Court Opinion

ID: 9627390
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:42:58.342802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:45.587483
License: Public Domain

GREGORY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part:
I, too, join only Parts I and II of Judge Niemeyer’s opinion. I agree that the district court could not, from the face of Goodman’s complaint, determine when the statute-of-limitations period expired. It could not, therefore, dismiss the complaint for being fded outside the limitations period. See Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac R.R. Co. v. Forst, 4 F.3d 244, 250 (4th Cir.1993). I concur only in part because I agree with Judge Williams that we should not reach the relation-back question. Judicial economy ought not to trump the ordinary rule that a court should decide only that which is necessary to settle the immediate dispute between the parties before it. I consider Part III, which is necessary to neither the reasoning of Part II nor the resolution of Goodman’s appeal, to be dicta. Even if I felt it proper to decide the relation-back question today, however, I could not join Part III of the majority’s opinion.
*477Despite its claims to be consistent with our Rule 15(c) precedent, the majority opinion changes the law of our circuit substantially. Although the majority and the other circuits that agree with it are correct that the language of Rule 15(c)(3) does not distinguish among types of mistakes concerning identity, this Court has done so until now. In W. Contracting Corp. v. Bechtel Corp., 885 F.2d 1196, 1201 (4th Cir.1989), we expressly adopted the Seventh Circuit’s interpretation of mistake as it is used in Rule 15(c)(3). That court differentiates between mistakes involving “misnomer” and mistakes involving “lack of knowledge concerning the proper party.” See Eison v. McCoy, 146 F.3d 468, 471-72 (7th Cir.1998); Wood v. Worachek, 618 F.2d 1225, 1229-30 (7th Cir.1980) (describing a misnomer situation as one in which “the proper defendant is already before the court and the effect [of the amendment] is merely to correct the name under which he is being sued”).* We have done the same.
In Locklear v. Bergman & Beving AB, 457 F.3d 363, 366 (4th Cir.2006), we drew a clear distinction between “mistake due to lack of knowledge and mistake due to a misnomer,” and that distinction was necessary to our holding. Mistake due to lack of knowledge, we said, is not a “ ‘mistake’ as that term is used in Rule 15(c)(3)(B).” Id. We called the distinction between mis-identification and lack of knowledge “inherent in the meaning” of the Rule and stated plainly: “Rule 15(c)(3)(B) is not satisfied when the claimed mistake consists of a lack of knowledge of the proper party to be sued.” Id. at 367, 368. We did not use the mistake language “as a shorthand term to hold that the party to be added must have known of the mistake,” as the majority maintains. Ante at 472. We decided the case by interpreting the word mistake in Rule 15(c)(3) to include one kind of error and exclude another. See 457 F.3d at 368. The plaintiff in Locklear raised only two arguments on appeal, the first of which was that his reason for replacing one party name with another qualified as a mistake under Rule 15(c)(3). See id. at 365. We determined that it did not, and ended our deliberation there. Id. at 368. Perhaps our judgment also could be justified by a lack of notice to the proper defendant, but we did not rely on that justification in our decision. I find no support for the majority’s claim that in Lock-lear “[w]e held that the manufacturer was not chargeable within the limitations period with knowledge that it should have originally been named a defendant.” Ante at 472. More importantly, we decidedly did not limit our holding in Locklear “to the conclusion that the machine manufacturer did not have the knowledge required by Rule 15(c)(3)(B),” as the majority maintains. Ante at 472. Make no mistake: today the majority overrules Locklear. I would not.
I see no reason to abandon our precedent of almost twenty years in favor of a policy that will decrease the incentives for plaintiffs to investigate their cases fully before filing a lawsuit. I think it good that our former interpretation of the Rule limited the mistakes courts would forgive to the clerical and inconsequential. Rule 15(c)(3) is not intended to excuse errant lawyering, but to forgive technical, clerical errors. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 15 advisory committee’s note (1991 amendment) (“[A] complaint may be amended at any time to correct a formal defect such as a misno*478mer or misidentification.”) It is reasonable to expect plaintiffs properly to identify those whom they hale into court. It is likewise reasonable to penalize careless plaintiffs who tarry too long by forbidding them to substitute the correct defendant after the limitations period has expired.
The majority’s interpretation will result in more lawsuits filed against incorrect defendants as the costs associated with improperly identifying the proper defendant drop. Plaintiffs, knowing that courts will allow them to swap defendants if they select the wrong one by mistake, will have fewer incentives to name the correct defendant the first time. The incentives to name the proper defendant will remain very strong of course, but on the margin we should expect an increase in the number of incorrect defendants sued now that the majority has given Rule 15(c)(3) a more liberal interpretation. Even though mistaken plaintiffs will eventually shift their lawsuits to the proper defendants (or lose the lawsuits), the improper ones must still bear the costs associated with defending themselves until the correct defendants are found.
Under the interpretation of Rule 15(c)(3) we articulated in Locklear, Goodman would not be permitted to relate his amendment back. Goodman intended to sue Tracer’s successor-in-interest, but he mistakenly concluded that the successor was Praxair, Inc. instead of Praxair Services, Inc. As he admits, he “simply failed to determine that the party [he] wanted to sue — Tracer’s suceessor-in — interest-was PSI rather than PI, in part because of the confusing corporate relationships.” (Appellant’s Reply Br. 14.) Similarly, Lock-lear knew he wanted to sue the manufacturer of the machinery that injured him; he simply failed to determine that the party was Luna and Bergman instead of Hassleholms. See Locklear, 457 F.3d at 364. Goodman’s case may seem a bit more sympathetic because his initial guess came so close to the mark, but the policy implications for allowing relation back in his case are the same as they were in Lock-lear. If Goodman is permitted to relate back his amended complaint, a future plaintiff will be free to file suit against a placeholder defendant while continuing to search for the proper one any time the plaintiff can make a plausible claim that he believed the originally named defendant was the correct one, provided the other requirements of Rule 15(c) are met.
The majority acknowledges the “good-sense results” obtained by courts that interpret Rule 15(c)(3) as I do — as we did before today — but chooses to part ways with them. Ante at 470-71, 472-73. I would remain in their company and continue to reach those good-sense results.

 For other courts that limit relation back based upon the nature of the plaintiff's mistake, see, e.g., Rendall-Speranza v. Nassim, 107 F.3d 913, 919 (D.C.Cir.1997) (“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’....”); Wilson v. United States Gov’t, 23 F.3d 559, 563 (1st Cir.1994).