Arias v. Newman et al

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
District Judge S. Kato Crews
Civil Action No. 1:24-cv-01246-SKC-KAS
ZACHARY ARIAS,
Plaintiff,
v.
BRUCE NEWMAN, et al.,
Defendants.
ORDER STRIKING SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT
In a previous Order granting the Defendants’ Motion for More Definite
Statement (Dkt. 78), the Court observed that except for a handful of allegations, the
First Amended Complaint referenced the individual Defendants en mass as either
“Defendants” or as a list of their names without specifying what actions they
individually took. Dkt. 79. Finding this to be entirely insufficient, the Court ordered
Plaintiff to review the Defendants’ list of purported Rule 8 violations and file an
amended complaint addressing those pleading deficits. Id.
Instead 	of 	rectifying 	the 	matter, 	however, 	Plaintiff’s 	Second 	Amended
Complaint simply exchanged the collective references to “Defendants” for repeated
lists of the individual Defendants’ names:
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Dkt. 87-1, p.7. This solves nothing.
It is of zero utility to simply switch out the word “Defendants” with a list of
names. We already know the Defendants’ names. What we do not know is what they
did as individuals to warrant being included in this lawsuit. Take the foregoing
allegation for example. Although the named Defendants allegedly observed the
discoloration of Plaintiff’s teeth, there are no supporting facts to make this allegation
anything more than a conclusory assertion. Instead of clarity, the Court and the
Defendants are still left with more questions than answers, such as: When did the
individual defendants make these observations? Under what circumstances? Did they
make these observations on their own or as a group? These are the sorts of details
required to satisfy not only the minimal pleading standard of Rule 8, but also the
more specific pleading requirements of a claim for deliberate indifference to a serious
medical need. See Nasious v. Two Unknown B.I.C.E. Agents, at Arapahoe Cnty. Just.
Ctr., 492 F.3d 1158, 1163 (10th Cir. 2007).
And these “amendments” are particularly egregious because, as noted above,
the Court already advised Plaintiff that simply listing names of defendants is
impermissible. See Dkt. 79 (“[T]he individual Defendants are referred to en masse as
either “Defendants” or a list of their individual names without specifying what
actions they each took. Pleading of this sort makes it impossible for each Defendant
to know what they are alleged to have done.”) (emphasis added). Continued reliance
on group pleading requires the Court to guess as to which Defendants are charged
with what specific conduct. It will not do so. Carrado v. Daimler AG, No. 17-cv-3080-
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WJM-SKC, 2018 WL 4565562, at *3 (D. Colo. Sept. 24, 2018) (“Group pleading
violates Rule 8 when a plaintiff fails to distinguish among multiple defendants,
including on claims that could not apply to certain defendants.”) (citing Snyder v.
ACORD Corp., 2016 WL 192270, at *3 (D. Colo. Jan. 15, 2016), aff’d 684 F. App’x 710
(10th Cir. 2017) (repeatedly referencing 113 defendants as a group when only a small
minority engaged in certain conduct violated Rule 8).
Furthermore, group pleading such as this amounts to little more than a fishing
expedition. “Rule 8 does not permit such aimless trawling.” Yamashita v. Scholastic,
Inc., No. 16-CV-9201 (KBF), 2017 WL 74738, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 5, 2017), aff’d, 936
F.3d 98 (2d Cir. 2019). Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a plaintiff is not
permitted to cast as wide of a net as possible over potential defendants and then rely
on the discovery process to “[search] for evidence to support facts he has not yet
pleaded.” Giovanelli v. D. Simmons Gen. Contracting, Civ. No. 09-1082, 2010 WL
988544, at *5 (D.N.J. Mar. 15, 2010).
* 	* 	*
Consequently, the Second Amended Complaint and Jury Demand (Dkt. 87) is
STRICKEN and the Motions to Dismiss (Dkts. 90, 92) are terminated as MOOT.
Given the severity of his alleged injuries, Plaintiff will have ONE more opportunity
to make his case. On or before March 13, 2026, Plaintiff shall file an amended
pleading that resolves the foregoing issues and complies with Rule 8 once and for all.
The Court strongly urges Plaintiff to give great consideration to whether there are
specific factual allegations—as opposed to conclusory recitations of the elements of
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claims—to support his claims against any one of the individual defendants. Should
he fail to remedy this persistent issue and again file a pleading rife with group
allegations, the Court will dismiss this case with prejudice.
DATED: February 27, 2026.
BY THE COURT
_____________________________
S. Kato Crews
United States District Judge
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