Reyes v. County of Kern ( 2023 )

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 ANNA REYES, et al. Case No. 1:21-cv-01340-CDB 12 Plaintiffs, ORDER ON STIPULATION GRANTING LEAVE TO AMEND COMPLAINT 13 v. (Doc. 25) 14 COUNTY OF KERN, 15 Defendant. 16 17 On September 7, 2021, Defendant County of Kern removed this action filed by Plaintiffs in 18 Kern County Superior Court. (Doc. 1). Pending before the Court is the parties’ stipulation for 19 leave to file a first amended complaint. (Doc. 25). The proposed amendments add Christina 20 Hungerford as named Plaintiff in her capacity as guardian ad litem and seek to anonymize the 21 names of the Plaintiff minors (L.H.B. and P.H.B.). 22 Legal Standard 23 Where a party seeks to amend her complaint more than 21 days after an adverse party 24 responds to the complaint, the party must first obtain the adverse party’s consent or leave of court. 25 Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(1) & (2). “Rule 15(a) is very liberal” and a court should freely give leave to 26 amend when “justice so requires.” AmerisourceBergen Corp. v. Dialysist West, Inc., 465 F.3d 946, 27 951 (9th Cir. 2006); see Chodos v. W. Publ. Co., 292 F.3d 992, 1003 (9th Cir. 2002) (“it is generally our policy to permit amendment with ‘extreme liberality’”) (citing Morongo Band of Mission 1 Indians v. Rose, 893 F.2d 1074, 1079 (9th Cir.1990)). Granting or denying leave to amend a 2 complaint under Rule 15 is in the discretion of the court. Swanson v. United States Forest Service, 3 87 F.3d 339, 343 (9th Cir. 1996). “In exercising this discretion, a court must be guided by the 4 underlying purpose of Rule 15 to facilitate decision on the merits, rather than on the pleadings or 5 technicalities.” United States v. Webb, 655 F.2d 977, 979 (9th Cir, 1981); Chudacoff v. Univ. Med. 6 Ctr., 649 F.3d 1143, 1152 (9th Cir. 2011) (“refusing Chudacoff leave to amend a technical pleading 7 error, albeit one he should have noticed earlier, would run contrary to Rule 15(a)’s intent.”). 8 A court ordinarily considers five factors to assess whether to grant leave to amend: “(1) bad 9 faith; (2) undue delay; (3) prejudice to the opposing party; (4) futility of amendment; and (5) 10 whether the plaintiff has previously amended his complaint.” Nunes v. Ashcroft, 375 F.3d 805, 808 11 (9th Cir. 2004). 12 Discussion 13 The Court has considered the Nunes factors and concludes based on the parties’ stipulation 14 (Doc. 25) that good cause warrants extending to Plaintiffs leave to amend their complaint in the 15 manner proposed. 16 With respect to the parties’ stipulated proposal to anonymize in the amended complaint the 17 full names of the minor Plaintiffs, the Court notes that Plaintiffs arguably have waived the 18 protection of Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2(a) because they have made and continue to make public/non-sealed 19 filings in which the minors are identified by their full names. E.g. Docs. 9, 10, 14, 25. See Rule 20 5.2(h) (“A person waives the protection of Rule 5.2(a) as to the person’s own information by filing 21 it without redaction and not under seal.”). See also Elliott v. Solis, No. 1:17-cv-01214-LJO-SAB, 22 2017 WL 4811747, *1 n.1 (E.D. Cal. Oct. 24, 2017). Nevertheless, given that the parties have 23 stipulated to anonymization of the minors’ full names in the proposed amended complaint, the 24 Court finds good cause to grant the request. 25 Accordingly, for good cause appearing, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED: 26 1. Within seven days of entry of this Order, Plaintiffs shall file the first amended 27 complaint (Doc 25-2) electronically as a standalone docket entry in this case. Upon 1 filing, the first amended complaint will become the operative complaint in this action; 2 and 3 2. Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(3), Defendants shall have 14 days following service 4 of the first amended complaint to file a response. 5 | IT IS SO ORDERED. ° | Dated: _February 14, 2023 | hr 7 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28