Opinion
20-16396
10-19-2022
GANNA WETTASINGHE SHIROMI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF BERKELEY, Defendant-Appellee.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
Submitted October 17, 2022 [**] San Francisco, California
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Vince Chhabria, District Judge, Presiding D.C. No. 3:18-cv-03296-VC
Before: CLIFTON, NGUYEN, and OWENS, Circuit Judges.
MEMORANDUM [*]
Ganna Shiromi appeals from the district court's summary judgment in her 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against the City of Berkeley ("City") alleging use of excessive force. The sole issue Shiromi raises on appeal is whether the district court abused its discretion in not granting her leave to amend the complaint to add 1 the names of the individual police officers as defendants after the deadline to amend had passed. As the parties are familiar with the facts, we do not recount them here. We affirm.
1. In the early stages of litigation, courts should "freely give leave [to amend a complaint] when justice so requires." Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a)(2). But once the district court has issued a scheduling order setting a deadline for amendments to the complaint, the plaintiff must show "good cause" for modifying the scheduling order. Fed.R.Civ.P. 16(b)(4); Johnson v. Mammoth Recreations, Inc., 975 F.2d 604, 607-08 (9th Cir. 1992).
Shiromi never explicitly requested, and the district court never expressly denied, leave to amend her complaint to name the individual officers as defendants. Rather, Shiromi merely stated in her pro se updated Case Management Statement, which was filed after the deadline to amend her complaint had passed, that her pleadings "will need to be . . . amended to add a cause of action for medical malpractice and false imprisonment and to add some clarity."
Moreover, Shiromi never made a showing of good cause to modify the scheduling order to allow her to amend her complaint. Accordingly, we will not consider, in the first instance, whether such good cause existed. See Friedman v. AARP, Inc., 855 F.3d 1047, 1057 (9th Cir. 2017) ("Our general rule is that we do not consider an issue not passed upon below."). 2
2. It is well established that appellate courts will not disturb a district court's final judgment for harmless errors. See, e.g., McDonough Power Equip., Inc. v. Greenwood, 464 U.S. 548, 554 (1984). Even if Shiromi had amended her complaint to add the individual police officers as defendants, the district court would still have granted summary judgment because Shiromi failed to offer any evidence to create a genuine dispute of material fact regarding her claim of excessive force. Thus, any error regarding amending her complaint was harmless.
AFFIRMED. 3
[*] This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
[**] The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).