United States District Court, D. Colorado
ORDER REVERSING MAGISTRATE JUDGE'S DENIAL OF
DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO AMEND ANSWER OR, ALTERNATIVELY, TO
WITHDRAW INACCURATE ADMISSION IN ANSWER
CHRISTINE M. ARGUELLO UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
This
matter is before the Court on Defendants Bridgette Watson and
Susan Prieto's Objection (Doc. # 194) to United States
Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak's denial (Doc. # 179)
of their Motion to Amend Answer or, Alternatively, to
Withdraw Inaccurate Admission in Answer (the “Motion to
Amend Answer”) (Doc. # 161). For the following reasons,
the Court affirms Defendants' Objection (Doc. # 194) and
overrules the Magistrate Judge's denial (Doc. # 179) of
their Motion to Amend Answer.
I.
BACKGROUND
The
Court detailed the relevant factual and procedural background
of this case in its December 5, 2017 Order Adopting in Part
and Rejecting in Part the October 25, 2017 Recommendation of
Magistrate Judge Varholak. (Doc. # 51.) Additional factual
and procedural background is detailed here only to the extent
necessary to address Defendants' Objection.
Defendants'
Objection concerns Claim Four, in which Plaintiff alleges
that when he was incarcerated at the Fremont Correctional
Facility in February 2017, Defendant Watson, a sergeant
employed by the Colorado Department of Corrections at the
facility, retaliated against him and violated his First
Amendment rights after he complained about her search of his
cell. (Doc. # 1 at 16-20; Doc. # 6 at 3.) In Paragraph 66 of
his Complaint, filed June 2, 2017, Plaintiff describes the
beginning of Defendant Watson's search as follows:
66. The next morning[, ] Feb. 18, 2017, Sgt. Watson came to
my cell stating she ‘had a call to shakedown
the cell', and I explained to her that
[Correctional Officer] White shook the cell down last night
and [Correctional Officer] Smith did it a few days before
[Correctional Officer] Wood[, ] and I had no dangerous items
in my cell.
(Doc. # 1 at 16) (emphasis added). Plaintiff contends that he
then “complained” to Defendant Watson about the
search and later made a “step 1 grievance” and
submitted an “Employee/Contract Worker Conduct
Complaint for Harassment and Retaliation” about it.
(Id. at 16.) He asserts that because he complained,
Defendant Watson confiscated his prescription eyeglasses and
socks during her search of his cell and later fired him from
his job as an Offender Care Aid worker and filed disciplinary
charges against him. (Id. at 16-17, 20-21.)
In
Defendants' Answer, filed December 26, 2017, Defendant
Watson addressed the allegations in Paragraph 66 of the
Complaint:
15. W ith respect to the allegations set forth in paragraph
66 of the Complaint, Defendant Watson admits she had
a call to search Plaintiff's
cell on February 18, 2017. Defendant Watson
further admits that Plaintiff objected to the search but is
without sufficient information and knowledge to form a belief
as to the veracity of the remaining allegations set forth in
said paragraph and, as a result, denies same.
(Doc. # 52 at 4) (emphasis added).
Plaintiff
moved for summary judgment on February 21, 2018. (Doc. ## 59,
60.) In his Declaration in support of summary judgment,
Plaintiff repeated his allegation that on February 18, 2017,
“Defendant Watson came to Plaintiff's cell stating
she had a call to shakedown the cell but never stated who had
called her with those instructions.” (Doc. # 59-1 at
1.) In their Response to the Motion for Summary Judgment,
filed April 16, 2018, Defendants denied this allegation.
(Doc. # 86 at 2.) Defendants stated, “To the best of
[Defendant] Sgt. Watson's recollection, she did
not have a call, but decided to search the cell
based on items hanging in the cell that were not
authorized.” (Id.) (emphasis added). In an
accompanying affidavit, Defendant Watson asserted:
3. On February 18, 2017, at about 10:30 a.m., I was in Living
Unit 8 and conducted a shakedown of the cell shared by
Offender Waldo Mackey and Offender Rodney Fogland.
4. To the best of my memory, I decided to conduct the shake
down because during my regular rounds in the living unit, I
observed that the cell had a bed sheet hung as a curtain and
a television and cables hanging from the wall, which is not
allowed.
. . .
7. My observation of these items gave me reason to
conduct a shakedown of the cell and I was
not motivated by any other reason.
(Doc. # 86-1 at 1-2) (emphasis added).
Pursuant
to the Scheduling Order, the deadline to amend pleadings was
April 19, 2018. (Doc. # 74 at 6.)
