Opinion ID: 2610891
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Time for Commencement of the Action

Text: Ritchie urges us to adopt Judge Livermore's concurrence in McKinley, thus permitting relation back whenever a defendant receives the requisite notice within the period allowed by the applicable statute of limitations plus the time allowed for service of process. Ritchie's argument is an issue of first impression in Arizona; it has embroiled courts and commentators in a maelstrom of controversy. In his concurrence in McKinley, Judge Livermore observed that an anomaly arises when Rule 15(c) is read to require notice of an action to a misnamed party before the statute of limitations runs. McKinley, 147 Ariz. at 74, 708 P.2d at 755. Actual notice within the period of the statute of limitations to a properly named party is not required. Id. If a lawsuit is filed on the eve of the expiration of the statute of limitations, a properly named defendant who had no notice at all could not raise the bar of the statute of limitations so long as he had been served with process within a year after timely filing of the action. Id.; see Rule 6(f), which allows one year for service of process after filing of the action. The crucial question thus becomes whether the requirement of Rule 15(c) that a defendant receive notice of the action within the period provided by law for commencing the action against him  (emphasis added) is fulfilled if we consider the period to include both the statute of limitations during which the action must be commenced by filing a complaint pursuant to Rule 3 and the additional year Rule 6(f) provides to prosecute the action. Rule 6(f) was originally enacted as a statute and later adopted as a rule of procedure. In 1913, the legislature enacted 6 R.S. Civil 1913 § 434, which stated: When the complaint shall be filed with the clerk, and the other regulations prescribed by law shall be complied with, the clerk shall forthwith indorse on the complaint the day and month and year that it is filed, and at any time within one year thereafter the plaintiff may have a summons issued.... and § 460, which provided: An action shall abate if the summons be not issued and served ... within one year from the filing of the complaint. We first interpreted these statutes in Gideon v. St. Charles, 16 Ariz. 435, 439, 146 P. 925, 927 (1915). In Gideon, plaintiff filed a complaint shortly before the statute of limitations was to run, but a summons was neither issued nor served until seven months after the statute had run. Defendant claimed the action was barred by the statute, and the trial court agreed. We reversed and held that the legislature intended to toll the statute of limitations for one year when it enacted section 434 of the 1913 Civil Code. Id. We observed that the trial court had no discretion to bar the action if service was accomplished during that one year period. Id. In sum, the period in which this state's statute of limitations required that an action must be commenced and prosecuted includes the year after the statute of limitations had run. Id. Only if the plaintiff failed to prosecute during the year did the action abate. See 6 R.S.Civil 1913 § 460; see also Murphey v. Valenzuela, 95 Ariz. 30, 33, 386 P.2d 78, 80 (1963) (fundamental reason for requiring the plaintiff to exercise due diligence in seeking to have the defendant served with process arises out of the fact that when a suit is commenced the statute of limitations is tolled). Rule 6(f) is directly derived from 6 R.S.Civil 1913 § 460. See Rule 6(f), Historical Note. As we have already observed: It is therefore clear that the Legislature did not intend to leave the important time for summoning a defendant to court to judicial improvisation as to when a claim was lost by lapse of time and that a period was intended to be provided during which a summons must be served in order that the action not abate. Montano v. Scottsdale Baptist Hosp., Inc., 119 Ariz. 448, 451, 581 P.2d 682, 685 (1978). Given that the legislature intended that an action might be commenced by filing within the period of the statute of limitations ( see Rule 3) and prosecuted by service within the additional time of one year, allowing an amendment to add or change a party during that same time period does nothing to undermine the protection the legislature intended to provide for defendants. Nor can the added defendant show any legal prejudice; GCSR received notice within the time that would have been proper if it had been correctly named in the first place. See Ingram v. Kumar, 585 F.2d 566, 572 (2d Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 940, 99 S.Ct. 1289, 59 L.Ed.2d 499 (1979) (permitting relation back under these circumstances).