Rawlings v. Well Biz Brands et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS
JENNIFER LYNETTE RAWLINGS,
Plaintiff,
v.
WELL BIZ BRANDS, et al.,
Defendants.
Case No. 25-2141-EFM-ADM
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter comes before the court on Plaintiff Jennifer Lynette Rawlings’ (“Rawlings”)
Motion for Leave to File Third Amended Complaint. (ECF 174.) Defendants T&L Alashs, LLC
(“T&L”), Hanover Insurance Group, LLC (“Hanover”), WellBiz Brands, Inc. (“WellBiz”), and
Amazing Lash Studio Franchise, LLC (“Amazing Lash Studio”) (collectively, “Defendants”) oppose
the motion on two grounds: that the proposed Third Amended Complaint (1) would unduly prejudice
Defendants and (2) fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, making the amendment
futile. For the reasons discussed below, the court grants the motion but cautions Rawlings that there
will be no further amendments to the pleadings. It is time to move this case forward.
I. BACKGROUND
Rawlings instituted this action on January 30, 2025, by filing a motion to proceed in forma
pauperis (“IFP”) in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri (“WDMO”)
along with her proposed complaint. (ECF 1.) Following review of the motion and complaint, the
WDMO concluded that the action was “partially subject to dismissal pursuant to 28 U.S.C
1915(e)(2)” because, although the court had personal jurisdiction over Well Biz Brands, it did not
have personal jurisdiction over Amazing Lash Studio (both franchisor and franchisee). (ECF 3, at 2-
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3.) The court also ruled that “venue would not be appropriate within the Western District of
Missouri.” (Id. at 3.) In response, Rawlings paid the filing fee on February 24; WDMO docketed the
complaint on February 26; and Rawlings moved to transfer the case to the District of Kansas on
February 26. (ECF 5, 6, 10.) WDMO granted the motion and transferred the case to this court on
March 21. (ECF 7-9.) Rawlings subsequently filed an amended complaint on May 21 as a matter of
course. (ECF 32.) Since then, Rawlings has moved to amend her complaint numerous times—nearly
all of which the court has denied, usually for procedural reasons.1 (ECF 33, 34, 53, 56, 65, 70, 72,
77, 79, 86, 87, 88, 93, 96, 121, 174.) But, the court did grant leave to amend on October 3, and
Rawlings filed the operative Second Amended Complaint on October 8.2 (ECF 114, 115.) Rawlings
now once again moves to amend her complaint and has attached her proposed Third Amended
Complaint to her motion.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
Once a responsive pleading has been filed, a party “may amend its pleading only with the
opposing party’s written consent or the court’s leave,” which should be freely given when justice
requires. FED. R. CIV. P. 15(a)(2). The rule’s purpose “is to provide litigants the maximum
opportunity for each claim to be decided on its merits rather than on procedural niceties.” SCO Grp.,
Inc. v. Int’l Bus. Machines Corp., 879 F.3d 1062, 1085 (10th Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks
omitted). The court may refuse leave to amend “only [upon] a showing of undue delay, undue
prejudice to the opposing party, bad faith or dilatory motive, failure to cure deficiencies by
1 Even when the court granted leave to amend, Rawlings did not comply with the court’s order
to file the second amended complaint “as a separate docket entry within five days.” (ECF 82.)
2 Rawlings’ penchant for filing motions to amend did not end there. On November 7,
Rawlings filed yet another motion to amend her complaint (ECF 121), which the court denied as
moot because the proposed pleading was “the same as the operative pleading.” (ECF 125.)
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amendments previously allowed, or futility of amendment.” Wilkerson v. Shinseki, 606 F.3d 1256,
1267 (10th Cir. 2010); see also Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962) (same).
Practically speaking, the party opposing a motion to amend generally bears the burden to
demonstrate why the court should not permit amendment. See Wilkerson, 606 F.3d at 1267 (ruling
that, in the absence of such a showing, amendment should be allowed); Eminence Capital, LLC v.
Aspeon, Inc., 316 F.3d 1048, 1052 (9th Cir. 2003) (stating the party opposing amendment bears the
burden to show undue prejudice and that there is a presumption in favor of amendment absent such a
showing “or a strong showing of any of the remaining Foman factors”). Whether to grant a motion
to amend is within the court’s sound discretion. Minter v. Prime Equip. Co., 451 F.3d 1196, 1204
(10th Cir. 2006).
