Leave Amend Complaint

Amended complaint. n. what results when the party suing (plaintiff or petitioner) changes the complaint he/she has filed. It must be in writing, and can be done before the complaint is served on any defendant, by agreement between the parties (usually their lawyers), or upon order of the court.

Unless the court orders otherwise, any required response to an amended pleading must be made within the time remaining to respond to the original pleading or within 14 days after service of the amended pleading, whichever is later.

(e) (1) In response to a demurrer and prior to the case being at issue, a complaint or cross-complaint shall not be amended more than three times, absent an offer to the trial court as to such additional facts to be pleaded that there is a reasonable possibility the defect can be cured to state a cause of action.

A written pleading in a lawsuit that is changed and refiled as an amended pleading by the party who initially filed it. Pleadings are amended for various reasons, including correcting facts, adding claims, adding affirmative defenses, or responding to a court's finding that a pleading is inadequate as a matter of law.

In parliamentary procedure, the motion to amend is used to modify another motion. An amendment could itself be amended. A related procedure is filling blanks in a motion.

At the very outset, it would be relevant to mention there is a limited scope of amendment in a criminal complaint as under the Indian Law there is no express provision for amending a criminal complaint. However, in a recent case of S.R. Sukumar v.Amendment does not change the original nature of complaint.

Amended complaint. n. what results when the party suing (plaintiff or petitioner) changes the complaint he/she has filed. It must be in writing, and can be done before the complaint is served on any defendant, by agreement between the parties (usually their lawyers), or upon order of the court.

Once a defendant has answered, a first amended complaint can only be filed and served with leave of court. If the plaintiff did not get the court's permission, it is not deemed a valid first amended complaint.