Magistrate
Judge Varholak recommended that the Court deny
Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment on August 2,
2018. (Doc. # 115.) In assessing Plaintiff's contention
that Defendant Watson retaliated against him after he
complained about her search of his cell, Magistrate Judge
Varholak wrote:
Plaintiff contends that Sergeant Watson searched the cell he
shared with Mr. Fogland on February 18, 2017, because she had
received a call telling her to shakedown the cell. Although
Defendants contend in their response to the Motion that
“[t]o the best of [Sergeant] Watson's recollection,
she did not have a call” to shakedown the cell, in
Defendants' Answer to the Complaint, “Defendant
Watson admit[ted] she had a call to search Plaintiff's
cell on February 18, 2017”. The Tenth Circuit has held
that “[a]dmissions in the pleadings ... are in the
nature of judicial admissions binding upon the parties,
unless withdrawn or amended.” Grynberg v. Bar S
Servs., Inc., 527 Fed.Appx. 736, 739 (10th Cir. 2013)
(quotation omitted). As a result, a party's attempt to
“disavow his earlier judicial admissions . . . with
seemingly contrary evidence at summary judgment does not
create a disputed issue of fact.” Id.
Defendants have not sought to amend or withdraw their
Answer and offer no explanation for the contradictory
statements. For purposes of Plaintiff's Motion,
the Court thus accepts as an undisputed fact that
Sergeant Watson received a call to shakedown the cell of
Plaintiff and Mr. Fogland on the morning of February
18, 2017.
Plaintiff does not allege that the call received by Sergeant
Watson resulted from any protected activity in which
Plaintiff himself had previously engaged.
(Id. at 11-12) (footnote and internal citations
omitted) (emphasis added). However, his decision to accept as
an undisputed fact that Defendant Watson had received a call
directing her to search Plaintiff's cell did not bear on
his conclusion that Plaintiff was not entitled to summary
judgment on Claim Four. See (id. at 12-14.)
This Court affirmed and adopted Magistrate Judge
Varholak's Recommendation and denied Plaintiff's
Motion for Summary Judgment on September 13, 2018. (Doc. #
133.)
On
November 26, 2018, Defendants filed their Motion to Amend
Answer, asserting:
Defendants' Answer filed with this Court contains an
inaccurate admission that Defendant Watson received a
telephone call on February 18, 2017, prompting her to conduct
a shakedown of Plaintiff's cell. As reflected in
Defendant Watson's Affidavit previously submitted to this
Court, the statement contained in the Answer regarding
Defendant Watson receiving a telephone call is inaccurate.
Actually, Defendant Watson conducted the shakedown of
Plaintiff's cell because of her observations of the cell
and not because she received a telephone call from anyone
else.
(Doc. # 161 at 1.) Defendants requested that, pursuant to
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 15(a) and 16(b)(4), the
Court grant them leave to file an Amended Answer,
see (Doc. # 161-1), “to correct the mistaken
reference to Defendant Watson having received a telephone
call as prompting the shakedown of Plaintiff's cell on
February 18, 2017” (Doc. # 161 at 4). Alternatively,
they sought to “withdraw the incorrect admission
contained in paragraph 66 of [their] Answer” concerning
Defendant Watson having received a phone call to search
Plaintiff's cell. (Id. at 8.) Plaintiff
responded in opposition to Defendants' Motion to Amend
Answer on December 17, 2018, arguing that the original
Answer, in which Defendant Watson admitted she had received a
call to search Plaintiff's cell, was accurate and that
she shouldn't subsequently be permitted to change her
“version of facts according to how the Court has ruled
on the issues.” (Doc. # 171 at 1.) Plaintiff also
asserted that he would be prejudiced if the Court allowed
Defendants to amend their Answer. (Id. at 10.)
Defendants replied in support of their Motion to Amend Answer
on January 7, 2019. (Doc. # 178.)
Magistrate
Judge Varholak conducted a hearing on Defendants' Motion
to Amend Answer on January 8, 2019.[1] (Doc. # 179); see
(Doc. # 194-2 (transcript of motions hearing)). He raised two
questions concerning Defendants' Motion to Amend Answer:
first, what the relevance of Defendant Watson's allegedly
erroneous admission in Paragraph 66 of the Answer was to
Plaintiff's fourth claim, and second, whether Defendants
had met the good cause standard of Rule 16(b)(4) to allow
amendment of their Answer. (Doc. # 194-2 at 3-4.) After
hearing argument on both questions from Defendants'
counsel, Magistrate Judge Varholak concluded that under Rule
16(b)(4), he was unable to find “good cause to amend
[the Scheduling Order] to allow amendment of the
[A]nswer.” (Id. at 19.) He therefore denied
Defendants' Motion to Amend Answer without reaching the
standard for amendment of a pleading pursuant to Rule
15(a)(2). (Id. at 20.)
Approximately
two weeks later, on January 25, 2019, Defendants filed the
Objection presently before the Court. (Doc. # 194.)
Defendants assert that “the totality of the
circumstances warrant allowing the minor amendment to [their]
Answer to correct the inaccuracy in what prompted Defendant
Watson to conduct a shakedown of Plaintiff's cell.”
(Id. at 11.) They ask the Court to “overrule
the Magistrate Judge's denial and grant them leave to
amend their Answer and accept [their] Amended Answer [(Doc. #
161-1)] . . . for filing ...