III. ANALYSIS
The operative Second Amended Complaint alleges that Rawlings sustained an eye injury on
February 6, 2023, when a technician at the Amazing Lash Studio in Overland Park, Kansas, “injected
a large volume [of] unidentified toxic substance into [her] Bilateral Orbital regions.” (ECF 115, at 2-
3.) It further alleges that “[n]o lawful business model permits incapacitated client exposure to toxins
in a closed room with no oversight” and that “all defendants are liable for direct breach and civil
conspiracy in furtherance of an unlawful, uninsurable business model.” (ECF 115, at 3.) The
pleading appears to further allege that Defendants had an obligation to comply, and failed to comply,
with multiple federal laws, including (1) 15 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq., the Toxic Substances Control Act
(“TSCA”); (2) the United States Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) cosmetic safety
requirements/guidelines; (3) 29 U.S.C. § 654(a), setting out an employer’s OSHA obligations to
employees; (4) 15 U.S.C. § 45, involving the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) regulation of
unfair competition and unfair or deceptive business acts or practices; and (5) 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961 –
1968, the entirety of Chapter 98 of the United States Code covering Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
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Organizations (“RICO”). (ECF 115, at 3, 5-13.) The complaint goes on to allege that “permit[ting]
any client to be incapacitated behind a closed door, receiving toxic exposure near the eyes, with only
one technician present” is unlawful and “agency guidelines specifically prohibit and deem
uninsurable any such practice.” (ECF 115, at 14.) Defendants filed motions to dismiss the Second
Amended Complaint in late November and early December, contending that Rawlings failed to plead
facts sufficient for any of her statutory claims to proceed. (ECF 136, 160, 163.) On January 8, 2026,
after briefing on the motions to dismiss was complete, Rawlings filed the current motion for leave to
amend her complaint. (ECF 174.)
Rawlings’ current motion and proposed Third Amended Complaint again raises concerns that
“[i]n the beauty/cosmetology sector, this lash-only, closed-door model is fundamentally inconsistent
with” the TSCA, FDCA, the FTC Act, and OSHA, as well as state cosmetology/licensing and
consumer-protection statutes that regulate the conditions and safety of salon services. (ECF 174-1,
at 3.)3 But Rawlings’ reply explains that she is not attempting to assert claims under those statutes,
which do not provide a private right of action. (ECF 195, at 3 (“Plaintiff does not plead stand-alone
statutory causes of action under those regimes.”).) She contends that she is asserting only traditional
theories—negligence, negligent supervision, consumer protection, and civil RICO—and “uses the
regulatory schemes to define the duties of a national lash-only franchise system that uses toxic
3 Rawlings’ motion to amend twice references the Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act (“TVPRA”) as if it is asserted in the Third Amended Complaint. (See ECF 174,
at 3 (stating that the existing complaint and the proposed Third Amended Complaint “show that any
RICO, TVPRA/forced-labor, and consumer-protection theories arise from the same nucleus of
operative facts but were previously previewed in briefing rather than fully integrated into a single
pleading”), 7 (stating that the “proposed Third Amended Complaint also addresses commencement
and relation-back by clearly tying all counts—including RICO and any TVPRA-aligned or unfair-
practice counts—to the same February 6, 2023 closed-door lash procedure”).) But her proposed Third
Amended Complaint does not assert a claim under the TVPRA or even mention it. To the extent
Rawlings is seeking to amend her complaint to allege a violation of TVPRA, that claim appears to be
inadequately pled and therefore futile.
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chemicals on incapacitated clients in closed rooms.” (ECF 195, at 3.)4 Rawlings contends that courts
“routinely allow regulations and industry standards to inform duty and breach in negligence and
consumer-protection cases.” (ECF 195, at 3.) She argues that the proposed amendment
“consolidates” all previously-disclosed facts and theories arising from the February 6, 2023, incident
into a coherent pleading that “gives Defendants a clearer roadmap of the claims to be answered”
(ECF 174, at 1, 2, 7, 8; see also ECF 195, at 1) and “channels the factual and legal clarifications
previewed in her Response [to T&L’s motion to dismiss] into a single, self-contained Third Amended
Complaint.” (ECF 174, at 5 (referring to ECF 163 & 165).)
