Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Secretary, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, ___ Fed. Appx. ___ (3d Cir. 2020). This blog does not often cover non-precedential decisions of appellate courts. But today’s opinion by Judge Bibas (a Trump appointee), in which Chief Judge Smith and Judge Chagares joined, is an important exception. The opinion was non-precedential because plaintiff (“the Campaign”) appealed the District court’s rejection of the Campaign’s attack on the vote in Pennsylvania only “on a very narrow ground: whether the District Court abused its...

Premier Comp Solutions, LLC v. UPMC, ___ F.3d ___ (3d Cir. 2020). Under Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, amendments to pleadings are liberally granted. But when a Scheduling Order sets a deadline for amending pleadings, Rule 16(b)(4) requires “good cause” for an amendment. In this case, plaintiff sought to add a defendant after an amendment deadline had passed (and after that deadline had been extended once). Plaintiff’s motion relied only on Rule 15’s “liberally granted” standard. When the UPMC defendants opposed the motion and called...

Garrett v. Wexford Health, 938 F.3d 69 (3d Cir. 2019). This appeal was brought by a prisoner who claimed, as Chief Judge Smith summarized it, that “were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs and that they retaliated against him.” The District Court dismissed his case, holding that he had not exhausted administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. 1997e(a) (“PLRA”), and that his operative Complaint, after several prior iterations, violated Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8. That rule requires pleadings to contain a...