Judge: Mark H. Epstein, Case: 23SMCV04237, Date: 2025-05-14 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23SMCV04237    Hearing Date: May 14, 2025    Dept: I

The court is inclined to GRANT the motion for leave to amend, but with a major caveat.   

Plaintiffs filed a negligence action against the defense.  Plaintiffs assert that they learned new facts during discovery and that they are timely seeking to amend based on those facts.  However, plaintiffs are not adding any new defendants. 

The underlying case involves theft from plaintiff’s apartment.  Defendant managed or owned the property.  As the case progressed, plaintiff claims that there is footage from a security camera that shows that one of defendant’s employees removed plaintiff’s property and took it to a storage room.  According to plaintiff, though, the footage was allowed to be destroyed by the defense, and all that remains is a bit of footage recorded on a cell phone.  Plaintiff has deposed the manager and others and plaintiff has learned that the employee who committed the theft was known by the manager to be untrustworthy.  Indeed, according to plaintiff, the theft occurred on February 15, 2023, and on February 10, 2023, management had decided to fire the dishonest employee.  Yet, plaintiff says, as of February 15, 2023, management continued to allow him to come to work, have keys to plaintiff’s unit, and work unsupervised.  This was learned, plaintiff says, during discovery that took place very recently.  It appears that Stone, a manager, saw the security footage showing the theft, but he did not share that information with plaintiff because he was told not to do so absent a subpoena.  In opposition, defendants state that the thief—Sandoval—was going to be fired due to a breakdown in communications with him, not because of dishonesty.  The defense says that no purpose would be served by allowing this amendment; the failure to share the video was just a mistake and the decision to fire Sandoval was unrelated to honesty. 

Ultimately, maybe, maybe not.  The fact that there was a security tape that was not shared with plaintiff in a timely way is concerning.  The fact that it is largely gone now is even more concerning.  The reason Sandoval was going to be fired might be just because he was a bad communicator, or it might be more sinister.   That will be for the jury.  The fact is that given the liberal policy favoring amendments, the court would need to see some real prejudice to the defense here, and the court is not seeing it.  Discovery is not yet closed.  While the parties need to move quickly, there remains time.  That is especially so given that other than the potential need to depose Sandoval, which has been the case for a long time, the court is not sure what discovery defendants will need to do to respond to the amendment.

If the problem is that the defense wants to bring an MSJ on this new claim and now there will be no time, the court will hear that argument.  It could be that the quid pro quo for this amendment is an agreement by plaintiff to reduce the 81 day notice period.  That is the caveat to which the court adverted above.

Assuming that any prejudice to the defense can be mitigated, the court is inclined to GRANT the motion.