Tovar, Sr. v. City of San Jose
- Edward Davila
- 5:21-cv-02497
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Tovar, Sr. v. City of San Jose, Judge Davila granted officers leave to amend their answers and reopened limited fact discovery.
The five individual officer defendants received permission to amend their answers; the plaintiffs received limited additional fact discovery concerning the new defenses.
What happened
In Tovar, Sr. v. City of San Jose, the individual officer defendants asked to amend their answers to add affirmative defenses after a county investigation declined to file criminal charges. The plaintiffs opposed adding defenses they had not previously seen, especially self-defense.
The court found that most proposed defenses were already covered by defenses asserted by the City, but it recognized that the delay could have prejudiced the plaintiffs concerning self-defense. The parties agreed that reopening fact discovery would address that potential prejudice.
Judge Davila granted the motion for leave to file amended answers. He ordered the officers to file them within seven days and reopened fact discovery until August 22, 2023, only for discovery about the newly asserted defenses.
The detailed version
- Tovar, Sr. v. City of San Jose · No. 5:21-cv-02497
- Edward Davila
- July 25, 2023
Background
The individual officer defendants—Mauricio Jimenez, Topui Fonua, Alvaro Lopez, James Soh, and Hans Jorgensen—moved for permission to amend their answers to the Second Amended Complaint. Their earlier answers each asserted one affirmative defense and stated that they were declining to assert further defenses based on the Fifth Amendment. After the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office released an investigation report declining to file criminal charges against them, defense counsel sought permission to withdraw those Fifth Amendment invocations and add defenses concerning good faith, immunities, intervening negligence, and self-defense.
Legal standard
The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a), which generally directs courts to freely allow amendments when justice requires. The court considered five factors: bad faith, undue delay, prejudice to the opposing party, whether the amendment would be futile, and whether the party had previously amended its pleadings. The court also determined that Rule 15, rather than the stricter deadline standard in Rule 16(b), governed because the scheduling-order deadline had passed before the Second Amended Complaint was filed, before the defendants answered, and before the officers could withdraw their Fifth Amendment invocations.
Analysis
The court found that the factors concerning bad faith, futility, and prior amendments favored allowing the amendment. It found undue delay because the officers waited nearly ten months after learning that criminal charges would not be filed and sought the amendment only a few weeks before fact discovery closed. The court also found potential prejudice regarding self-defense because it was unclear whether the plaintiffs had notice of that defense or had been able to ask about it in earlier depositions. Most other proposed defenses were identical to defenses the City had already asserted, giving the plaintiffs notice of them.
The parties agreed that, if the court allowed the amendments, fact discovery would be reopened until August 22, 2023, so the plaintiffs could conduct discovery concerning the new defenses. The court found that this agreement adequately addressed the potential prejudice.
Disposition
Judge Edward J. Davila GRANTED the Officer Defendants’ Motion for Leave to File Amended Answers. The officers were ordered to file their amended answers to the Second Amended Complaint as soon as possible and no later than seven days after the order. Fact discovery was reopened until August 22, 2023, for the limited purpose of discovery concerning the newly asserted affirmative defenses.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.