Glover v. County of San Mateo
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:24-cv-08793
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Glover v. County of San Mateo, Judge Gilliam granted leave to amend, allowing an officer and a First Amendment retaliation claim to be added.
The plaintiffs were allowed to file a second amended complaint adding Officer Erick Chavez and a First Amendment retaliatory-detention claim. The defendants’ pending motion to dismiss was terminated as moot.
What happened
In Glover v. County of San Mateo, the plaintiffs asked to file a second amended complaint. They sought to name Officer Erick Chavez and add a claim alleging detention in retaliation for exercising First Amendment rights.
The court found the request timely, not apparently made in bad faith, unlikely to prejudice the defendants, and not futile. The court also noted that the case was still in its early stages and that the plaintiffs had amended their complaint only once before.
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. granted the motion for leave to amend. He ordered the plaintiffs to file the second amended complaint within three days, and terminated the defendants’ pending motion to dismiss as moot.
The detailed version
- Glover v. County of San Mateo · No. 4:24-cv-08793
- Haywood Gilliam
- Sept. 3, 2025
Background
The plaintiffs initially filed this civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on December 5, 2024. The defendants moved to dismiss the original complaint, and the plaintiffs then filed a first amended complaint. The defendants filed another motion to dismiss that amended complaint.
The court’s scheduling order set August 19, 2025, as the deadline for amending pleadings. The plaintiffs timely moved for leave to file a second amended complaint. They explained that the proposed amendment would add Officer Erick Chavez as a defendant and add a First Amendment retaliatory-detention claim. The defendants opposed the motion.
Legal standard
Because the plaintiffs filed their request by the scheduling-order deadline, the court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15. Under that rule, leave to amend should generally be freely granted when justice requires. The court considered bad faith, undue delay, prejudice to the opposing party, whether the amendment would be futile, and the plaintiffs’ previous amendments. Prejudice to the opposing party was the most important factor.
Court’s analysis
The court found that the request was timely and did not appear to be made in bad faith. The plaintiffs had received an extensive document production, including body-camera footage, from Redwood City on July 7, 2025. They reviewed the disclosures and sought amendment within six weeks, before the amendment deadline expired.
The court also found that the amendment was unlikely to prejudice the defendants. The proposed retaliatory-detention claim was based on the same material facts already alleged, and substituting a named officer for a previously unidentified Doe defendant did not change the basic nature of the case. The court further concluded that it could not find the amendment futile and noted that the plaintiffs had amended only once before.
Disposition
The court GRANTED the plaintiffs’ motion for leave to amend the complaint. It ordered the plaintiffs to file the second amended complaint within three days of the order. The defendants’ motion to dismiss, docket number 26, was TERMINATED AS MOOT in light of the second amended complaint.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.