Opinion
00 Civ. 5753 (LAK), 02 Civ. 3482 (LAK)
August 5, 2002
ORDER
Plaintiff in these actions moves for leave to amend the complaint in 02 Civ. 3482, to consolidate these two actions, and for discovery "in order to garner evidence to support the claims in his proposed amended complaint" in 02 Civ. 3482.
No. 00 Civ. 5753 was commenced on August 3, 2000 and now is substantially trial ready. Getting to this point was no easy thing, largely in consequence of plaintiff's actions. Discovery originally was scheduled to have been concluded by March 25, 2001. Plaintiff's inability or unwillingness to cooperate in discovery substantially delayed that schedule. See, e.g., Evans v. Port Authority, 201 F.R.D. 96 (S.D.N.Y. 2001); id., 2001 WL 432486 (Apr. 27, 2001); id., 2001 WL 401595 (Apr. 19, 2001). Further, plaintiff twice previously has received leave to amend the complaint, most recently in March 2002. Most of his proposed amended complaint in No. 02 Civ. 3482 relates to alleged events in 2000 and 2001, and he certainly has offered no good reason for failing to have raised those matters before. In all of the circumstances, it seems reasonably clear that the proposal to consolidate No. 02 Civ. 3482 with 00 Civ. 5753 is intended chiefly to delay the trial or to gain some other collateral advantage in the latter case. Consolidation would be inappropriate.
The rest of plaintiff's motion is entirely unnecessary. As there is no indication on the docket sheet that the defendants have answered in 02 Civ. 3482, leave to amend is unnecessary. Nor has plaintiff shown why he needs a court order in order to conduct discovery in that action, which was commenced only recently.
Accordingly, plaintiff's motion is denied in all respects.
SO ORDERED.