Mahn v. Allegis Group, Inc.
- Gregory Woods
- 1:24-cv-08326
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Mahn v. Allegis Group, Judge Woods struck Mahn’s improper amended complaint, denied amendment requests, and extended her deadline to oppose dismissal.
Sharon Mahn and the defendants, because the order struck Mahn’s later pleading, set the terms for any later amendment request, and extended the schedule for briefing the defendants’ pending motion to dismiss.
What happened
In Mahn v. Allegis Group, Inc., Sharon Mahn filed a first amended complaint, and the defendants later moved to dismiss it. Mahn did not file opposition papers by the deadline. Instead, she filed another amended complaint, claiming she could do so automatically under the federal rules.
The court found that Mahn had already used her automatic amendment opportunity, so it struck the later complaint as improperly filed. It denied her request to treat that complaint as valid from an earlier date and denied her alternative request for permission to amend, but the latter denial was without prejudice to renewing the request later.
Judge Gregory H. Woods extended Mahn’s deadline to oppose the defendants’ motion to dismiss by three weeks, to March 13, 2025. The defendants’ reply, if any, was due two weeks after service of Mahn’s opposition.
The detailed version
- Mahn v. Allegis Group, Inc. · No. 1:24-cv-08326
- Gregory Woods
- Feb. 20, 2025
Background
Sharon Mahn filed a First Amended Complaint on January 10, 2025, after amending her original complaint as a matter of course under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(1)(A). On January 27, 2025, the defendants filed and served a motion to dismiss the First Amended Complaint. Mahn did not file opposition papers by the February 10, 2025 deadline.
On February 14, 2025, Mahn filed what she called a second amended complaint, invoking Rule 15(a)(1)(B). The court ordered her to explain why that filing should not be deemed ineffective because she had already amended her complaint as a matter of course. Mahn’s response acknowledged that the filing violated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Court’s Analysis
The court struck the purported second amended complaint under Rule 12(f) because it was improperly filed. Mahn also asked the court to accept the complaint as filed nunc pro tunc, meaning effective as of an earlier date. The court denied that request, explaining that this power is reserved for exceptional circumstances and is generally used to correct injustice caused by judicial delay. The court found no judicial delay here and stated that Mahn had misunderstood her amendment rights.
Mahn alternatively asked the court to treat her response as a formal motion for leave to amend under Rule 15(a)(2). The court denied that request without prejudice to renewal later in the case. Although courts generally should freely allow amendment when justice requires, the court found that a motion to amend at that time would be premature because the defendants’ motion to dismiss was pending and Mahn had not opposed it. The court also found that allowing amendment then would prejudice the defendants by delaying resolution of their motion and potentially requiring additional or revised motion papers.
Ruling
Judge Gregory H. Woods struck the pleading filed at Docket Number 35. The court denied Mahn’s request to accept that pleading nunc pro tunc and denied, without prejudice to renewal later in the case, her request to construe her response as a motion for leave to amend. Instead, the court extended Mahn’s deadline to file opposition papers to the defendants’ motion to dismiss the operative complaint by three weeks, until March 13, 2025. The defendants’ reply, if any, was due two weeks after service of Mahn’s opposition. The order did not decide the pending motion to dismiss.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.