Zongo v. Carver County
- Nancy Brasel
- 0:21-cv-01521
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 4
In Zongo v. Carver County, Judge Thorson granted amendment as timely and denied the earlier dismissal motion as moot.
Wendkouni Wilfried Arnold Zongo and the defendants, including Carver County, Jason Kamerud, Jane Doe 1, and the unknown correctional officers. The order also directed the clerk to terminate James Olson as a named defendant.
What happened
In Wendkouni Wilfried Arnold Zongo v. Carver County, Zongo sought to amend his complaint six days after the defendants moved to dismiss. He sought to replace James Olson with Jason Kamerud and add an unlawful-enrichment claim and two civil-rights claims concerning detention conditions and safety. The defendants opposed the amendment, arguing it would be futile.
The court held that Rule 15 allowed Zongo to amend his complaint once without permission within 21 days after the defendants served their dismissal motion. Because Zongo filed within that period, the court said it could not deny the amendment based on alleged futility.
The court accepted the First Amended Complaint, directed the clerk to add Jason Kamerud and terminate James Olson as a named defendant, and required the defendants to respond within 21 days. Judge Becky R. Thorson granted the motion for leave to amend, denied the defendants’ dismissal motion as moot, and vacated the earlier briefing schedule.
The detailed version
- Zongo v. Carver County · No. 0:21-cv-01521
- Nancy Brasel
- Nov. 23, 2021
Background
The court considered Zongo’s Motion for Leave to File First Amended Complaint and the First Amended Complaint itself. The defendants had previously moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b) to dismiss Zongo’s original complaint. Six days later, Zongo filed his motion to amend.
Zongo sought to replace Defendant James Olson with Jason Kamerud, add an “additional common law unlawful enrichment claim,” and add two claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging detention in conditions tantamount to punishment and deliberate indifference to his safety in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The defendants opposed the amendment, arguing that the proposed claims would be futile because they could not withstand a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6).
Court’s analysis
Rule 15(a)(1)(B) permits a party to amend a pleading once as a matter of course within 21 days after service of a Rule 12(b) motion. The court explained that although an amendment may sometimes be denied as futile, a court lacks discretion to reject an amendment filed as a matter of course within the rule’s deadline.
Because Zongo filed his motion six days after the defendants’ motion to dismiss, the court found the amendment timely. The court therefore accepted the First Amended Complaint as the operative complaint, meaning it replaced the original complaint. Since the defendants’ motion to dismiss addressed only the original complaint, the court concluded that motion was moot and did not address whether the proposed claims would survive dismissal.
Order
The court ordered the following:
- Zongo’s Motion for Leave to File First Amended Complaint was GRANTED. - The clerk was directed to docket the First Amended Complaint as a separate pleading and add Jason Kamerud to the case caption. - The clerk was directed to terminate James Olson as a named defendant. - The defendants were required to answer or otherwise respond to the First Amended Complaint within 21 days from the date of the order. - The defendants’ Motion to Dismiss was DENIED as moot. - The court’s November 5, 2021 order setting a briefing schedule for the dismissal motion was vacated.
The order was signed by United States Magistrate Judge Becky R. Thorson.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.