Castro v. Ganot; San Bernardino Sheriff’s Dept.; North County Patrol; Buick GMC Cadillac; California Highway Patrol

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 Case No.: 25cv1438 DMS (DEB) ERIC RAY CASTRO, Trustee of the Eric 11 Ray Castro Trust, ORDER (1) GRANTING 12 Plaintiff, DEFENDANT MY ESCONDIDIO v. BCG LLC’S MOTION TO STRIKE 13 AND (2) GRANTING IN PART AND OFFICER C. GANOT (SANCATT-6); 14 DENYING IN PART DEFENDANT SAN BERNARDINO SHERIFF’S CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY 15 DEPARTMENT; NORTH COUNTY PATROL’S MOTION TO STRIKE BUICK GMC CADILLAC; 16 CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL; 17 and DOES 1-50, 18 Defendants. 19 20 This case comes before the Court on the motions to strike filed by Defendants My 21 Escondido BCG LLC (“BCG”) and the California Highway Patrol (“CHP”).1 Plaintiff filed 22 oppositions to each motion, and BCG and the CHP each filed reply briefs. 23 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f) states, “[t]he court may strike from a pleading 24 an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter.” 25 Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f). An “immaterial” matter has no essential or important relationship to 26 27 28 1 the claim for relief or defenses pleaded. Fantasy, Inc. v. Fogerty, 984 F.2d 1524, 1527 (9th 2 Cir. 1993), rev’d on other grounds, 510 U.S. 517, 534 35 (1994). An “impertinent” matter 3 consists of statements that do not pertain and are unnecessary to the issues in question. Id. 4 Here, Defendants argue the Court should strike all newly asserted claims in the 5 Second Amended Complaint because the Court’s Order on BCG’s motion to dismiss the 6 First Amended Complaint stated explicitly that Plaintiff “may not add any new claims” to 7 his Second Amended Complaint. (ECF No. 77 at 7.)2 Plaintiff does not explicitly dispute 8 this argument. Instead, he asserts he should be allowed to add the claims because they 9 arise from same set of facts underlying his other claims, and there would be no prejudice 10 to Defendants in allowing the claims to proceed. Plaintiff’s arguments, however, miss the 11 mark. In the order on BCG’s previous motion to dismiss, the Court explicitly stated 12 Plaintiff “may not add any new claims” to his Second Amended Complaint. If Plaintiff 13 wished to add new claims, he had more than enough time to seek reconsideration of the 14 Court’s order, or move for leave to add the new claims to his Second Amended Complaint. 15 He did neither, and then simply added the claims despite the Court’s order specifically 16 precluding him from doing so. Under these circumstances, the Court grants Defendant 17 BCG’s motion to strike the newly alleged claims from the Second Amended Complaint, 18 and grants in part and denies in part the CHP’s motion to strike newly alleged claims from 19 the Second Amended Complaint. 20 / / / 21 / / / 22 23 24 2 According to BCG, those newly asserted claims are claims 10 through 12, which allege abuse of process, 25 negligence per se, and declaratory and injunctive relief. Defendant CHP identifies those claims as newly asserted, along with Plaintiff’s claims for fabrication of evidence (claim 3), malicious prosecution (claim 26 4), civil rights conspiracy (claim 5), Monell (claim 6), and unlawful electronic surveillance (claim 9). With one exception, the Court agrees with Defendants that these claims were not alleged in Plaintiff’s 27 First Amended Complaint. The exception is Plaintiff’s claim for civil rights conspiracy. That claim was alleged in the First Amended Complaint as claim 12. (ECF No. 42 at 4.) Accordingly, the CHP’s motion 28 1 Defendants also move to strike newly added Defendants from this case, namely Isaac 2 Salas, “Repo Agent John Doe,” and Onstar.3 Although the Court’s previous order did not 3 explicitly preclude Plaintiff from adding new defendants, Defendants argue Plaintiff was 4 nevertheless required to obtain permission from the Court to add these Defendants to the 5 case. The Court agrees. 6 When an amended complaint adds parties not named in the previous complaint, the 7 amending party “must obtain approval of the proposed amendment from [the] Court.” 8 Madery v. Int’l Sound Technicians, Local 695, 79 F.R.D. 154, 156 (C.D. Cal. 1978) (citing 9 Fed. R. Civ. P. 21). Plaintiff had time to do that before filing his Second Amended 10 Complaint on March 6, 2026, (see ECF No. 74) (Court’s scheduling order setting March 2 11 as the deadline to file motion to join parties), yet he failed to do so. Under these 12 circumstances, the Court also grants Defendants’ motions to strike Defendants Salas, 13 “Repo Agent John Doe,” and Onstar from the Second Amended Complaint. 14 For the reasons set out above, the Court grants BCG’s motion to strike, and grants 15 in part and denies in part the CHP’s motion to strike. Specifically, the Court grants the 16 CHP’s motion to strike Plaintiff’s claims for fabrication of evidence (claim 3), malicious 17 prosecution (claim 4), Monell (claim 6), unlawful electronic surveillance (claim 9), abuse 18 of process (claim 10), negligence per se (claim 11), and declaratory and injunctive relief 19 / / / 20 / / / 21 / / / 22 / / / 23 / / / 24 / / / 25 26 27 3 The CHP also moves to dismiss Defendant “Garot.” It appears Defendant Officer C. Garot is the same individual identified in Plaintiff’s previous Complaints as Officer C. Ganot. He is therefore not a “new” 28 1 ||(claim 12). The Court also grants the CHP’s motion to strike Defendants Salas, “Repo 2 || Agent John Doe,” and Onstar. The CHP’s motion to strike Plaintiff's claim for civil rights 3 || conspiracy (claim 5) is denied, as is its motion to strike Defendant Garot. 4 IT IS SO ORDERED. 5 || Dated: September 14, 2026 4 Hon. Dana M. Sabraw United States District Judge 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28