Banks v. Mortimer

Background

Greg Banks and Alexis Avalos brought a civil-rights lawsuit against the City of Antioch, Contra Costa County, and individual employees of the City and County following Nathan Banks’s death. Greg Banks is Nathan Banks’s father, and Alexis Avalos is his daughter. Dawn Marie Delucchi was initially named as a nominal defendant. She represented that she was Nathan Banks’s biological mother and moved to be realigned as a plaintiff concerning the first through eighth causes of action in the First Amended Complaint. The existing plaintiffs did not oppose the motion; Michael Mortimer, Ryan White, and the City of Antioch did.

Court’s analysis

The court explained that it, rather than the parties, determines whether parties should be aligned as plaintiffs or defendants based on their interests in the litigation. Courts generally seek to place parties on the same side when their interests concerning the primary dispute coincide.

The court found that Delucchi’s interests clearly aligned with those of the existing plaintiffs. Like Greg Banks and Alexis Avalos, she sought damages from the defendants based on Nathan Banks’s death. The court therefore concluded that her interests aligned with the plaintiffs, not with the defendants allegedly responsible for her son’s death.

The defendants argued that realignment would give them only a short period to obtain necessary information from Delucchi and would prejudice them. The court found that they had not explained what discovery they needed, why it had not already been pursued, or how it would differ from discovery involving the other plaintiffs. The court also noted that a later order extending discovery deadlines addressed that concern.

The defendants separately argued that Delucchi’s claims would be barred by the statute of limitations, meaning a deadline for bringing a claim. The court held that this issue was not before it. The motion concerned only whether Delucchi was properly classified as a plaintiff or defendant, not whether her claims could survive a later dispositive motion.

Disposition

The court granted Delucchi’s motion for realignment. It realigned Dawn Marie Delucchi as a plaintiff concerning the first through eighth causes of action in the First Amended Complaint. The order did not decide whether her claims were timely or otherwise viable on a later dispositive motion.