Whitehead v. The Walt Disney Company
- Willis
- 1:24-cv-02283
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Whitehead v. Disney, Judge Willis denied Whitehead’s request to reconsider limits on responding to a sur-reply and the denial of permission to amend.
David Louis Whitehead’s ability to respond to the defendants’ sur-reply and amend his complaint was affected; the defendants’ earlier permission to file a sur-reply remained in place.
What happened
In Whitehead v. The Walt Disney Company, the court considered David Louis Whitehead’s request to revisit two earlier rulings: that he could not respond to the defendants’ sur-reply and that he could not amend his complaint.
Whitehead argued that the court had overlooked his request for 25 days to amend and the deaths of his relatives. The court said it had considered both matters in its earlier order.
Judge Willis ruled that Whitehead had identified no change in the law, new evidence, clear error, or serious unfairness requiring reconsideration. The court therefore denied his motion and directed the clerk to close the related docket entries.
The detailed version
- Whitehead v. The Walt Disney Company · No. 1:24-cv-02283
- Willis
- July 31, 2025
Background
On April 22, 2025, the court issued an order resolving several disputes. It denied the defendants’ request to strike affidavits filed by David Louis Whitehead but allowed the defendants to file a sur-reply, which is an additional written submission. The court also told Whitehead that he could not file a response to that sur-reply. In the same order, the court denied Whitehead’s request for permission to amend his complaint.
On May 2, 2025, Whitehead moved for reconsideration of the rulings barring his response to the sur-reply and denying permission to amend.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that reconsideration is an extraordinary remedy granted only in rare circumstances. It may be appropriate when there has been a change in controlling law, new evidence has become available, or the court needs to correct a clear error or prevent serious unfairness.
The court found that Whitehead’s motion did not identify any of those circumstances. It rejected his assertion that the court had failed to consider his request for 25 days to amend, stating that the earlier order addressed that request directly. The court also stated that, although it had omitted the names, the earlier order considered Whitehead’s report that relatives had died on December 19, 2024, and March 2, 2025, as well as his eye surgery on March 21, 2025.
Disposition
The court denied Whitehead’s motion for reconsideration. It also requested that the clerk close Docket Nos. 135 and 136. The opinion does not decide the underlying claims against The Walt Disney Company, Hulu, or National Geographic Corporation.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.