Joshua JETER, Plaintiff, v. Lt. Miguel CLEVELAND; Ofc. Prevost; Lt. Delk; Ofc. Ramp; Sgt. Christopher Timmons; Lieutenant Philip Douglas; Major Gregg; Lt. Jorge Romero; Warden Stephan; Associate Warden Devine Carter; Associate Warden Frederick; Associate Warden Peeples; Deputy Warden Tamara Collins; Lt. Tiarra Thomas; Brittany Cunningham; Counsel Substitute R. Rice; Captain Floravia Jones; Lt. Randy Ward; Mental Health Nurse Thurnese Williams; Nurse Christina Hendrickson, Defendants Case No. 2:22-cv-01651-SAL-MGB United States District Court, D. South Carolina, Charleston Division Signed April 17, 2023 Counsel Joshua Jeter, Columbia, SC, Pro Se. C. Cliff Rollins, Richardson Plowden and Robinson, Columbia, SC, for Defendants. Baker, Mary G., United States Magistrate Judge ORDER *1 Plaintiff Joshua Jeter, a state prisoner appearing pro se and in forma pauperis, brings this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.[1] Plaintiff filed this action on May 25, 2022. Plaintiff alleges that he was assaulted by correctional officers at Broad River Correctional Institution on several occasions and that he was retaliated against for filing a PREA[2] complaint. (Dkt. No. 29.) The Amended Complaint alleges events occurring from June of 2019 through November of 2021. (Id.) On December 22, 2022, Plaintiff filed a Motion for Extension of Time, asking for additional time to conduct discovery and asking for leave to serve more than 25 interrogatories on Defendants. (Dkt. Nos. 33; 33-1.) In an Order filed January 17, 2023, the Court granted Plaintiff leave to serve additional discovery requests on Defendants. More specifically, the Court found, “[i]n addition to any requests for production or other discovery Plaintiff may seek, the Court grants Plaintiff leave to serve an additional 20 interrogatories—Plaintiff should take care not to duplicate any interrogatories to which Defendants have already responded.” (Dkt. No. 40.) The Court ordered Plaintiff to serve his discovery requests on Defendants by February 7, 2023, and for Defendants to respond by March 15, 2023. (Id.) Apparently before receiving the Court's January 17, 2023 Order, Plaintiff filed a Motion to Compel asking that the Court order Defendants to respond to certain interrogatories and requests for production. (Dkt. No. 43.) On February 21, 2023, the Court granted in part and denied in part Plaintiff's Motion to Compel, ordering that Defendants provide certain supplemental responses to Plaintiff by March 15, 2023. (Dkt. No. 46.) On March 30, 2023, Plaintiff filed another Motion to Compel. (Dkt. No. 49.) On April 13, 2023, he filed a Motion to Amend the Complaint, seeking to add new defendants and new claims to this action. (Dkt. No. 54.) On April 17, 2023, in accordance with the current scheduling order, Defendants filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. (Dkt. No. 55.) For the reasons set forth below, the Court grants in part Plaintiff's Motion to Compel and denies Plaintiff's Motion to Amend. DISCUSSION A. Motion to Compel (Dkt. No. 49) In his current Motion to Compel, Plaintiff states that as of March 25, 2023, he has not received Defendants’ supplemental responses to his discovery requests, as ordered by the Court. (Dkt. No. 49 at 1.) He then restates the discovery requests he served on Defendants and quotes a large portion of the Court's February 21, 2023 discovery order. (Dkt. No. 46.) In response to Plaintiff's Motion to Compel, Defendants have attached to their briefing the entirety of their responses to Plaintiff's discovery requests and state that they “learned that SCDC is unable to provide positive documentation that the discovery responses provided on March 15, 2023 were delivered to Plaintiff.” (Dkt. No. 52 at 3.) Defendants state that “out of an abundance of caution, counsel has arranged for a duplicate production of the March 15, 2023 response.” (Id.) *2 As an initial matter, upon review of Defendants’ attached discovery responses, it appears they need to review the Court's prior discovery rulings and make sure their responses comply. For example, in their Responses to Plaintiff's First Request for Production No. 10, Defendants object to producing a “copy of the restricted use of force policy.” (Dkt. No. 52-2 at 4–5.) The Court's February 21, 2023 Order found that the SCDC use-of-force policy is “direct[ly] relevant” to the allegations in the Amended Complaint and ordered that Plaintiff be allowed to review this policy “in a secure environment for a limited period of time.” (Dkt. No. 46 at 5–6.) Similarly, Defendants likewise object to producing any video