Legal Question in Personal Injury in Virginia
The judge provided the Plaintiff 10-days to Amend her complaint; and 10-days to the Defendant to provide a Reply thereafter.
The Plaintiff submitted the Amended Complaint on the 2 nd day of her 10-days allotted and then decided on the 7th day of the 10-days allotted to add additional information to the Amended Complaint. The Plaintiff also set a Motion day Requesting "Leave from the Court" because she was not sure that even though she was within the 10-days allotted by the judge and before the Defendant provided a Reply that she would still need to request "Leave from the Court".
The Defendant after 14-days sent the Plaintiff an Agreed Upon Order for the Request for Leave to Amend that the Plaintiff had submitted.
My questions are:
Do the Plaintiff need to request "Leave from the Court" when she was still within the 10-days allotted by the judge to amend her complaint?
Did the Defendant default when he did not provide a Reply and/or Response to the Amended Complaint submitted to him on the 7th day of the 10-days allotted?
Please let me know as soon as possible because I am suppose to go to the Court tomorrow to get the judge to sign the Agreed Upon Order.
1 Answer from Attorneys
This is not an obvious situation, so I think it is going to be based on what the judge wants to do. I think that you did the safest thing by both filing an amended version and also asking for leave (permission) of court. I think the judge will probably accept the 7 day version because you asked for leave of court in addition to being within the 10 day window.
Remember that one of the rules for civil lawsuits is that "leave should be liberally granted" to serve the ends of justice. So even if you were not within the 10 day window, the judge should probably grant you leave, as long as it would not prejudice the other side (which is a high standard, not just inconvenience).
Did the Defendant have to answer within 10 days of when you filed the 7 day amended complaint? That depends on how the order is worded. If the Order says "10 days thereafter" then I would agree yes it has to be within 10 days of the 7 day amended complaint. But the judge might let them get away with that.
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