Rothschild v. Gildred
- 3:23-cv-02105
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Rothschild v. Gildred, the court denied two motions; the court found amendment and bifurcation unwarranted.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild’s requests to add Stephen Wagstaffe as a defendant and to bifurcate proceedings were denied. The existing defendants and the proceedings in the related cases were not altered by these rulings.
What happened
In Rothschild v. Gildred, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, who was unrepresented, asked to add Stephen Wagstaffe as a defendant and assert constitutional claims against him. Rothschild did not allege that Wagstaffe was involved in the events underlying the existing complaint, and he had already brought a separate lawsuit based on similar allegations.
The court denied the motion to add Wagstaffe because the proposed claims were unrelated to the existing claims, Rothschild had previously amended his complaint, and he had already asserted similar claims in another case. The court also denied the motion to bifurcate because the two cases had never been consolidated and because Rothschild’s objections had already been addressed in the other case.
The court denied both motions. The supplied opinion text does not clearly identify the signing judge.
The detailed version
- Rothschild v. Gildred · No. 3:23-cv-02105
- May 6, 2024
Background
Mayer Amschel Rothschild, who was unrepresented, filed a Motion to Add Additional Defendant and a Motion to Bifurcate. The court treated the latter as a request concerning two other cases, although the filing’s caption described it as opposing a motion to combine or consolidate cases.
Motion to Add Additional Defendant
Rothschild sought leave under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2) to add Stephen Wagstaffe, identified in the opinion as the District Attorney for San Mateo County, as a defendant. He proposed federal constitutional claims based on Wagstaffe’s alleged interference with the adjudication of Rothschild’s claims and on Wagstaffe’s prosecution of Rothschild in an unrelated state criminal case. The opinion states that Rothschild did not allege how Wagstaffe interfered or that Wagstaffe was involved in the events underlying the claims in the First Amended Complaint.
The court explained that leave to amend may be denied for reasons including undue delay, repeated failure to correct deficiencies, prejudice, or futility. It denied the motion because Rothschild had already received an opportunity to amend, the proposed claims against Wagstaffe were unrelated to the claims in the First Amended Complaint, and Rothschild had already filed a separate lawsuit asserting similar civil-rights claims against Wagstaffe based on the same events. In that earlier case, the complaint was screened under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), a report and recommendation recommended dismissal, the recommendation was adopted, the complaint was dismissed with prejudice, and judgment was entered for the defendants and against Rothschild. The motion to add Wagstaffe was denied.
Motion to Bifurcate
The court also denied the Motion to Bifurcate. It explained that the two cases at issue had not been consolidated when Rothschild filed the motion and were never consolidated because the request for consolidation was denied. As a result, the cases could not be bifurcated as a procedural matter.
The court further determined that the motion was intended to oppose a motion to relate and consolidate the cases. Rothschild had already filed an opposition to that motion in the case where it was pending, and the court had considered and addressed his objections and other requests there.
Disposition
The court denied both Rothschild’s Motion to Add Additional Defendant and his Motion to Bifurcate. The supplied opinion text does not clearly identify the signing judge; the signature is not legible in the provided text.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.