464
Opinion of the Court
fore moved to amend its pleading to add Nelson, personally, as a party from whom fees could be collected. In this post-judgment endeavor, Adams reasoned that Nelson was the flesh-and-blood party behind OCP, the person whose conduct in withholding prior art precipitated the fee award, and a person with funds sufficient to satisfy that award. The District Court granted the motion.
Adams' motion, however, sought more than permission to amend the pleading. It sought simultaneously an amended judgment, subjecting Nelson to liability as soon as he was made a party. See Record, Doc. No. 126, p. 1 ("Defendants [i. e., Adams] hereby move the Court . . . for an order granting Defendants leave to amend their third party complaint to name Donald E. Nelson (Nelson) as a third party defendant in his individual capacity, and amending the judgment in this action to include Nelson as an additional party against whom judgment is entered."). In presenting the motion, Adams offered no reason why the judgment should be altered immediately. See id., at 7-8. The motion did contend that an amendment to the judgment was "necessary to prevent manifest injustice," id., at 8 (internal quotation marks omitted), but it did not explain why Nelson, once joined as a party, should not be permitted to state his side of that argument. The District Court seems not to have paused over this question, for it allowed the pleading amendment and altered the judgment at a single stroke. Record, Doc. No. 131. The memorandum explaining the District Court's decision addressed only the propriety of adding Nelson as a party. It did not address the propriety of altering the judgment at the very same time. Record, Doc. No. 130, at 3-7.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the amended judgment against Nelson. Ohio Cellular Prods. Corp. v. Adams USA, Inc., 175 F. 3d 1343 (1999). It was "uncommon," the appeals court acknowledged, to add a party after the entry of judgment. Id., at 1348. The court con-
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