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...

Though the Supreme Court of New Jersey and the Appellate Division are only just beginning to ramp up in the new Term, the Third Circuit has been pumping out published opinions in bulk, as it did late in August. Here are summaries of some of the five published opinions that the Third Circuit issued today: Bank of Hope v. Chon, 938 F.3d 389 (3d Cir. 2019). This opinion by Judge Bibas resulted from a suit by plaintiff against a number of defendants. One of those defendants began sending letters to plaintiff’s shareholders, asserting that plaintiff’s claims were groundless and were...

Even as the Appellate Division wound down the number of its published opinions in the second half of August, the Third Circuit seemed to rev up its publication of opinions. From August 14 through August 29, the court published thirteen opinions. Here are summaries of some of them (for full coverage of all of the court’s activities, check out Matthew Stiegler’s CA3blog): Golden v. New Jersey Institute of Technology, 934 F.3d 302 (3d Cir. 2019). This opinion by Chief Judge Smith involved an attorneys’ fee issue under New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act, N.J.S.A....