Salah v. Contra Costa Children and Family Services (CFS) ( 2020 )

1 NOT FOR PUBLICATION 2 3 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 4 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 5 6 KHLOOD KHALIH SALAH, CASE NO. 18-cv-00470-YGR 7 Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE PROPOSED THIRD 8 vs. AMENDED COMPLAINT 9 CONTRA COSTA CHILDREN AND FAMILY Dkt. No. 88 SERVICES (CFS), ET AL., 10 Defendants. 11 12 The Court having considered the papers filed in support of and in opposition to Plaintiff 13 Khlood Salah’s Motion for Leave to File Proposed Third Amended Complaint (Dkt. No. 88), and 14 good cause appearing therefore, the motion is GRANTED.1 15 Motions for leave to amend are liberally granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a) (“Leave to amend a 16 complaint should be freely given in the absence of undue delay, bad faith, undue prejudice to the 17 opposing party, repeated failure to cure deficiencies, or futility.”); Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 18 182 (1962) (federal policy favors determination of cases on their merits). 19 Here, the opposition does not raise undue delay, bad faith, or repeated failure to cure 20 deficiencies, but instead raises questions of the sufficiency and clarity of the allegations, as well as 21 the defense of collateral estoppel. The Court construes this to be an argument that the amendment 22 would be futile. The Court does not find plaintiff’s proposed amendment to be futile on its face 23 given that federal civil rights actions addressing conduct in the course of state dependency 24 proceedings may be alleged under appropriate circumstances. Cf., e.g., Hardwick v. Cty. of 25 26 1 Plaintiff’s request to dismiss without prejudice defendants previously named -- David 27 Twa, Constance Bravos—is GRANTED. (Motion, Dkt. No. 88, at 5:13-15.) Plaintiff indicated in her motion that she also wished to dismiss defendant Kathy Gallagher (id.), but allegations against 1 Orange, 844 F.3d 1112, 1114-16 (9th Cir. 2017). The Court makes no finding as to whether the 2 allegations here are sufficient or definite enough to state such claims. Rather, the Court finds that 3 the issues raised by County defendants’ opposition are more appropriately addressed in a later 4 || pleading or summary judgment motion. 5 However, the Court cautions plaintiff that failure to allege a clear, sufficient, non- 6 || conclusory basis in law and fact for liability as to each defendant may result in dismissal of her 7 complaint. To the extent the parties can resolve disputes about the sufficiency of the operative 8 complaint short of motion practice, they are encouraged to meet and confer and stipulate to further 9 || amendment of the operative complaint. 10 Plaintiff shall file her Third Amended Complaint on the docket no later than April 7, 2020. 11 County defendants (Contra Costa County; Suzanne Porter, Vanessa Rezos, Tandrea 12 || Thysell, Chau Nguyen, Peggy Henderson, John Boylan, Brittanie Mills, Joan Miller, Kathy Marsh, 13 Kathy Gallagher) shall file their response to the Third Amended Complaint no later than April 28, 14 || 2020. 15 This order terminates Docket No. 88. A 16 IT Is SO ORDERED. |] Dated: March 25, 2020 Dypone Magtff leer 5 18 YVONNE GONZALEZ ROGERS UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT JUDGE 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28