Defendants oppose Rawlings’ motion to amend on the grounds of undue prejudice and futility.
(ECF 178, 180, 182.)
A. Undue Prejudice
The most important factor in considering a motion to amend is “whether the amendment
would prejudice the nonmoving party.” Minter v. Prime Equip. Co., 451 F.3d 1196, 1207-08 (10th
Cir. 2006). Typically, a court will find prejudice only where allowing the amendment would unfairly
affect a party’s ability to prepare a defense to the claims in the amended pleading. See id. Where
proposed amended claims “arise out of a subject matter different from what was set forth in the
[original pleading] and raise significant new factual issues,” granting a motion to amend may result
in undue prejudice. Id.
Defendants Hanover, WellBiz, and Amazing Lash Studio contend that they would be unduly
prejudiced because, based on the “reasoning and lack of substantive changes” in Rawlings’ proposed
4 Rawlings’ proposed Third Amended Complaint broadens her description of her claims,
referencing “claims for negligence, premises liability, negligent hiring, training, supervision, and
retention, deceptive and unfair acts and practices, and a pattern of racketeering activity under the civil
RICO statute based on systemic deceptive communications and evasion of chemical-safety and
consumer-protection duties in the beauty sector, and civil conspiracy and aiding-and-abetting.” (ECF
174-1, at 6.)
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amendment, they believe Rawlings is attempting to make her complaint a “a moving target” to avoid
dismissal. (ECF 189, at 2-3; ECF 182, at 2-3.) The court finds that Defendants are not unduly
prejudiced by the amendment. First, Rawlings is not attempting to assert a new claim or name a new
party but instead she seeks to include additional factual allegations in support of her existing claims.
Second, Rawlings’ amendment seeks to clarify the contours of her claims to make clear that she is
not asserting claims under statutes for which there is no private cause of action. Given the contours
of the particular amendment here, the court is not persuaded that Rawlings’ complaint is “a moving
target” such that Defendants would be unduly prejudiced by the amendment.
B. Futility
“A proposed amendment is futile if the [pleading], as amended, would be subject to
dismissal.” Jefferson Cty. Sch. Dist. No. R-1 v. Moody’s Inv’r’s Servs., Inc., 175 F.3d 848, 859 (10th
Cir. 1999). In the context of futility, the court often considers whether the amended complaint could
withstand a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). See 6 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & ARTHUR
R. MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 1487 (3d ed.) (collecting cases). To withstand
dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true,
to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)
(quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). In analyzing whether dismissal is
appropriate, the court must “accept the facts alleged in the complaint as true and view them in the
light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Mayfield v. Bethards, 826 F.3d 1252, 1255 (10th Cir. 2016).
Defendants assert that the proposed Third Amended Complaint is futile because the applicable
two-year Kansas statute of limitations bars Rawlings’ personal injury claims in Counts I, II, and III.
(ECF 178, at 2-3; ECF 180, at 3-4; ECF 182, at 4.) All parties agree that her injury occurred and was
“discovered” on February 6, 2023. Defendants contend that Rawlings’ complaint was not filed until
February 26, 2025 (see ECF 5), and therefore Counts I, II, and III are barred by the two-year statute
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of limitations. But Defendants misunderstand the filing date. Although they are correct that the
WDMO formally filed her complaint on February 26, 2025, the filing date relates back to the date the
court received the complaint along with the motion to proceed without prepayment of fees. Jarrett
v. U.S. Sprint Communications Co., 22 F.3d 256, 259 (10th Cir. 1994). The district court file reflects
that the WDMO received Rawlings’ IFP motion and complaint on January 30, 2025. (ECF 1, 1-2.)
Therefore, her personal injury claims in Counts I, II, and III do not appear to be futile based on
the statute of limitations.
Defendants also argue that Rawlings’ proposed Third Amended Complaint is futile because
it continues to include claims under federal statutes and state regulations that do not provide Rawlings
with a private cause of action and contains no facts or case law to support that she has standing to
bring such claims. (ECF 178, at 3-4; ECF 180, at 4-5; ECF 182, at 5.) But Rawlings specifically
denies that she is bringing claims under the TSCA, FDCA, FTC Act, OSHA, or state cosmetology
statutes and acknowledges they do not provide a private right of action. (ECF 195, at 3 (“Plaintiff
does not plead stand-alone statutory causes of action under those regimes.”).) Defendants’ futility
argument is therefore moot as to those statutory claims.
