Rowe Plastic Surgery of New Jersey v. Aetna Health and Life Insurance Company
Rowe Plastic Surgery of New Jersey, L.L.C. v. Aetna Health and Life Insurance Company
- Ona Wang
- 1:23-cv-08504
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 7
In Rowe Plastic Surgery v. Aetna, Judge Wang denied amendment, granted expedited briefing, and set deadlines.
The plaintiffs’ attempt to amend their complaint was rejected, while Aetna received expedited briefing and deadlines for a renewed motion to dismiss. The opinion also affects the schedule for this case.
What happened
In Rowe Plastic Surgery of New Jersey, L.L.C. v. Aetna Health and Life Insurance Company, the plaintiffs asked to amend their complaint after the case had been stayed and the court had set procedures for amendment. They did not submit the proposed amended complaint required by the court’s local rule.
The court also found that the plaintiffs had not acted diligently. They waited until after earlier decisions had identified problems in similar cases and did not explain how their proposed changes would address those problems. The court further found that amendment would delay this case and require Aetna to spend additional resources litigating issues repeated across several related cases.
Judge Wang denied the plaintiffs’ motion for leave to amend, granted Aetna’s request for expedited briefing, and set deadlines for Aetna’s renewed motion to dismiss and the plaintiffs’ response.
The detailed version
- Rowe Plastic Surgery of New Jersey v. Aetna Health and Life Insurance Company · No. 1:23-cv-08504
- Ona Wang
- Apr. 2, 2025
Background
The plaintiffs moved for permission to amend their complaint. The case had been stayed while the Second Circuit considered a related appeal. After the stay ended, the court extended the deadline for the plaintiffs to seek amendment. The plaintiffs filed their motion, but they did not attach a proposed amended complaint.
The court had previously directed the plaintiffs to address issues identified in an earlier decision involving a similar case. Instead, the plaintiffs suggested consolidating various related cases without filing a motion to consolidate. They also did not address whether any legal rule prevented the parties or their lawyers from pursuing the claims in this case separately.
Reasons for the ruling
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a), courts generally should allow amendments when fairness requires. But when a scheduling order sets a deadline, Rule 16(b) requires the party seeking a change to show good cause. The court explained that good cause requires diligence—showing that the deadline could not reasonably have been met despite reasonable efforts.
The court denied the motion for two independent reasons. First, Local Rule 15.1(a) required the plaintiffs to file a proposed amended pleading, and they failed to do so. Second, the plaintiffs did not comply with the court’s December 9, 2024 scheduling order and did not show diligence. The court found that the plaintiffs had notice of pleading problems in similar cases more than a year earlier and appeared to seek information they already knew, or should have known, before the amendment deadline.
The court also found that allowing amendment would prejudice Aetna. It would delay this case and potentially other related cases, while requiring Aetna to spend significant resources litigating similar issues across numerous actions. The court noted that it could not evaluate the substance of the proposed amendments because the plaintiffs had not filed the proposed amended complaint.
Disposition
The court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for leave to amend. It granted Aetna’s request for expedited briefing. Aetna was directed to file a renewed motion to dismiss by April 14, 2025; the plaintiffs’ opposition, if any, was due April 21, 2025; and Aetna’s reply, if any, was due April 25, 2025. The court stated that there would be no extensions and directed the Clerk of Court to close the docket entry for the amendment motion.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.