Favors v. Synchrony Bank
- John Tunheim
- 0:21-cv-02473
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 4
In Favors v. Synchrony Bank, Judge Leung denied without prejudice Favors’s request to add pleading materials because it did not follow required filing rules.
Joseph Anthony Favors’s request to supplement his Second Amended Complaint was denied without prejudice; Synchrony Bank and the court were not required to reconstruct how the proposed paragraphs would fit into the existing pleading.
What happened
In Favors v. Synchrony Bank, Joseph Anthony Favors, who was representing himself, asked to supplement his Second Amended Complaint. The court reviewed the request without a hearing.
The court said Favors did not provide a complete proposed pleading or a version showing how the proposed additions would change the existing complaint. Instead, the filing contained separate paragraphs that left the court and Synchrony Bank to guess how the new material should fit.
Judge Tony N. Leung denied the motion without prejudice, meaning the ruling did not bar a properly filed future request. The court cautioned that any future request must follow the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the District of Minnesota’s local rules.
The detailed version
- Favors v. Synchrony Bank · No. 0:21-cv-02473
- John Tunheim
- May 25, 2022
Background
Joseph Anthony Favors, proceeding without a lawyer, moved for permission to supplement his Second Amended Complaint. The court considered the motion on the written filings and did not hold a hearing.
Why the Court Denied the Motion
The court applied District of Minnesota Local Rule 15.1, which governs requests to amend or supplement pleadings. The rule requires the moving party to provide both a complete copy of the proposed pleading and a comparison version showing how it differs from the existing pleading.
Favors did not attach a complete proposed pleading. His filing contained portions quoted from the Second Amended Complaint and 13 proposed supplemental paragraphs, but the court said it still had to guess how those paragraphs fit into the existing complaint. The court explained that a proposed amended pleading must stand on its own and cannot require the court or the opposing party to combine material from earlier filings.
The court recognized Favors’s diagnosis of dyslexia and the related difficulty with reading, spelling, and writing. It nevertheless stated that representing himself did not excuse compliance with the federal and local procedural rules. The court also noted that Favors had filed at least 20 lawsuits in that court during the preceding year.
Disposition
The court held that Favors’s motion was procedurally improper and ordered that his Motion, ECF No. 31, be DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. The court cautioned that future motions to amend or supplement must comply with all applicable rules. The order also listed possible remedies for violating the order or a prior consistent order, including costs, fines, attorney’s fees, limits on evidence, striking pleadings, dismissal with prejudice, or default judgment, but it did not impose those remedies in this order.
Classification
This is a procedural order because the court denied the request for failure to follow filing requirements and did not decide the underlying claims against Synchrony Bank.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.