BAL v. MANHATTAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY (2020)

SUMMARY ORDER

Appellant John Bal, proceeding pro se, appeals from the district court’s grant of summary judgment and denial of his post-judgment motion to amend his complaint. Bal sued the Manhattan Democratic Party, the New York County Democratic Committee, Keith Wright, and Cathleen McCadden (“Defendants”) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that they deprived him of a fair opportunity to compete for the Democratic nomination in a special election for the New York State Assembly, District 65, in violation of his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal.

As an initial matter, we note that Bal has waived any challenge to the district court’s decision on his First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment due process claims because he does not dispute that New York law provided him with sufficient post-deprivation process to challenge the alleged electoral irregularities. Although we “liberally construe pleadings and briefs submitted by pro se litigants, reading such submissions to raise the strongest arguments they suggest,” Bertin v. United States, 478 F.3d 489, 491 (2d Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted), pro se appellants still must comply with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(a), which “requires appellants in their briefs to provide the court with a clear statement of the issues on appeal,” Moates v. Barkley, 147 F.3d 207, 209 (2d Cir. 1998) (per curiam). Thus, despite affording pro se litigants “some latitude in meeting the rules governing litigation,” this Court “need not, and normally will not, decide issues that a party fails to raise in his or her appellate brief.” Id. In any event, the district court properly granted summary judgment to Defendants on Bal’s First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment due process claims in its well-reasoned December 12, 2018, decision.

Bal does raise for review his equal protection claim by arguing that Defendants withheld information from him and improperly created two unequal classes of candidates: district leaders, who had access to certain information, and non-district leaders, who did not have the same access. The district court correctly held, however, that Bal failed to proffer any evidence that Defendants’ conduct constituted intentional discrimination, or that Defendants treated him differently than other similarly situated candidates.¹

Finally, we reject Bal’s challenge to the district court’s denial of leave to amend his complaint after judgment. “We review a district court’s decision to grant or deny a party leave to amend a pleading under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a) for abuse of discretion.” Grochowski v. Phoenix Constr., 318 F.3d 80, 86 (2d Cir. 2003). “While generally leave to amend should be freely granted, it may be denied when there is a good reason to do so, such as futility, bad faith, or undue delay.” Kropelnicki v. Siegel, 290 F.3d 118, 130 (2d Cir. 2002) (citation omitted). “When the plaintiff had the opportunity to amend the complaint earlier but waited until after judgment, a court may exercise its discretion more exactingly.” In re Assicurazioni Generali, S.p.A., 592 F.3d 113, 120 (2d Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Bal’s motion for leave to amend. Bal “give[s] no good reason for failing to seek leave to amend earlier in the case.” Id. As explained by the district court, allowing Bal to amend his complaint to assert “entirely new legal theories and facts” after summary judgment would be highly prejudicial to Defendants.

We have considered all of Bal’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

FOOTNOTES

1.   We decline to consider Bal’s argument, raised for the first time on appeal, that the weighted voting process itself violated his rights. See, e.g., Harrison v. Republic of Sudan, 838 F.3d 86, 96 (2d Cir. 2016) (“It is a well-established general rule that an appellate court will not consider an issue raised for the first time on appeal.”) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).