United States District Court, N.D. Ohio, Eastern Division
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
HONORABLE SARA LIOI, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
This
matter is before the Court on motion by plaintiff UPMC
Presbyterian Shadyside (“UPMC”) for leave to
amend the complaint and add an additional plaintiff. (Doc.
No. 100 [“Mot.”].[1]) No other party in this suit has
filed a brief either opposing or supporting UPMC's motion
for leave to amend. The matter is now ripe for the
Court's review. For the reasons that follow, UPMC's
motion for leave to amend is DENIED.
I.
BACKGROUND
On
February 19, 2019, plaintiff UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside
filed a motion to consolidate Case No. 1:19-cv-158
(“UPMC Case”) with Case No. 1:17-cv-1413
(“McHugh Case”). (Doc. No. 11 [“UPMC
Consolidate Mot.”].) On May 17, 2019, defendant Fleet
Owners Insurance Fund (“Fleet”) filed its own
motion to consolidate the two cases. (Doc. No. 24.) The Court
granted the motions to consolidate, finding that UPMC and
Fleet met their burden of demonstrating that consolidation
was appropriate because the factual impetus for both actions
is the same: Sharon McHugh's incurrence of substantial
medical expenses. And, as UPMC correctly identified:
“Each case may be resolved by answering the same
question-was Fleet obligated to fund payments for the medical
care provided to Sharon McHugh at [UPMC]?” (UPMC
Consolidate Mot. at 131.)
Now-two
years after the first of the consolidated cases was
filed-UPMC seeks leave to amend the complaint to add an
additional plaintiff and bring a new factual inquiry into
this case: did Fleet withhold funds from UPMC Children's
Hospital of Pittsburgh (“UPMC Children's”)
for services rendered to patients at UPMC Children's.
(Mot. at 1469-70.)
II.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 20(a) allows persons to join in one
action as plaintiffs if “they assert any right to
relief jointly, severally, or in the alternative with respect
to or arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or
series of transactions or occurrences; and any question of
law or fact common to all plaintiffs will arise in the
action.” Rule 20 thus provides “for permissive
joinder where parties are related to the case by both a
common question of law and a common transaction.”
Reynolds v. Ferguson, 73 F.Supp.2d 841, 843 (W.D.
Mich. 1999) (citing Michaels Bldg. Co. v. Ameritrust
Co., 848 F.2d 674, 682 (6th Cir. 1988)).
If
joinder would be proper, the Court may exercise its
discretion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15 to allow
amendment of the complaint. Under Rule 15(a), a party may
amend its pleading with the court's leave and
“[t]he court should freely give leave when justice so
requires.” The decision to grant or deny a motion to
amend under Rule 15 is within the Court's discretion and,
generally, leave to amend should be granted liberally.
Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182, 83 S.Ct. 227, 9
L.Ed.2d 222 (1962). However, a motion to amend a complaint
should be denied if the amendment is brought in bad faith or
for dilatory purposes, results in undue delay or prejudice to
the opposing party, or would be futile. Id.
III.
ANALYSIS
UPMC
asks this Court to grant its motion for leave to amend the
complaint and add new plaintiff UPMC Children's because
“the interests of . . . UPMC Children's . . . are
based on the same legal claims and similar factual bases of
the original [c]omplaint.” (Mot. at 1470.) UPMC
contends, “[t]he recent refusal to pay medical bills
submitted by UPMC Children's . . . is the latest
occurrence in a course of action by Fleet to wrongfully deny
benefits owed to hospitals in the UPMC health system for
medical treatment rendered to Fleet members.”
(Id.) Lastly, UPMC contends, “[d]efendants
will not be unduly prejudiced by the addition of UPMC
Children's . . . as a plaintiff in this action because
this new plaintiff presents the same claims and the same
basic underlying facts as UPMC . . . .” (Id.)
The
Court disagrees. For starters, joinder is improper because
UPMC and UPMC Children's do not assert any right to
relief jointly, severally, or in the alternative against
defendants. Further, the claims of the McHughs and UPMC and
the claims of UPMC Children's arise out of completely
separate occurrences and facts. As UPMC correctly identified
in its earlier motion to consolidate, the two consolidated
cases can be resolved “by answering the same
question-was Fleet obligated to fund payments for the medical
care provided to Sharon McHugh at [UPMC]?” (UPMC
Consolidate Mot. at 131.) UPMC Children's claims
encompass a completely different factual impetus: was Fleet
obligated to fund payments for the medical care provided to
various patients at UPMC Children's? Adding UPMC
Children's as a new plaintiff will substantially alter
the underlying factual basis on which the consolidated cases
have been proceeding for some time.
Further,
while the Court acknowledges that UPMC Children's has a
similar legal dispute with defendants as the plaintiffs in
this case, the Court is not convinced that “justice so
requires” the Court to exercise its discretion to add
UPMC Children's as a plaintiff to the present case.
Although neither defendant filed an opposition to UPMC's
motion for leave to amend, the Court finds that the
defendants may be prejudiced by the late addition of
completely new claims covering a new hospital and new
patients because these new claims will change the scope of
discovery, which is already underway. Also, adding new
plaintiff UPMC Children's may result in added expense and
create a more complicated and lengthy trial about issues
largely unrelated to the present cases and may confuse the
jury. Further, denial of the motion for leave to amend will
not prejudice UPMC Children's because it can file a
separate lawsuit against defendants.
The
Court finds that adding new plaintiff UPMC Children's
will alter significantly the factual basis of the
consolidated cases and UPMC Children's claims are more
appropriately brought in a separate action.
IV.
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