Nikitine v. Wilmington Trust Company

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 12-1874
VADIM NIKITINE,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
WILMINGTON TRUST CO.,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Jay A. García-Gregory, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Chief Judge,
Selya and Lipez, Circuit Judges.
Francis T. Pagán-Martínez, with whom Rafael González Vélez and
González Vélez Law Office were on brief, for appellant.
Stephen E. Hudson, with whom Eduardo A. Zayas-Marxuach,
McConnell Valdés LLC, and Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP were
on brief, for appellee Wilmington Trust Co.
May 8, 2013
SELYA, Circuit Judge. This appeal is largely controlled
by our recent decision in Calderón-Serra v. Wilmington Trust Co.,
___ F.3d ___ (1st Cir. Apr. 22, 2013) [No. 11-2449]. The
plaintiffs in the two cases are similarly situated; they are
represented by the same attorneys; they assert materially identical
claims; and they sued the same defendants: Banco Popular de Puerto
Rico (BPPR) and Wilmington Trust Co. (WTC).1
We explained fully in Calderón-Serra why the complaint
there failed to make out a claim cognizable under federal subject
matter jurisdiction, see Calderón-Serra, ___ F.3d at ___ [slip op.
at 4-10], and it would serve no useful purpose to repastinate that
well-plowed soil. Consequently, we affirm the dismissal of the
plaintiff's complaint in this case for substantially the reasons
elucidated in our earlier opinion.
That ruling, however, does not fully dispose of the
present appeal. We still must deal with the plaintiff's contention
that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to permit
him to file an amended complaint asserting a new theory of
liability. This contention is case-specific and, thus, merits
particularized attention.2
1
During the pendency of this appeal, the plaintiff
voluntarily dismissed BPPR as a defendant. See Fed. R. App. P.
42(b).
2
WTC insists that the plaintiff has waived this claim of
error because the notice of appeal omits any reference to the
district court's separate order denying leave to amend. See Fed.
R. App. P. 3(c)(1)(B). But this rule is not absolute, see e.g.,
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We review a district court's denial of leave to amend for
abuse of discretion. See Palmer v. Champion Mortg., 465 F.3d 24,
30 (1st Cir. 2006); Hatch v. Dep't for Children, Youth & Their
Families, 274 F.3d 12, 19 (1st Cir. 2001). In that pursuit, we
"defer to the district court's hands-on judgment so long as the
record evinces an adequate reason for the denial." Aponte-Torres
v. Univ. of P.R., 445 F.3d 50, 58 (1st Cir. 2006); see Hatch, 274
F.3d at 19.
We recognize that leave to amend should be "freely
give[n]" in instances in which "justice so requires." Fed. R. Civ.
P. 15(a)(2). But this "does not mean . . . that a trial court must
mindlessly grant every request for leave to amend." Aponte-Torres,
445 F.3d at 58; see Palmer, 465 F.3d at 30. Rather, a district
court may deny leave to amend when the request is characterized by
"undue delay, bad faith, futility, [or] the absence of due
diligence on the movant's part." Palmer, 465 F.3d at 30.
In Calderón-Serra, a different district judge, in
somewhat different circumstances, also denied a motion for leave to
file an amended complaint, and we upheld that order. Calderón-
Serra, ___ F.3d at ___ [slip op. at 11-12]. But whereas in
Calderón-Serra the district court refused leave to file a second
amended complaint, the court in this case refused leave to file a
Fed. R. App. P. 2, 3(c)(4); Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 181-82
(1962); Kotler v. Am. Tobacco Co., 981 F.2d 7, 10-11 (1st Cir.
1992), and we assume arguendo that we have jurisdiction to resolve
this claim of error.
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first amended complaint. The plaintiff claims that this
distinction makes a difference.
A district court pondering whether to grant or deny a
motion for leave to amend a complaint must consider the totality of
the circumstances. See Palmer, 465 F.3d at 30-31. Whether the
plaintiff, by rule or court order, had a prior opportunity to amend
is one data point to be taken into account, see ACA Fin. Guar.
Corp. v. Advest, Inc., 512 F.3d 46, 56-57 (1st Cir. 2008), but that
circumstance does not have a talismanic significance, see, e.g.,
Villanueva v. United States, 662 F.3d 124, 126-28 (1st Cir. 2011)
(per curiam). Everything depends on context. We turn, then, to
the pertinent timeline.
The litigation in Calderón-Serra was already pending
when, on March 1, 2011, the plaintiff filed suit in this case. His
complaint anticipated the first amended complaint in Calderón-Serra
(which was filed later that month), and the substance of the two
pleadings is identical. The defendants responded similarly in both
cases. In Calderón-Serra, they moved to dismiss the first amended
complaint for want of subject matter jurisdiction. Calderón-Serra,
___ F.3d at ___ [slip op. at 3]. In this case, they moved to
dismiss the complaint on the same basis. The plaintiff opposed
these motions.
While the fully briefed motions were under advisement in
this case — almost nine months after the plaintiff's original
complaint was filed, approximately six months after the motions to
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dismiss were filed, and roughly six weeks after the order of
dismissal in Calderón-Serra — the plaintiff moved for leave to file
an amended complaint. The defendants opposed this motion. The
district court denied the motion and, in a separate order, granted
the defendants' motions to dismiss.
The court below denied leave to amend on two grounds:
undue delay and bad faith. It found undue delay because the
plaintiff had waited almost nine months to seek leave to amend and,
even then, "offer[ed] absolutely no explanation for his need to
file an amended complaint." As to bad faith, the court, citing the
dismissal of the first amended complaint in Calderón-Serra, found
that the plaintiff had "questionable" and "dilatory" motives for
seeking leave to amend. In the court's view, the plaintiff was
improperly maneuvering for a do-over. Because the first of these
grounds suffices to support the district court's order, we do not
comment further on the second.
We have said before, and today reaffirm, that when "a
considerable period of time has passed between the filing of the
complaint and the motion to amend, courts have placed the burden
upon the movant to show some valid reason for his neglect and
delay." Hayes v. New Eng. Millwork Distribs., Inc., 602 F.2d 15,
19-20 (1st Cir. 1979) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here,
the plaintiff allowed nearly a year to elapse before seeking to
amend his complaint and proffered no good reason for the delay.
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Importantly, "[t]his is not a case of new allegations
coming to light following discovery, or of previously unearthed
evidence surfacing." Villanueva, 662 F.3d at 127. It is, rather,
a case in which a court reasonably could have concluded — as the
district court did — that the plaintiff was scrambling to devise
"new theories of liability [] based on the same facts pled in his
original complaint," Tiernan v. Blyth, Eastman, Dillon & Co., 719
F.2d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 1983); see Hayes, 602 F.2d at 20 — theories
that could and should have been put forward in a more timeous
fashion. Without any explanation as to why these new theories were
not seasonably advanced, the delay in formulating them looms large.
We conclude, therefore, that the district court acted within the
realm of its discretion in denying leave to amend. See, e.g.,
Villanueva, 662 F.3d at 127 (affirming finding of undue delay when
four months had elapsed); Kay v. N.H. Dem. Party, 821 F.2d 31, 34
(1st Cir. 1987) (per curiam) (affirming finding of undue delay when
three months had elapsed).
We need go no further. For the reasons explicated above,
we affirm the judgment of the district court. This order operates
without prejudice to the right, if any, of the plaintiff to pursue
his claims against WTC in a local court.
Affirmed.
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