Betty Hart v. Hanover County School Board

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 11-1619

BETTY W. HART,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

HANOVER COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD; MICHAEL R. ASHBY, SR.,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern

District of Virginia, at Richmond. James R. Spencer, District

Judge. (3:10-cv-00794-JRS)

Submitted: January 27, 2012 Decided: October 12, 2012

Before KING and DAVIS, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior

Circuit Judge.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by unpublished

per curiam opinion.

David R. Simonsen, Jr., Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant.

Yvonne S. Wellford, Senior Assistant County Attorney, Hanover,

Virginia, Bradford A. King, THOMPSONMCMULLAN, P.C., Richmond,

Virginia, for Appellees.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

PER CURIAM:

Betty W. Hart, who was previously employed by the

Hanover County School Board (“the Board”), filed a complaint

against the Board and its Director of Pupil Transportation,

Michael Ashby, asserting that her employment was terminated in

violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 201-

219 (West 1998 & Supp. 2011). Hart asserts that the district

court erred when it granted Defendants’ Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6)

motion to dismiss her complaint for failure to state a claim.

Hart also asserts that the district court erred when it refused

to reconsider its dismissal order, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P.

59(e), and dismissed her Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a) motion to amend

the complaint as moot. Although we discern no error in the

district court’s order granting Defendants’ motion to dismiss,

we conclude that the district court erred when it denied her

motions to amend and for reconsideration.

This court reviews de novo a district court’s order

dismissing a complaint for failure to state a claim, assuming

that all well-pleaded nonconclusory factual allegations in the

complaint are true. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678-79

(2009); Aziz v. Alcolac, Inc., 658 F.3d 388, 391 (4th Cir.

2011). “While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion .

. . does not need detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff’s

obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief

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requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic

recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do[.]”

Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)

(internal quotations marks, alterations and citations omitted).

“Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief

above the speculative level[.]” Id. Given the allegations in

Hart’s original complaint, we conclude that the district court

did not err in granting Defendants’ motion to dismiss. See

Clark Cnty. Sch. Dist. v. Breeden, 532 U.S. 268, 273 (2001)

(holding that adverse action taken twenty months after protected

activity “suggests, by itself, no causality at all”); Causey v.

Balog, 162 F.3d 795, 803 (4th Cir. 1998) (“A thirteen month

interval between the charge and termination is too long to

establish causation absent other evidence of retaliation.”).

We nonetheless vacate the district court’s order

denying Hart’s motions for reconsideration and to amend her

complaint. Rule 15(a) requires that “leave to amend a pleading

should be denied only when the amendment would be prejudicial to

the opposing party, there has been bad faith on the part of the

moving party, or the amendment would be futile.” Johnson v.

Oroweat Foods Co., 785 F.2d 503, 509 (4th Cir. 1986) (construing

Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962)).

“Delay alone, however, is an insufficient reason to

deny the plaintiff’s motion to amend.” Laber v. Harvey, 438

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F.3d 404, 427 (4th Cir. 2006) (en banc). “For this reason, a

district court may not deny such a motion simply because it has

entered judgment against the plaintiff—be it a judgment of

dismissal, a summary judgment, or a judgment after a trial on

the merits.” Id. “Instead, a post-judgment motion to amend is

evaluated under the same legal standard as a similar motion

filed before judgment was entered—for prejudice, bad faith, or

futility.” Id.

As this court recognized in Laber and recently

reiterated in Katyle v. Penn Nat’l Gaming, Inc., 637 F.3d 462,

470-71 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 115 (2011), the only

difference between a pre- and a post-judgment motion to amend is

that the district court may not grant the post-judgment motion

unless the judgment is vacated pursuant to Rule 59(e) or Fed. R.

Civ. P. 60(b). See Katyle, 637 F.3d at 470; Laber, 438 F.3d at

427. “To determine whether vacatur is warranted, however, the

court need not concern itself with either of those rules’ legal

standards.” Katyle, 637 F.3d at 471. Rather, “[t]he court need

only ask whether the amendment should be granted, just as it

would on a prejudgment motion to amend pursuant to [Rule]

15(a).” Id.; see also Laber, 438 F.3d at 426-29 (analyzing

whether the district court erred in denying a post-judgment

motion to amend under the more liberal motion to amend standard,

rather than the more stringent Rule 59(e) standard, and

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concluding that the district court erred in denying the Rule

59(e) motion because the plaintiff did not act in bad faith, the

amendment was not futile, and the defendant would not be

prejudiced). We review for abuse of discretion a district

court’s denial of a motion to amend a complaint, regardless of

whether that motion is filed pre- or post-judgment. Laber, 438

F.3d at 427-28.

The only reason the district court gave for denying

Hart’s motion to amend was that the motion was moot because Hart

could not establish she was entitled to have the district

court’s final judgment vacated under Rule 59(e); the district

court did not consider whether Hart’s amended complaint would be

prejudicial, futile, or was made in bad faith. See Johnson, 785

F.2d at 509. We conclude that the district court’s failure to

properly analyze Hart’s motion to amend was an abuse of

discretion. See Murrow Furn. Galleries, Inc. v. Thomasville

Furn. Indus., Inc., 889 F.2d 524, 526 n.3, 529-30 (4th Cir.

1989) (recognizing that district court’s denial of Rule 59(e)

motion effectively denied the Rule 15(a) motion, but ultimately

vacating district court’s denial of the Rule 15(a) motion

because the district court failed to give a reason for the

denial using the standards for granting a Rule 15(a) motion).

Accordingly, there are sufficient grounds to vacate the district

court’s order to the extent it denied Hart’s Rule 59(e) motion.

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See Laber, 438 F.3d at 428; see also Matrix Capital Mgmt. Fund,

LP v. BearingPoint, Inc., 576 F.3d 172, 193 (4th Cir. 2009) (“A

conclusion that the district court abused its discretion in

denying a motion to amend . . . is sufficient grounds on which

to reverse the district court’s denial of a Rule 59(e) motion.”)

(internal quotation marks omitted).

Thus, although we affirm the district court’s order

granting Defendants’ motion to dismiss Hart’s original

complaint, we vacate the district court’s order denying Hart’s

Rule 59(e) and Rule 15(a) motions. We remand this matter to the

district court so it may determine, in the first instance,

whether Hart is entitled to amend her complaint under Rule 15(a)

(i.e., whether the amendment would prejudice Defendants, whether

the amendment was made in bad faith, and whether the amendment

would be futile). * We dispense with oral argument because the

facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the

materials before the court and argument would not aid the

decisional process.

AFFIRMED IN PART;

VACATED IN PART

AND REMANDED

*

By this disposition, we indicate no view as to the

ultimate resolution of Hart’s motions.

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