Joseph v. Springer Nature
- John Cronan
- 1:20-cv-04672
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Joseph v. Springer Nature, Magistrate Judge Gorenstein allowed Joseph to seek another amendment but denied his earlier joinder motion as moot.
RHAWN JOSEPH, Springer Nature and the other named defendants, and the additional parties Joseph sought to add.
What happened
In Joseph v. Springer Nature, RHAWN JOSEPH had already amended his complaint twice and filed a motion to add more parties. The court treated that filing as a request to amend the complaint again under Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
The court waived the requirement for a pre-motion conference and granted Joseph permission to file a motion to amend. It required him to attach a complete proposed fourth amended complaint, which would replace—not supplement—the third amended complaint if the motion were granted.
Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein did not decide whether a future amendment should be allowed. He also denied Joseph’s earlier motion to join as moot because the proposed defendants had already been included in the third amended complaint.
The detailed version
- Joseph v. Springer Nature · No. 1:20-cv-04672
- John Cronan
- Sept. 11, 2020
Background
RHAWN JOSEPH had amended his complaint twice. He then filed a document titled a “motion to join,” seeking to add additional parties. The court determined that, in substance, the filing sought permission to amend the complaint again. It therefore treated the filing as an application for a pre-motion conference concerning a proposed amendment under Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Ruling
The court waived the pre-motion conference requirement and granted Joseph permission to file a motion to amend. This ruling did not grant the amendment itself or decide whether the proposed amendment would be allowed. The court required any motion to amend to include a complete draft of the proposed fourth amended complaint. The court also explained that, if the motion were granted, the fourth amended complaint would completely replace the third amended complaint, so the proposed filing had to include all allegations and claims.
The court separately denied Joseph’s earlier motion to join, Docket No. 14, as moot because the proposed defendants had already been included in the later-filed third amended complaint. Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein stated that nothing in the order expressed an opinion on the merits of a future motion to file a fourth amended complaint.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.