Wade v. Lumia

Background

Yasmin Wade, as administrator of the estate of Uceff Wade, sought permission to file an amended complaint against Detective Peter Lumia, Detective James Santana, the City of New York, and unidentified defendants. The court reviewed Wade’s letter-motion, the defendants’ opposition, and Wade’s reply.

The scheduling order required any motion for leave to amend to be filed by January 2, 2025. Wade argued that she acted diligently because she sought to amend before discovery closed and after interviewing Uceff Wade’s trial counsel. She said the interview provided additional information about recordings on the alleged victim’s Alexa device, the timing of 911 calls, the date of the alleged rape, and evidence concerning the alleged victim’s credibility. The defendants responded that the trial transcript, which Wade had cited in her initial disclosures, already reflected the substance of the recordings and trial counsel’s view of their significance.

Rulings

The court denied the motion to amend because Wade had not shown “good cause” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4). The court explained that good cause depends on the moving party’s diligence and found that Wade had not explained why she waited nearly two years after filing the complaint and well into discovery to seek additional information from trial counsel.

The court separately stated that the motion would also be denied as futile even if Wade had shown good cause. Futility means that the proposed amendment would not support a viable claim. The court concluded that a proposed wrongful-imprisonment claim would be untimely because Wade commenced the action on August 17, 2023, nearly three months after the limitations period expired following Uceff Wade’s acquittal on May 25, 2022. The court also concluded that the proposed abuse-of-process claim did not allege facts showing how any defendant used legal process to compel or prevent an act or identifying a defendant’s collateral objective.

The court stated that Wade’s Section 1983 false-arrest claim, Count Two, was voluntarily dismissed as time-barred. It also stated that no amendment to the case caption was required because the docket already reflected Wade’s substitution as plaintiff and the dismissal of two individual defendants.