Defendants also contend that Rawlings’ proposed Counts III, IV, V, and VI would be subject
to dismissal because they fail to meet the heightened pleading standards of Rule 9(b). (ECF 178, at
4-5; ECF 180, at 5-6; ECF 182, at 5-6.) By this argument, Defendants attempt to re-raise the same
arguments that they raised in prior motions to dismiss before the district judge. The court will not
sort out these futility matters for each claim alleged by Rawlings, as such would require a more
fulsome analysis of whether the claims are based on acts that were unlawful because they constituted
fraud. Suffice it to say that the court cannot say at this time that the entirety of Rawlings’ proposed
complaint is clearly futile. It may be that some of her claims may not ultimately survive a motion to
dismiss. But at least at this procedural juncture, Defendants have not raised any viable futility
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arguments as to Counts I and II (and also as to their statute-of-limitations argument on Count III), so
the court will leave it to another day to determine which of Counts III, IV, V, and VI are subject to,
and meet, the heightened pleading standards of Rule 9(b). Defendants can re-raise these arguments
on a motion to dismiss before the district judge.
The undersigned makes no determination as to whether the amended claims ultimately would
survive a subsequent dispositive motion presented to the district judge. See Bailey v. Indical Mgmt.,
LLC, No. 19-1283-HLT-TJJ, 2020 WL 1151317, at *3 (D. Kan. Mar. 10, 2020) (“This does not mean
the amendments will survive a dispositive motion in the future, just that the proposed amendments
do not appear clearly frivolous.”). Rather, the court simply finds that Defendants have not met the
“high bar” of establishing that the entirety of Rawlings’ proposed Third Amended Complaint is
clearly futile. See Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation v. Morse, No. 24-4066-KHV-RES, 2025 WL
823246, at *4 (D. Kan. Mar. 14, 2025) (citing Phelps v. State of Kan., No. 23-2206-DDC-RES, 2025
WL 743975, at *6 (D. Kan. Mar. 7, 2025) (“In order to deny a motion to amend on the basis of futility,
the court requires more than a possibility that the claim would not survive a motion to dismiss; it must
be established that the claim would be dismissed.”)). This ruling does not preclude any defendant
from moving to dismiss the Third Amended Complaint.
In conclusion, given the procedural posture of this case, the lack of undue prejudice to
Defendants, and the liberal standards governing leave to amend, the court exercises its discretion and
grants Rawlings leave to amend her complaint one last time to clarify her claims and the matters in
dispute. In doing so, the court wishes to add a word of caution to Rawlings. Rawlings’ repeated
attempts to amend her complaint have ground this case to a halt. The court has denied most of her
motions to amend on procedural grounds. Even when the court granted her leave to amend,
Defendants have moved to dismiss the latest complaint, which has led to Rawlings moving to amend
again, which has then led the district judge to deny Defendants’ prior motions to dismiss as moot. As
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long as this cycle continues on repeat, the court intends to delay setting case-management deadlines
to move this case forward until after the district judge finally resolves all outstanding motions directed
to the sufficiency of the pleadings. That way, the parties and the court know the claims and defenses
remaining, and hence the proper scope of discovery.
To be clear, even though the court is allowing amendment here, this is the last amendment to
the complaint that the court intends to allow. Rawlings has had ample opportunities to amend her
complaint and, at this point, her abusive pattern of filing motions to amend must end. The court will
summarily deny any future motion to amend the complaint that Rawlings files. This case must move
forward. See Pallottino v. City of Rio Rancho, 31 F.3d 1023, 1027 (10th Cir. 1994) (“A busy district
court need not allow itself to be imposed upon by the presentation of theories seriatim. Liberality in
amendment is important to assure a party a fair opportunity to present his claims and defenses, but
‘equal attention should be given to the proposition that there must be an end finally to a particular
litigation.’”).
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Rawlings’ Renewed Motion for Leave to File Third
Amended Complaint (ECF 174) is granted. Rawlings must file her proposed Third Amended
Complaint as a separate docket entry within 7 calendar days from the date of this order.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated February 24, 2026, at Kansas City, Kansas.
s/ Angel D. Mitchell
Angel D. Mitchell
U.S. Magistrate Judge
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