendants played significant roles in his arrest. He alleged that Officer Ortiz forged a complaining witness’s signature on a Domestic Incident Report and later marked additional boxes on the report; that Officer Taulant Gjonbalaj gave false grand-jury testimony; that Sergeant Michael A. Vega approved Officer Natasha Dennis’s arrest; and that Assistant District Attorney Melissa Vo prosecuted him for assault. Reed did not explain the roles of the other proposed defendants.

The proposed third amended complaint, however, did not list any of the 12 proposed defendants in its caption or defendant-information section. It also did not allege misconduct by them in the statement of claim. Instead, it continued to identify the previously named defendants and the unidentified warrant officers. Reed did not file a reply after defendants opposed the motion, and he did not attend four consecutive status conferences in 2024.

Legal Standards

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2), a party generally needs the court’s permission to amend a complaint after the opposing party does not consent. Courts may deny permission because of undue delay, repeated failure to correct earlier deficiencies, prejudice, or futility. An amendment is futile if the proposed complaint could not survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a legally sufficient claim.

Because the deadline for amending the pleadings had passed, Rule 16(b)(4) also required Reed to show good cause for the late amendment. Good cause depends on the moving party’s diligence and requires showing that the deadline could not reasonably have been met despite diligence.

Court’s Analysis

The court held that Reed did not show good cause for adding Officer Ortiz or Assistant District Attorney Vo after the deadline. Reed knew about Ortiz’s alleged conduct in 2021 and had described it in the second amended complaint filed in October 2022, but he did not name Ortiz as a defendant then. The court stated that Vo’s identity must also have been known to Reed when she prosecuted him for assault.

The court separately found the proposed pleading deficient as to all 12 proposed defendants. It did not identify them as defendants or explain what any of them did to violate Reed’s federal constitutional rights. The court stated that it could not create factual allegations that Reed had not pleaded.

The court also explained that, even if it treated the factual assertions in Reed’s motion as part of the proposed complaint, those assertions did not establish a plausible claim against the proposed defendants. Reed made no factual assertions about several officers. His allegation concerning Gjonbalaj did not identify what was false or explain how the alleged testimony related to the arrests at issue. His allegation that Vega approved an arrest did not allege personal misconduct, and officials generally cannot be held liable merely for the unconstitutional conduct of subordinates. The court also stated that prosecutorial immunity barred a § 1983 suit against Vo for initiating a prosecution and presenting the government’s case. Regarding Ortiz, the court noted that neither version of the Domestic Incident Report included an accusatory statement by the complaining witness.

Because the court found both an insufficient explanation for the delay concerning Ortiz and Vo and a facially inadequate proposed complaint as to all proposed defendants, it did not reach the defendants’ statute-of-limitations argument.

Disposition

The court denied Reed’s motion for leave to further amend his pleading. The notice attached to the order stated that the parties had 14 days to file objections with District Judge Margaret M. Garnett, who would review objections to the magistrate judge’s nondispositive pretrial order under the applicable standard.