Mitchell v. Isaacs et al

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
ISIAH MITCHELL,
Plaintiff,
vs.
LATOYA HUGHES,
Defendant.
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Case No. 3:25-CV-1361-MAB
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
BEATTY, Magistrate Judge:
This matter is currently before the Court on Plaintiff Isiah Mitchell’s Amended
Complaint, filed on December 10, 2025 (Doc. 25).
Plaintiff brought this action for violations of his rights under the Eighth
Amendment and the Americans with Disabilities Act when he was incarcerated at Big
Muddy River Correctional Center in 2022 (Doc. 1; see also Doc. 12). His complaint was
reviewed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, and it was determined that he failed to state a
claim against any of the individuals he had identified as a defendant in the caption or
body of his complaint (Doc. 12). The Court determined, however, that his allegations
were sufficient to state a claim for violations of the ADA, and Latoya Hughes was added
as a Defendant in her official capacity because, as the IDOC Director, she was the proper
defendant for an ADA claim (Doc. 12, pp. 5–6).
A waiver of service was sent to Defendant Hughes on October 3, 2025, (Doc. 13),
and she executed it that same day (Doc. 15). Hughes’s answer was originally due on
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December 2, 2025, (Doc. 15), but she requested and was granted an extension of time until
January 16, 2026, to file her answer (Docs. 23, 24). Plaintiff then filed an amended
complaint on December 10, 2025 (Doc. 25), which was unaccompanied by a motion for
leave to amend.
While litigants have a right to amend their pleadings “once as a matter of course,
Plaintiff does not satisfy the timing requirements of Rule 15 for doing so. See FED. R. CIV.
P. 15(a)(1) (a plaintiff has right to amend complaint “once as a matter of course” within
21 days of serving it or within 21 days after the defendant serves a responsive pleading
to the complaint). At this time, Plaintiff can only amend his complaint with leave of court
or Defendant’s consent, FED. R. CIV. P. 15(a)(2), neither of which he has obtained.
Furthermore, the Court declines to construe Plaintiff’s submission as a motion for
leave to file an amended complaint for two reasons. First, Plaintiff did not rename Latoya
Hughes as a Defendant in the amended complaint nor explicitly re-allege a violation of
the ADA (see Doc. 25). Rather, the amended complaint only sought to “re-add” an Eighth
Amendment deliberate indifference claim against Debbie Isaacs and Kimberly Hvarre,
(Doc. 25), who were previously dismissed from this matter because Plaintiff failed to
allege facts sufficient to state a claim against them (Doc. 12).
Once a plaintiff files an amended complaint, it “supersedes all previous
complaints and controls the case from that point forward.” Massey v. Helman, 196 F.3d
727, 735 (7th Cir. 1999) (citation omitted). In other words, “a plaintiff's new complaint
wipes away prior pleadings.” Id. Accord Beal v. Beller, 847 F.3d 897, 901 (7th Cir. 2017)
(“For pleading purposes, once an amended complaint is filed, the original complaint
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drops out of the picture.”) Therefore, the Court does not permit a litigant to amend their
complaint in a piecemeal fashion (also referred to as amendment by interlineation), with
allegations against various defendants spanning separate documents on the docket.
SDIL-LR 15.1(b)(1). An amended complaint must contain all allegations and all claims—
new and old—against all Defendants. Id. Any claims or parties that are not included in
the amended complaint are automatically dismissed. Consequently, if the Court were to
accept Plaintiff’s amended complaint, his pending ADA claim against Defendant Hughes
would be dismissed. The Court is skeptical that Plaintiff intended for that result.
The second issue with the amended complaint is that Plaintiff did not underline
his new or amended allegations, as required by the Local Rules. SDIL-LR 15.1(b)(2) (“All
new or amended material in a proposed amended pleading must be underlined or
submitted in redlined form.”).
Due to Plaintiff’s failure to comply with Federal Rule 15(a)(2) and Local Rule
15.1(b)(2), the Court ORDERS the Amended Complaint, (Doc. 25), to be STRICKEN
from the docket.
If Plaintiff wants to amend his complaint, he must file a motion for leave to amend
with the proposed amended complaint attached as an exhibit to the motion. SDIL-LR
15.1(a)(1). The motion should explain the purpose of the amended complaint (e.g., to
bring back defendants/claims that were previously dismissed, to supplement the
existing claims with additional allegations, to state a new claim, etc.) and how the
proposed amended complaint differs from the original complaint. The proposed
amended complaint must contain all allegations and all claims against all the Defendants.
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Furthermore, all new material in the proposed amended complaint must be underlined
in accordance with Local Rule 15.1. Failure to comply with this requirement will result in
rejection of the proposed amended complaint.
Defendant Hughes’s answer to the original complaint remains due on or before
January 16, 2026.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: December 17, 2025
s/ Mark A. Beatty
MARK A. BEATTY
United States Magistrate Judge
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