Happy Friday, TCPAWorld!

This week, the Southern District of Ohio issued a decision that should act as a reminder to all of us not to miss deadlines. And if you do, try not to miss them by eight months…at least not without a fantastic excuse.

In Schwartz v. Hall Insurance Group, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-374, 2024 WL 4252578 (S.D. Ohio Sept. 19, 2024), Plaintiff Michael Schwartz filed a motion for leave to file a supplemental complaint on August 12, 2024—more than eight months after the November 30, 2023, deadline to amend pleadings, and on the same day that Defendant Hall Insurance Group (“HIG”) moved for summary judgment.

Schwartz sought to make some drastic amendments. He planned to increase the number of calls alleged from two to twenty-two, some of which he allegedly received before filing his initial complaint. Schwartz claimed that these callers were agents of HIG and identified themselves as being associated with the Medicare Help Center. He also sought to add two new defendants to the complaint, to claim that HIG was vicariously liable for calls made by the new defendants, and to add a cause of action for spoofing in violation of Ohio law. All in all, Schwartz’s amendments would increase the potential damage award from $44,500 to $259,500. Ouch.

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“FRCP”) 15 and 16 guided the Court’s analysis. FRCP 16 provides that the Court may modify a scheduling order deadline “only for good cause,” such that the deadline could not “reasonably be met despite the diligence of the party seeking the extension.” FRCP 15 similarly provides that a plaintiff who seeks to amend his complaint after the 21-day period has expired must obtain consent of the opposing parties or leave of the Court. In deciding whether to permit such leave, the Court may consider undue delay, bad faith, and undue prejudice to the opposing party.

Schwartz argued that the extended discovery deadline and disputes during discovery prevented him from uncovering evidence and connecting with witnesses that linked HIG to the additional calls he sought to add to his complaint. Specifically, he claimed to have received information from two individuals who verified that Medicare Help Center placed calls on behalf of, or provided leads to, HIG—information Schwartz allegedly did not find out until almost two weeks before the close of discovery.

The Court rejected this excuse. Apparently, Schwartz admitted that he had been in contact with one of these individuals in his responses to HIG’s March 7, 2024, interrogatories. Similarly, HIG had disclosed the other individual’s name to Schwartz on March 4, 2024, and Schwartz admitted to communicating with her on May 29, 2024. While Schwartz alluded to encountering difficulties in communicating with these individuals, the Court noted that “he fail[ed] to describe what those difficulties were and what efforts he made to contact them[,]” nor did he attach any documentation to his motion for leave regarding his contacts with these individuals. Id. at 3.

Schwartz also failed to address why he sought to add additional defendants, The Leads Warehouse and Lead Research group, to his Complaint—they were not even mentioned in his motion. Needless to say, the Court found this insufficient to explain the delay in filing to amend the Complaint with these new parties.

Essentially, Schwartz did not demonstrate good cause to amend the scheduling order. The Court also noted that “discovery delays are generally not sufficient to establish good cause, especially where there has been a significant lapse in time since the deadline to amend.” Id. at 4.

It is easy to see why. Schwartz sought to amend his Complaint eight months after the deadline had passed to amend the pleadings, at which point discovery was concluded, the trial date was set, and HIG had filed a motion for summary judgment. The Court explained that amending the Complaint at this juncture would prejudice HIG by requiring discovery to be reopened, adding new defendants, significantly impacting HIG’s motion for summary judgment, requiring HIG to expend additional resources responding to the Complaint, and delaying the resolution of the lawsuit. A plaintiff seeking to amend a complaint this late in the litigation bears “an increased burden to show justification for failing to move earlier”—Schwartz failed to do this. Id. at 4.

The moral of the story is simple: Do not miss deadlines.