Oxford House, Inc. v. Twp. of N. Bergen, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 27888 (October 24, 2025) Krause, J.
Judges: Before: KRAUSE, BIBAS, and MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Circuit Judges.
Opinion by: KRAUSE
Drafting a complaint can be a challenging enterprise. Plaintiffs often believe that they have set out sufficient factual allegations to state a claim and commence their lawsuit, only for a court to tell them otherwise. For this reason, courts that dismiss a complaint typically set out their reasons for doing so and then grant leave for a plaintiff to amend and correct their missteps. Here, the First Amended Complaint filed by Oxford House failed to state a claim for discrimination, so the District Court properly dismissed it. But it did so with prejudice, reasoning that its earlier denial of Oxford House’s motion for a preliminary injunction and our own opinion affirming that order had previously provided Oxford House with notice of the deficiencies in its complaint, and—as Oxford House had not corrected those deficiencies in its First Amended Complaint—amendment would be futile. Seeing it differently, we will vacate and remand.
As the District Court recognized in its decision, however, even with this low threshold the First Amended Complaint fails to state a claim of disparate treatment because it does not support a plausible inference that the Township’s denial of a CCO was motivated by a discriminatory purpose. Despite conclusory allegations of discriminatory animus, the factual allegations are insufficient in four respects.
In sum, we agree with the District Court’s thorough and thoughtful opinion concluding that the First Amended Complaint does not sufficiently allege facts that suggest the Township’s actions were motivated by discriminatory intent.
Although we agree with the District Court’s dismissal of the First Amended Complaint, we conclude that dismissal should have been without prejudice to the filing of a second amended complaint.
Because the District Court denied Oxford House leave to file a second amended complaint based on its determination that doing so would be futile, it did not have a chance to consider whether Oxford House had demonstrated “good cause” under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4) to seek leave to file a second amended complaint after the deadline for doing so had passed. See Premier Comput. Sols., LLC v. UPMC, 970 F.3d 316, 319 (3d Cir. 2020). Nor did it have a chance [*22] to address whether it should have granted leave to amend sua sponte. See LabMD Inc. v. Boback, 47 F.4th 164, 192 (3d Cir. 2022). We are mindful that Oxford House’s request for leave to amend was in response to the Township’s motion to dismiss, which itself was not filed until after the Court’s deadline for filing an amended complaint had passed, and that courts in civil rights cases “must offer amendment— irrespective of whether it is requested—when dismissing a case for failure to state a claim unless doing so would be inequitable or futile.” Fletcher-Harlee Corp. v. Pote Concrete Contractors, Inc., 482 F.3d 247, 251 (3d Cir. 2007). But because the District Judge here has not had the opportunity to consider these questions and we have every confidence in our esteemed colleague, we will remand for the District Court to address them in the first instance
