Case Name: John Richard CLARK, III, Individually and on Behalf of Minor, Heather Michelle Clark, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. McDONALD'S SYSTEM, INC., Defendant-Appellee
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1980-03-31
Citations: 383 So. 2d 61
Docket Number: No. 14104
Parties: John Richard CLARK, III, Individually and on Behalf of Minor, Heather Michelle Clark, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. McDONALD’S SYSTEM, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
Judges: Before HALL, MARVIN and JONES, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 383
Pages: 61–67

Head Matter:
John Richard CLARK, III, Individually and on Behalf of Minor, Heather Michelle Clark, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. McDONALD’S SYSTEM, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
No. 14104.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.
March 31, 1980.
En Banc. Rehearing Denied May 13, 1980.
Writ Refused July 7, 1980.
J. B. Wells & Associates by A. R. Snell, Bossier City, for plaintiff-appellant.
Cook, Clark, Egan, Yancey & King by Herschel E. Richard, Jr.-, Shreveport, for defendants-appellees.
Before HALL, MARVIN and JONES, JJ.

Opinion:
JONES, Judge.
John Richard Clark, III, individually and on behalf of his minor daughter, Heather Michelle Clark, filed, suit on July 7, 1977 against McDonald's System, Inc. for damages as result of injuries sustained by Heather on August 3, 1976 when she fell in the playground area of McDonald's restaurant in Bossier City. On March 7, 1978 McDonald's System, Inc. filed a motion for summary judgment alleging that it did not own, operate or maintain the McDonald's restaurant at the location where Heather sustained her injury. On March 9, 1978 plaintiff amended his petition and joined as party-defendant Bates # 1, Inc. alleging it to be the owner of the McDonald's franchise and operator of the business at the location where Heather sustained her injury. On May 8, 1978 a judgment was rendered granting the motion for summary judgmeht'filed by McDonald's System, Inc. dismissing plaintiffs claim against it. Defendant Bates # 1, Inc. filed an exception of prescription contending that plaintiff's suit against it filed more than one year after the date the accident occurred had prescribed.
On September 27, 1978 plaintiff again amended his petition and joined The Home Insurance Company alleging it to be the insurer of McDonald's System, Inc. The Home Insurance Company was the insurer of both McDonald's System, Inc. and Bates # 1, Inc. The Home Insurance Company filed an exception of prescription contending it was joined as a party-defendant more than one year after the accident occurred. The trial court denied the exceptions of prescription which were filed by the Home Insurance Company and Bates # 1, Inc. The case was then tried on its merits and the plaintiff's claim was rejected on a finding of no negligence on the part of Bates # 1, Inc. Plaintiff appeals the judgment. Defendants neither appeal nor answer the appeal.
In brief on appeal defendants re-urge their exception of prescription. Plaintiff contends that defendants, who neither appealed nor answered his appeal, may not re-urge the exception of prescription which had been rejected by the trial court.
LSA-C.C.P. art. 2133 provides:
"An appellee shall not be obliged to answer the appeal unless he desires to have the judgment modified, revised, or reversed in part or unless he demands damages against the appellant. . . . "
Defendants seek no change in the judgment because the effect of sustaining on appeal their pleas of prescription would leave the demands of plaintiff rejected just as they are now rejected in the judgment appealed from. The exceptions of prescription filed by appellees may be considered by this court even though the defendants neither appealed nor answered the appeal. Succession of Markham, 180 La. 211, 156 So. 225 (1934); State v. Placid Oil Company, 274 So.2d 402 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1972); Stevenson v. Roy, 194 So.2d 424 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1967).
The trial court relied on Brooks v. Wiltz, 144 So.2d 413 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1962) and Allstate Ins. Co. v. Manemin, 280 So.2d 857 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1973) in refusing to sustain the exceptions of prescription. In Brooks v. Wiltz plaintiff sued Elsworth G. Wiltz when the tortfeasor's proper name was Ellis G. Wiltz. Elsworth was the first name of the tortfeasor's twin brother. In the Allstate v. Manemin case plaintiff sued C. D. McMane-min while the tortfeasor's proper name was Doyle C. -McManemin. The party actually named in the petition was Clifford Doyle McManemin, father of the tortfeasor. The court in both of these cases found that due to their peculiar circumstances that petitions filed more than one year after the date of the tort correctly naming the defendant were not subject to an exception of prescription.
In the decision of Majesty v. Comet-Mercury-Ford Company of Lorain, Michigan, 296 So.2d 271 (La.1974), plaintiff timely filed suit against a non-existent corporation designated as Comet-Mercury-Ford Company of Lorain, Michigan, when the proper defendant should have been the Ford Motor Company. More than one year after the accident Ford Motor Company was joined as a party-defendant. Ford Motor Company filed an exception of prescription. The court in discussing whether prescription could be interrupted against defendants not named in the petition made the following statement:
"Filing of a petition, therefore, interrupts prescription only as to defendants named in the petition relied upon, in the absence of solidary liability between an unnamed defendant and a defendant who is properly named in the timely filed petition, [citations omitted].
And it is now understood in the law that an amending petition to correct a misnomer does not relate back to the filing of the original petition." [emphasis ours]. Id. at 273.
