Opinion ID: 736850
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Claim against the IFC for Battery

Text: 12 Whether the district court properly excused Rendall-Speranza's failure to add the IFC as a defendant until after the statute of limitations had run depends upon the meaning of a mistake concerning the identity of the proper party in Rule 15(c)(3)(B) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 15(c)(3) provides: 13 An amendment of a pleading relates back to the date of the original pleading when ... (3) the amendment changes the party or the naming of the party against whom a claim is asserted ... and ... the party to be brought in by amendment (A) has received such notice of the institution of the action that the party will not be prejudiced in maintaining a defense on the merits, and (B) knew or should have known that, but for a mistake concerning the identity of the proper party, the action would have been brought against the party. 14 Rendall-Speranza did not name the IFC as a defendant until after it had filed its amicus curiae brief in her case against Nassim because, she says, until the IFC stated in its brief that Nassim was acting within the scope of his duties at the time of the August 25, 1994 incident she had no reason to think that the IFC might be liable for the battery. According to Rendall-Speranza, a plaintiff's mistaken belief that A is liable for a tort against her when in fact B is the responsible party is a mistake concerning the identity of the proper party within the contemplation of Rule 15(c) even where, as here, the mistake [323 U.S.App.D.C. 285] is one of legal judgment rather than a mere misnomer. 15 Rendall-Speranza's broad interpretation of a mistake of identity does not serve the evident purpose of the rule, which is to avoid the harsh consequences of a mistake that is neither prejudicial nor a surprise to the misnamed party. A potential defendant who has not been named in a lawsuit by the time the statute of limitations has run is entitled to repose--unless it is or should be apparent to that person that he is the beneficiary of a mere slip of the pen, as it were. Under Rendall-Speranza's approach, however, one would not be sure that he could rely upon the repose promised by the statute of limitations until all litigation was over. We are reluctant to adopt so expansive an interpretation, with its concomitant harvest of uncertainty, absent some support, if not in the rule itself, then in the Advisory Committee Notes to the Federal Rules, or in the cases of our sister circuits, or in the policies behind either the rule or the statute of limitations. Far from supporting Rendall-Speranza's interpretation, however, all these sources support a straightforward reading of the phrase mistake of identity. 16 The Advisory Committee Notes (1991) state that Rule 15(c) deals with the problem of a misnamed defendant. Cf. Barrow v. Wethersfield Police Dep't, 66 F.3d 466, 469 (2d Cir.1995) (This commentary implies that the rule is meant to allow an amendment changing the name of a party to relate back to the original complaint only if the change is the result of an error, such as misnomer or misidentification.), modified, 74 F.3d 1366 (1996). The committee particularly emphasized, in its Notes to the 1966 amendment the importance of relation back in suits against the government in which the complaint may name, for example, a non-existent agency or a person who is no longer the relevant government official. See Donald v. Cook County Sheriff's Dept., 95 F.3d 548, 560 (7th Cir.1996) (The commentary to Rule 15(c) clearly indicates that the rule is intended to be a means for correcting the mistakes of plaintiffs suing official bodies in determining which party is the proper defendant.). Nothing in the Rule or in the Notes indicates that the provision applies to a plaintiff who was fully aware of the potential defendant's identity but not of its responsibility for the harm alleged. In fact, the Notes speak of a defendant that may properly be added under Rule 15(c) as an intended defendant, and of an amendment pursuant to the Rule as a name-correcting amendment. 17 Rendall-Speranza has never claimed that she intended to name the IFC as a defendant when first she filed suit. On the contrary, she claims that she did not name the IFC as a defendant because she did not think the IFC might be liable for her injury. In an analogous situation, the Ninth Circuit held that a plaintiff that is mistaken about which of two known parties is the proper successor-in-interest of a company allegedly liable to the plaintiff may not use Rule 15(c) to correct its mistake and thereby avoid the statute of limitations. See Louisiana-Pacific Corp. v. ASARCO, Inc., 5 F.3d 431, 434 (1993). As the court of appeals (quoting the district court) explained: 18 [The plaintiff] knew who those parties were and made a mistake in who it determined it ought to sue under the circumstances. The mistake under Rule 15(c) has to be as to identity, and there was no mistake as to the identity of [the buyer]. 19 Likewise, in Lundy v. Adamar of New Jersey, Inc., 34 F.3d 1173, 1183 (1994), the Third Circuit held that [w]here there is a basis for the plaintiff to assert liability against the party or parties named in a complaint and there is no reason for another party to believe that the plaintiff did anything other than make a deliberate choice between potential defendants, the plaintiff cannot revive her claim by relying upon Rule 15(c). See also Wilson v. U.S. Government, 23 F.3d 559, 563 (1st Cir.1994) (amended complaint adding United States as defendant does not relate back where seaman learned after limitation period had run that United States, not his employer, owned ship on which he was injured). 20 Our understanding that an error of judgment about whether an employer is liable for the act of its employee is not a mistake within the intendment of Rule 15(c) is buttressed also by cases in which the court did [323 U.S.App.D.C. 286] not allow a plaintiff who had sued a government officer in his official capacity to add the officer as a defendant in his individual capacity. See Lovelace v. O'Hara, 985 F.2d 847, 850-51 (6th Cir.1993); Colvin v. McDougall, 62 F.3d 1316, 1318-19 (11th Cir.1995); cf. Brown v. Georgia Dept. of Revenue, 881 F.2d 1018, 1023 & n. 14 (11th Cir.1989) (allowing plaintiff who had sued only State to add state officials in their official capacity in order to avoid bar of Eleventh Amendment, but noting that [i]t would be an entirely different case if the[y] were sued in their individual capacities for damages); Donald, 95 F.3d at 557 (allowing pro se prisoner to substitute sheriff's department officials as defendants in § 1983 action where department not liable because no official policy or custom underlay injury). 21 Rendall-Speranza alleged that she was injured in her workplace by a fellow servant. In fact, she submitted to the IFC a Workers' Compensation Claim Reporting Sheet stating as much. Although Rendall-Speranza claims that she did not realize that the IFC might be liable for Nassim's action until the IFC filed its amicus curiae brief in his support, from her own account of the August 24, 1995 incident she must be deemed to have been on notice of the IFC's potential liability. Nothing prevented Rendall-Speranza from naming both the IFC and Nassim as defendants and pleading alternative theories of liability. In the adversarial system of litigation the plaintiff is responsible for determining who is liable for her injury and for doing so before the statute of limitations runs out; if she later discovers another possible defendant, she may not, merely by invoking Rule 15(c), avoid the consequences of her earlier oversight. We hold, therefore, that the plaintiff's attempt belatedly to name the IFC as a defendant because she had earlier failed to appreciate that the IFC might be liable is not an amendment based upon a mistake of identity so as to relate back to the date of the original complaint. 22 We are also mindful that under Rule 15(c) an amended complaint does not relate back to the date of the original complaint unless the potential defendant knew or should have known that the plaintiff failed to name it originally only because of a mistake concerning its identity. Here, the IFC had no reason to think that Rendall-Speranza had failed to sue the IFC by mistake: Not since the IOIA was enacted in 1945, nor indeed since 1976 when the immunity therein conferred was arguably limited by the FSIA, does a court appear to have held an international organization liable in a suit brought by one of its own employees. Therefore, the IFC had good reason to believe that Rendall-Speranza did not name it as a defendant because doing so would have been futile.