footage in their Responses to Plaintiff's First Request for Production No. 13. (Dkt. No. 52-2 at 6.) The Court's February 21, 2023 Order found that “[t]o the extent there is video footage of any of the assaults alleged in the Amended Complaint, Plaintiff should have an opportunity to review this footage.” The Court ordered that Plaintiff be allowed to review any existing video footage “in a secure environment for a limited period of time.” (Dkt. No. 46 at 5–6.) Additionally, the Court notes that in their Responses to Plaintiff's First Request for Production No. 14, Defendants have objected to the production of Plaintiff's medical record “since being housed at Broad River Correctional Institution from 2019 until 2022.” (Dkt. No. 52-2 at 6.) Defendants object “on the grounds that the burden of procuring the requested records is the same or substantially the same for the Plaintiff as for these Defendants.” (Id.) Here, for the sake of efficiency, the Court orders that Defendants fully respond to Request No. 14 and produce Plaintiff's medical records from 2019 through 2022. The Court orders Defendants to file a certificate of service by May 1, 2023, certifying that the supplemental production has been produced to Plaintiff in the manner stated in the Court's prior discovery orders (Dkt. Nos. 40; 46) and herein, including the video footage (to the extent any exists) and the SCDC use-of-force policy. B. Motion to Amend (Dkt. No. 54) On April 13, 2023, Plaintiff filed a document titled “Amended Complaint,” in which he “request[s] leave to file an amended complaint adding parties” because “this is a continuing tort.” (Dkt. No. 54 at 1.) In this filing, Plaintiff adds as new defendants “Broad River Mail Courier Connie Eady, Lt. Adams, and Lt. Keith.” (Id. at 1.) Under his “Statement of the Case,” Plaintiff alleges that Eady opened his legal mail outside of Plaintiff's presence on February 10, 2023. After Plaintiff confronted Eady on February 13, 2023, she wrote an incident report and showed it to Defendant Lt. Miguel Cleveland. According to Plaintiff, Defendant Cleveland then “wrote another report saying I intimidated and solicited mailroom Eady.” (Id. at 2.) According to Plaintiff, on this same day, he saw Lt. Cleveland in the law library and, thereafter, Lt. Cleveland “assembled his 5 man team (cert team) and went to shake down my cell while I wasn't there. When I walked back into the dorm I was attacked by cert team members Lt. Keith and Lt. Adams.” (Id.) Plaintiff alleges that at Lt. Cleveland's request, Plaintiff was “placed in a steel cell ... for 30 something days and was falsely convicted of charges on” February 28, 2023. (Id.) When Plaintiff left the secure facility on March 20, 2023, all of his property was missing. (Id.) Based on these allegations, Plaintiff seeks to add to his complaint causes of action against Broad River Mail Courier Connie Eady for violations of his First Amendment “right to free speech ... and right to be free from retaliation,” and causes of action against “Lt. Adams, and Lt. Keith” for violations of his First Amendment right to be free from retaliation and Eight Amendment “right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.” (Id. at 1.) Plaintiff has not provided any proposed summonses for these individuals. Plaintiff's filing implicates Rule 15 and Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 15(a) states that a court “should freely give leave [to amend] when justice so requires.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). Further, Rule 15(d) provides that, “On motion and reasonable notice, the court may, on just terms, permit a party to serve a supplemental pleading setting out any transaction, occurrence, or event that happened after the date of the pleading to be supplemented.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(d). Motions to supplement are not automatically allowed, however, and are instead governed by the same standards that courts use to determine whether a motion to amend a pleading should be granted. See, e.g., Quirk v. Stephens, No. 5:16-cv-00757-BR, 2017 WL 2416915, at *2 (E.D.N.C. June 2, 2017); Nazarova v. Duke Univ., No. 1:16-cv-910, 2017 WL 823578, at *8 (M.D.N.C. Mar. 2, 2017). The Fourth Circuit has “interpreted Rule 15(a) to provide that leave to amend a pleading should be denied only when the amendment would be prejudicial to the opposing party, there has been bad faith on the part of the moving party, or the amendment would have been futile.” Laber v. Harvey, 438 F.3d 404, 426 (4th Cir. 2006). *3 Also, because Plaintiff filed this motion after the