Court Opinion

ID: 9551062
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:47:11.034333+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:59.333176
License: Public Domain

LIVERMORE, Judge,
concurring.
Rule 15(c), by its provision that the party to be added receive “such notice of the institution of the action that he will not be prejudiced” creates some difficulty in this case when conjoined with the requirement that such notice be given “within the period provided by law for commencing the action.” Commencement is, of course, defined in Rule 3 as filing a complaint. This appears to require actual notice of the filing of the complaint before the statute of limitations runs. Given the purpose of Rule 15(c) to avoid the bar of the statute when no prejudice appears, 6 C. Wright and A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1496 (1971), we should seek to avoid this literal reading if we can.
If actual notice of the filing of a lawsuit before the statute runs must be given to a party to be added, an anomaly arises. Actual notice to a properly named party is not required. A lawsuit, such as the one at issue, filed on the eve of the expiration of the statute of limitations avoids the bar so long as it is served on a named party within a year after its filing. Actual notice of the institution, therefore, could be received as much as a year after the statute has run. There seems no good reason to require greater notice to a party to be added than to one properly named. The result can be achieved by reading “commencement” in Rule 15(c) as the date by which one properly named must be served. Not only would this make parties similarly situated similarly treated but it would also focus on the purpose of Rule 15(c), that those seeking to defend have adequate notice. The adequacy of notice cannot turn on the happenstance of being named in the complaint.
Alternatively, notice of the institution of the action could be construed to mean no*75tice of the intention to file an action. In this case, the insurer for Floyd Bethel had been negotiating with plaintiff during the period before action was brought. When those negotiations broke down, the insurer should have known that suit would be brought. The insurer, as Floyd Bethel’s agent to handle legal claims arising from the incident at the Texaco station, thus had notice of the intention to sue and notice to it under the law of agency was notice to its principal, Floyd Bethel, as well. I would hold that notice to be adequate under Rule 15(c). See Advisory Committee Comment on the Amendments to Rule 15(c), 39 F.R.D. 82, 83 (1966) (“the notice need not be formal”); 6 C. Wright and A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure 509 (1971).