Aery v. Arhart

Background

James Paul Aery moved to amend his Amended Complaint. He sought to remove Joshua Arhart as the only named defendant, add Brian Birt, Nick Bender, Kyle Nohre, Patricia Grimsley, and Beltrami County, and assert additional facts and claims.

Arhart opposed the motion. He argued that Aery had waited too long to amend and that the proposed amendments would be futile, meaning the new complaint could not survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a legally sufficient claim. Arhart also argued that Aery had not separately moved to join the proposed defendants.

Court’s analysis

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15 generally directs courts to freely allow amendments when justice requires, although a court may deny amendment for reasons such as undue delay, prejudice, bad faith, repeated failure to fix deficiencies, or futility.

The court rejected the undue-delay argument. Although Aery had known the relevant facts and proposed defendants before filing his earlier complaints, the case was still in its early stages. Aery filed the amendment motion only one month after Arhart moved to dismiss, represented that the proposed amendment would be his final one, and Arhart did not show what prejudice the delay caused. The court also noted that the amendment sought to remove Arhart from the case.

The court did not deny amendment for futility. Arhart’s argument was limited to general assertions that the proposed complaint contained conclusory allegations and legal conclusions. The court found that this argument did not address the additional facts and claims against the proposed new defendants. The court likewise explained that it could evaluate the proposed complaint as if Aery had moved to join those defendants, and Arhart had not shown unfair prejudice from the lack of a separate joinder motion.

Rulings and next steps

The court granted Aery’s motion to amend. It directed the Clerk of Court to file the proposed Second Amended Complaint as the operative complaint, add Birt, Bender, Nohre, Grimsley, and Beltrami County to the case caption, and terminate Arhart as a named defendant.

The court denied as moot Arhart’s motion to dismiss because that motion challenged the earlier Amended Complaint, which the Second Amended Complaint superseded. The court vacated the prior order setting the briefing schedule for that motion. The ruling did not prevent defendants from filing a new motion to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint.

Aery was ordered to submit a completed Marshal Service Form for each new defendant. If he did not return the forms within 30 days, the court stated that dismissal without prejudice for failure to prosecute would be recommended. The order also directed the Clerk and the U.S. Marshals Service to pursue service as specified for the individual and official-capacity defendants.