Friedman v. Transamerica Corp. - 5 F.R.D. 115 (D. Del. 1946)

Rule:

Rule 15(a) provides that leave to amend 'shall be freely given when justice so requires.' The word 'freely' was used with deliberate intention to obviate technical restrictions on amendment. Moore, Federal Practice, p. 806. But this does not mean that leave to amend is to be granted without limit; otherwise, the right to amend would be absolute and not rest in the discretion of the court. The interests of both parties should be considered when an application to amend is made. Opportunity should be given to a plaintiff to present his alleged grievance; yet equal attention should be given to the proposition that there must be an end finally to a particular litigation.

Facts:

In the present petition, plaintiff asked leave to amend their complaint, which has been amended three times before. It was plaintiff’s fourth attempt to state their cause of action. The subject matter of the proposed amendment was known to the plaintiff four months prior to the filing of the motion for leave to amend the complaint. 

Issue:

Under the circumstances, should plaintiff be allowed to amend their complaint? 

Answer:

No.

Conclusion:

The court noted that Rule 15(a) provided that leave to amend 'shall be freely given when justice so requires.' The word 'freely' was used with deliberate intention to obviate technical restrictions on amendment. However, this did not mean that leave to amend was to be granted without limit; otherwise, the right to amend would be absolute and not rest in the discretion of the court. The interests of both parties should be considered when an application to amend is made. Opportunity should be given to a plaintiff to present his alleged grievance; yet equal attention should be given to the proposition that there must be an end finally to a particular litigation. In this case, the motion to amend fell into the category of those instances where such leave should be denied, as this was plaintiffs' fourth attempt to state their cause of action and their third request to amend, more than sixteen months after the complaint was filed. The subject matter of the amendment was known four months ago and the 'new' matter sought to be incorporated into the complaint was once included in the original and first amended complaint and later was abandoned or deleted when plaintiffs filed their second amended complaint. Moreover, the present motion to amend was not filed until after the date was fixed for argument on defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint and after briefs had been exchanged and filed.