DAVID J. WAXSE, United States Magistrate Judge
Pending before the Court is the Joint Motion for Permission to File a Second Amended Complaint (doc. 109-1) filed by Plaintiff and Defendant Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas ("Unified Government") (collectively "Movants"). More specifically, Movants seek to amend the First Amended Complaint currently on file to transform its individual declaratory and equitable claims against the 1,362 parties named and to reassert those claims as class action claims against a defendants' class, naming defendant Unified Government as class representative. To that end, Movants also have filed a Joint Motion for Certification of a Defendants' Class.
When read in conjunction with each other, the Court finds the proposed Second Amended Complaint inconsistent with Movants' accompanying request to have a class of defendants certified pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(b)(1)(B). A class member is unable to opt out of a Rule 23(b)(1) class, but the proposed Second Amended Complaint permits various individuals and entities to be excepted and/or "opt out" of the proposed class, as long as they enter an appearance and participate in the lawsuit as individual defendants.
Gottlieb v. Wiles, 11 F.3d 1004, 1011 (10th Cir. 1993).
A court may deny a motion to amend as futile if the proposed amendment would not withstand a motion to dismiss or if it otherwise fails to state a claim. Because the proposed Second Amended Complaint names as individual defendants various individuals and entities that must be included in the proposed defendant class pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(b)(1), the Court deems the motion futile. Accordingly, Movants' Joint Motion for Permission to File a Second Amended Complaint (doc. 109-1) is denied.
Lyle v. Commodity Credit Corp., 898 F. Supp. 808, 810 (D. Kan. 1995) (citing Ketchum v. Cruz, 961 F.2d 916, 920 (10th Cir. 1992)).