The court sustained the exception of prescription.
There is no indication whatsoever in the record that McDonald's System, Inc. was solidarily liable with Bates # 1, Inc. for torts committed by Bates # 1, Inc. in its business operation. While Bates # 1, Inc. holds a franchise from McDonald's System, Inc. authorizing it to operate a McDonald's restaurant, the uncontroverted affidavit in the record in support of the motion for summary judgment establishes the following:
"That McDonald's System, Inc. does not own or operate the McDonald's restaurant located at 210 Benton Road, Bossier City, Bossier Parish, Louisiana;
That McDonald's System, Inc. is not the employer of any persons at the McDonald's restaurant located at 210 Benton Road, Bossier City, Bossier Parish, Louisiana;
That McDonald's System, Inc. did not install nor does it own any of the playground equipment located at the aforementioned McDonald's restaurant nor does McDonald's System, Inc. have any responsibility for the maintenance or upkeep of said playground equipment nor did McDonald's System, Inc. have anything to do with the selection or design of the surface on which said playground equipment is located and specifically had nothing to do with the selection, design, ownership, maintenance, or installation of the mat or mats referred to in the plaintiff's petition in this matter." Id. Tr. 35.
Though there is the relationship of franchisor/franchisee between McDonald's System, Inc. and Bates # 1, Inc. and because of this relationship there is a possibility that McDonald's made Bates aware that it had been sued, neither the business relationship nor knowledge by Bates of the suit results in prescription against Bates being interrupted by the suit being filed against McDonald's.
The supreme court in Majesty v. Comet, supra, cited with approval Martin v. Mud Supply Company, 239 La. 616, 119 So.2d 484 (1960), and discussed the Martin case in the opinion as follows:
"Recognizing the principles embodied in Article 3550, this Court in Martin v. Mud Supply Co., supra, in a case where no solidary obligation existed between the insured and its insurer, and where the insurer was not named as a. defendant in the original petition against the insured, held that filing of the petition did not interrupt prescription as to the insurer. This result was reached notwithstanding the insurer's actual knowledge of the suit and the fact that the petition was amended after the prescriptive period to name the insurer as a defendant. The case is most persuasive here." Id. at 273-274.
In Martin, supra, we find the following statement:
"Our research has not revealed any jurisprudence which holds that knowledge alone of the filing of a suit against a closely associated person or company constitutes an interruption of prescription as to one not cited within a prescriptive period." Id., 119 So.2d at 492.
The court in Martin, supra, recognized that in certain very unusual factual situations prescription could be interrupted by service upon a wrong defendant. Examples of cases involving such circumstances are reflected by the following discussion quoted from the body of the Martin opinion:
"In Jackson v. American Employers' Ins. Co., 202 La. 23, 11 So.2d 225, plaintiff cited an incorrect insurer. This Court held that because of the peculiar facts of the case, such citation was sufficient to interrupt prescription. The following syllabus correctly states the ruling of the case:
'Where three insurance companies were doing business as a group under the title "The Employers' Group of Boston, Mass.", letterheads of which bore the names of all three companies, having the same office for their claim department, the same telephone, same manager and same employees in that department, the filing of suit against one of the companies under mistaken belief it was insurer under policy covering automobile causing injury, after plaintiff's attorney had been led to believe by letter from manager of claim department that the company sued was the company which had issued the policy, was sufficient to interrupt the one-year period of prescription against the company which had issued the policy. Act No. 39 of 1932.'
Lunkin v. Triangle Farms, Inc., 208 La. 538, 23 So.2d 209, also involved a question of incorrect citation. The proper defendant, who was cited after the prescriptive period, operated from the same office, had the same management, and in some instances had the same employees as the improper defendant who had been cited within the prescriptive period. This Court held that citation, though insufficient to support a judgment, interrupts prescription if it notifies defendant of the grounds of plaintiff's claim and that plaintiff is asserting such claim." Id., 119 So.2d at 493.
There are no peculiar circumstances here presented similar to those found in the Jackson or Lunkin, supra, cases referred to by the court in Martin, supra, nor circumstances similar to those contained in Wiltz and Manemin, supra. We find the pleas of prescription here filed must be sustained based upon the supreme court decisions of Martin v. Mud and Majesty v. Comet, supra. Because we have concluded to sustain the pleas of prescription filed by defendants we find no need to review the merits.
AFFIRMED at appellant's cost.
HALL, J., concurs with assigned reasons.
. LSA-C.C. art. 3550 — "Good faith not being required on the part of the person pleading this prescription, the creditor can not compel him or his heirs to swear whether the debt has or has not been paid, but can only blame himself for not having taken his measures within the time directed by law; and it may be that the debtor may not be able to take any positive oath on the subject."
. See also Roby v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 357 So.2d 99 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1978), where the plaintiff erroneously sued Aetna Life & Casualty Insurance Company mistakenly confusing that company with The Aetna Casulty & Surety Company. More than one year after the date of the accident plaintiff amended his suit to correctly name the defendant, The Aetna Casualty & Surety Company. This defendant, upon being served, filed an exception of prescription which was sustained by the trial court relying upon Majesty v. Comet, supra, and the trial court's judgment sustaining the plea of prescription was' affirmed on appeal.