Sotero Montellano Lopez III v. Trans Union LLC, et al.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan partially granted and partially denied Plaintiff Sotero Montellano Lopez III’s unopposed motion for leave to amend his complaint. The court accepted the amended complaint as the operative pleading after excluding portions concerning sovereign-citizen-style settlement rhetoric, a UCC financing statement, and premature third-party discovery requests.

Holdings

1. Leave to amend should be granted in part because the amended complaint states its Fair Credit Reporting Act and Michigan Consumer Protection Act claims in an understandable manner, and the defendants did not oppose the motion or argue futility.
2. The amended complaint was sufficiently understandable to be accepted as the operative complaint, subject to the court's exclusions, and was not rejected as futile at the amendment stage.
3. Section V, concerning an alternative settlement tender, and the final paragraph of Section VII, concerning a UCC financing statement, were excluded from the amended complaint because they neither advanced claims for relief nor supplied factual allegations supporting the claims.
4. Plaintiff could not advance a request for discovery subpoenas to third parties within the amended complaint; subsection (f) of Section VII was excluded because discovery must be sought under the applicable discovery rules.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Plaintiff should receive leave under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2) to file the proposed amended complaint.
2. Whether the proposed amended complaint was futile because its claims could not withstand a Rule 12(b)(6) motion.
3. Whether portions of the proposed amended complaint concerning an alternative settlement tender, Uniform Commercial Code materials, and discovery subpoenas should be excluded from the operative pleading.

Disposition

other