On March 12, 2026, Justice Patel of the New York County Commercial Division issued a decision in SC Philips Clark LLC v. Shore Club Prop. Owner LLC, 2026 NY Slip Op. 30907(U), allowing a plaintiff to amend a complaint even though it meant that discovery would be reopened, explaining:
The decision whether to grant an amendment is committed to the discretion of the court. On a motion for leave to amend, the plaintiff need not establish the merit of its proposed new allegations, but simply show that the proffered amendment is not palpably insufficient or clearly devoid of merit. Leave to amend a complaint shall be freely given upon such terms as may be just. The First Department has held that a court shall grant a motion to amend even if the facts could have been discovered earlier and may be time-barred under the statute of limitations because it is a fact-intensive inquiry that should be resolved on a fuller record.
To deny a motion to amend requires some indication that the opposing party has been hindered in the preparation of its case or has been prevented from taking some measure in support of its position. Claims of prejudice due to additional discovery costs are insufficient to deny the motion. Although amendment in a complex action may require costly additional discovery, the First Department held that the need for additional discovery pre-note of issue is insufficient to show prejudice for the purpose of denying leave to amend under CPLR 3025(b)
Defendants claim that allowing Plaintiff to amend its Complaint results in undue prejudice from both inexcusable delay in requesting the amendment, and the resulting burden imposed on Defendants to engage in additional, costly discovery. Defendants argue that they would have approached motion practice, discovery, expert preparation, and litigation strategy differently had Plaintiff timely pled these additional allegations when they received the information necessary to file the Motion to Amend. Defendants specifically reference the additional eight claims Plaintiff brings resulting from the alleged scrivener’s error in Section 3 of the PPA. Defendants state that the Court (Masley, J.) dismissed all claims in the original Complaint related to allegations involving PPA Section 3; however, Plaintiff waited eighteen months until the close of discovery even though it acknowledged that it became aware of the scrivener’s error in July 2024, when the Court issued its Decision. Plaintiff rebuts that it waited until after the deposition of HFZ’s signatory to the PPA on November 18, 2025, to confirm the relevant facts, and timely brought the instant motion four weeks post-deposition.
Plaintiff primarily argues that facts obtained through ongoing discovery provide sufficient evidence to support the new or re-alleged facts in the PAC. The Court recognizes that discovery has closed, and therefore, providing leave for Plaintiff to file the PAC involves additional discovery, and a financial cost to the parties. However, the Court takes notice that Plaintiff has not yet filed the note of issue. In their opposition, Defendants cite Perez v. N.Y.C. Health & Hosps. Corp., 226 A.D.3d 602 (1st Dept. 2024) as precedent for denying a motion for leave to amend after parties expended significant funds in discovery, and the court, as in the instant case, provided a deadline for filing the note of issue. However, although Perez, a medical malpractice action considered prejudicial factors not present in, or relevant to, the instant case— including lack of a required Notice of Claim against government entities for proposed additional defendants, lack of excuse or reasonable justification for the delay, and the passage of twelve years between the original complaint and the motion to amend.
In contrast, Plaintiff offers a reasonable excuse for not seeking to amend the Complaint sooner. Plaintiff claims it properly waited until it was able to obtain discovery. The First Department held that late claims are accepted when a party did not seek to amend the claims until they had obtained evidence of defendants’ alleged scienter. Consistent with Ferrer, the Court, as a matter of law, has significant discretion in deciding whether to grant a motion to amend a complaint. The First Department has upheld amendments to pleadings even after the filing of a note of issue, when a party offered a reasonable excuse explaining the timing of the motion to amend and, as here, waited until supplemental disclosure transformed a suspicion into a demonstrable claim.
Defendants provide no indication that they no longer have access to relevant documents or witnesses required to defend against the new allegations in the PAC. Although Defendants argue that they would have adopted a different litigation strategy and tailored their discovery strategy differently had they known about the additional claims, they do not argue that a delay in Plaintiff’s pleading prevents them from taking a different discovery or litigation position post-amendment.
Additionally, there were adjournments of key depositions and other time-consuming discovery disputes during the pendency of this action leading the Court to extend discovery deadlines in an Amended Preliminary Conference Order on October 31, 2025, that pushed the deadline for depositions from June 25, 2025 to November 26, 2025. Plaintiff argues that information from the final deponent was necessary to ensure it had all relevant facts prior to filing this Motion. The Court therefore finds that the delay in adding the additional causes of action is reasonably excusable and, although inconvenient, not prejudicial to Defendants.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).