Chiaro v. County of Nassau

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Chiaro v. County of Nassau, 488 F. App'x 518 (2d Cir. 2012)

Chiaro v. County of Nassau

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, it is hereby ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and DECREED that the judgment of the district court be and hereby is AFFIRMED.

Plaintiff-Appellant Douglas Chiaro (“plaintiff’) appeals from an August 23, 2010 Opinion issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Feuerstein, J.) adopting in its entirety a July 29, 2011 Report and Recommendation issued by Magistrate Judge A. Kathleen Tomlinson and granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment. On appeal, plaintiff argues that the district court (1) erred in finding that defendant David Chiaro was not acting under color of state law, and (2) abused its discretion in denying plaintiffs motion to amend his first amended complaint. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the facts and procedural history of this case, as well as the issues on appeal.

We review an award of summary judgment de novo, see El Sayed v. Hilton Hotels Corp., 627 F.3d 931, 933 (2d Cir. 2010) (per curiam), and we will affirm only where “the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law,” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). Having reviewed the record de novo, we affirm for substantially the reasons stated in the district court’s Opinion and the Report and Recommendation it adopts. See Chiaro v. County of Nassau, CV 09-3702(SJF)(AKT), 2011 WL 3702110, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94211 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 23, 2011), adopting Chiaro v. County of Nassau N.Y., CV 09-3702(SJF)(AKT), 2011 WL 3701804, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94229 (E.D.N.Y. July 29, 2011) (Report & Recommendation). Briefly stated, summary judgment was appropriate because plaintiff failed to adduce evidence sufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether defendant David Chiaro acted under color of state law. See Pitchell v. Callan, 13 F.3d 545, 547-48 (2d Cir. 1994) (explaining that, in order to maintain an action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, “the conduct complained of must have been committed by a person acting under color of state law”).

We review a district court’s denial of a motion for leave to amend for abuse of discretion. Grochowski v. Phoenix Constr., 318 F.3d 80, 86 (2d Cir. 2003). Leave to amend is routinely denied “where the motion is made after an inordinate delay, no satisfactory explanation is offered for the delay, and the amendment would prejudice other parties, or where the belated motion would unduly delay the course of proceedings by, for example, introducing new issues for discovery.” Grace v. Rosenstock, 228 F.3d 40, 53-54 (2d Cir. 2000) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). In this case, plaintiff offered no satisfactory explanation for his inordinate delay in moving to file a second amended complaint after discovery was substantially complete. Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiffs motion to amend his first amended complaint.

*520 We have considered plaintiffs remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. For the reasons stated herein, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Reference

Full Case Name
Douglas CHIARO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COUNTY OF NASSAU and David Chiaro, Defendants-Appellees
Cited By
3 cases
Status
Unpublished