deadline for amendments of pleadings in the scheduling order, he must demonstrate “good cause” to modify the scheduling order deadlines in accordance with Rule 16(b). See Nourison Rug Corp. v. Parvizian, 535 F.3d 295, 298 (4th Cir. 2008) (holding “after the deadlines provided by a scheduling order have passed, the good cause standard must be satisfied to justify leave to amend the pleadings.”). “Rule 16(b)’s good cause standard emphasizes the diligence of the party seeking amendment.” RFT Mgmt Co., LLC v. Powell, 607 F. App'x 238, 242 (4th Cir. 2015). This standard appears similar to the “undue delay” standard utilized by the Supreme Court in Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962). Specifically, when considering Rule 15 in Foman, the Court held that a district court may not deny a motion to amend without a justifying reason “such as 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.” Foman, 371 U.S. at 182. With regard to prejudicial amendments, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has stated: Whether an amendment is prejudicial will often be determined by the nature of the amendment and its timing. A common example of a prejudicial amendment is one that ‘raises a new legal theory that would require the gathering and analysis of facts not already considered by the [defendant, and] is offered shortly before or during trial. An amendment is not prejudicial, by contrast, if it merely adds an additional theory of recovery to the facts already pled and is offered before any discovery has occurred.... A moment's reflection reveals, however, that the further the case progressed before judgment was entered, the more likely it is that the amendment will prejudice the defendant or that a court will find bad faith on the plaintiff's part. Laber v. Harvey, 438 F.3d 404, 426–27 (4th Cir. 2006) (internal quotations and citations omitted). Here, almost one year has passed since Plaintiff initially filed this action, and Defendants have already filed a dispositive motion. Plaintiff's claims in this action center on events that occurred between 2019 and 2021, and the allegations here focus on events in 2023. Granting the sought amendment at this juncture would require service on new parties as well as allowance for enough time to investigate the allegations, answer the allegations, complete discovery, and file dispositive motions with regards to the new allegations. Accordingly, to allow Plaintiff to amend his pleadings and add new claims at this late stage would unduly prejudice Defendants and would inordinately delay these proceedings. See Keeshan v. Eau Claire Coop. Health Centers, Inc., No. 3:05-CV-3601-MBS-BM, 2006 WL 8446377, at *1 (D.S.C. Feb. 21, 2006) (“[T]he Court agrees with the Defendants that Plaintiff's proposed ... causes of action allege entirely new claims which could have been asserted early on in this case, and that Plaintiff should not be allowed to add such new claims here at the tail end of this litigation.”); see also Graham v. Stansberry, No. 5:07-CT-3015-FL, 2008 WL 3910689, at *4 (E.D.N.C. Aug. 20, 2008) (denying motion to supplement the complaint where the plaintiff seeks to add “new claims against additional defendants who are employees ... [of] the corrections facilities to which plaintiff was transferred”). To the extent Plaintiff wishes to pursue the claims raised in his Motion to Amend, he can file a separate action. The Clerk of Court is instructed to enclose a prisoner complaint form with this Order. CONCLUSION *4 Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff's Motion to Compel (Dkt. No. 49) is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. The Motion is granted to the extent Defendants are ORDERED to file a certificate of service by May 1, 2023, certifying that the supplemental production has been produced to Plaintiff in the manner stated in the Court's prior discovery orders (Dkt. Nos. 40; 46) and herein, including the video footage (to the extent any exists) and the SCDC use-of-force policy. Plaintiff's Motion to Amend (Dkt. No. 54) is DENIED. Further, to allow time for Plaintiff to review Defendants’ supplemental production before responding to the Motion for Summary Judgment, the Court extends his response deadline. Plaintiff's response to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment (Dkt. No. 55) is due by May 29, 2023. IT IS SO ORDERED. Footnotes [1] Under Local Civil Rule 73.02(B)(2) (D.S.C.), pretrial proceedings in this action have been referred to the assigned United States Magistrate Judge. [2] PREA is an acronym for the Prison Rape Elimination Act.