Order | Filed: September 14, 2026
| Entered: September 14, 2026
C.K. v. South Carolina Department of Social Services et al
Civil Rights: Other | South Carolina
Order on Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim Order on Motion to Amend/Correct
TEXT ORDER granting 27 motion to amend; finding as moot 10 motion to dismiss; and finding as moot 11 motion to dismiss. A party may amend its pleading once before trial as a matter of course, under certain circumstances not applicable here, Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(1), and "[i]n all other cases, a party may amend its pleading only with the opposing party's written consent or the court's leave," Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). "The court should freely give leave when justice so requires." Id. "A district court may deny a motion to amend when the amendment would be prejudicial to the opposing party, the moving party has acted in bad faith, or the amendment would be futile." Equal Rights Ctr. v. Niles Bolton Assocs., 602 F.3d 597, 603 (4th Cir. 2010); see Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962) (noting that leave to amend may be denied for "undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed, undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment, futility of amendment, etc."). Although Rule 15(a) provides that "[t]he court should freely give leave when justice so requires," Rule 16(b) provides that a court's scheduling order "may be modified only for good cause and with the judge's consent." Thus, when the deadline for amendment has passed, as it has in this case [see Doc. 18 (First Amended Conference and Scheduling Order, providing a deadline of December 29, 2025, for motions to join other parties and amend the pleadings)], "the moving party must first demonstrate good cause under Rule 16(b) before the court will consider whether an amendment is proper under Rule 15(a)," Pure Fishing, Inc. v. Normark Corp., No. 3:10-2140-CMC, 2012 WL 3062683, at *1 (D.S.C. July 26, 2012), aff'd, 564 F. App'x 601 (Fed. Cir. 2014). " '[G]ood cause' means that scheduling deadlines cannot be met despite a party's diligent efforts." Dilmar Oil Co. v. Federated Mut. Ins., 986 F. Supp. 959, 980 (D.S.C. 1997). Rule 16(b) "focuses on the diligence of the party seeking leave to modify the scheduling order to permit the proposed amendment" rather than "on the bad faith of the movant, or the prejudice to the opposing party." Id. In this regard, "[c]arelessness is not compatible with a finding of diligence and offers no reason for a grant of relief." Id. Rather, "[u]nder Rule 16(b), the 'good cause' inquiry focuses on whether evidence supporting the moving party's proposed amendment could not have been discovered in the exercise of reasonable diligence until after the amendment deadline had passed." Rouse v. Byars, No. 4:13-cv-2742-BHH-TER, 2016 WL 2939609, at *3 (D.S.C. May 20, 2016).
Here, the Court concludes that Plaintiff has established good cause to allow amendment after the deadline has passed. Since Plaintiff filed the Amended Complaint in state court, Defendant SCDSS has produced almost 2,000 pages from Plaintiff's DSS file; other records, including medical records, law enforcement records, and forensic interview records have been gathered and produced; and several depositions have been taken. [Doc. 27 -1 at 23.] Plaintiff did not discover that he needed to name Linda Langford as a Defendant until August 20, 2026. [Id. at 3.] And he filed the motion to amend on August 27, 2026. [Doc. 27 .] Accordingly, because Plaintiff points to evidence discovered after the amendment deadline and Plaintiff promptly moved to amend after learning he should name Langford as a Defendant, he meets the good cause standard under Rule 16(b). See In re Lone Star Indus., Inc. Concrete R.R. Cross Ties Litig., No. 93-1505, 1994 WL 118475, at *1112 (4th Cir. Apr. 7, 1994) (concluding that the district court abused its discretion when it refused to allow amendment to add a claim after the scheduling order deadline because some of the evidence needed to prove the claim "did not surface until after the amendment deadline"). Moreover, leave to amend should be granted under Rule 15(a)... (truncated)