Court Opinion

ID: 9722558
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:38:58.541479+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:36.901165
License: Public Domain

SONENSHINE, J.
I respectfully dissent.
The majority states petitioner’s proposed amendment “seeks recovery for the same accident—the electrocution—and for the same injury—Rowland’s loss of his son.” (Majority opn., ante, p. 1218.) I agree the amendment addresses the same accident, but it does not address the same issue. The original complaint sought recovery for the loss of his son, “an original and distinct cause of action granted to the heirs of a decedent . . . .” (Majority opn., ante, p. 1218.) The amendment, on the other hand, seeks recovery, not for the loss of his son, but for physical injuries he suffered as the result of witnessing the son’s death.
The majority relies on Hirsa v. Superior Court (1981) 118 Cal.App.3d 486 [173 Cal.Rptr. 418] and Smeltzley v. Nicholson Mfg. Co. (1977) 18 Cal.3d 932 [136 Cal.Rptr. 269, 559 P.2d 624, 85 A.L.R.3d 121]. Both recognize the policy of liberally allowing amendments to avoid the statute of limitations where the “recovery sought in both pleadings is based upon the same general set of facts.” (Hirsa v. Superior Court, supra, 118 Cal.App.3d 486, 489.) Laudable as the maxims are, I do not feel they encompass this petitioner’s amendments.
In Hirsa, plaintiff added a negligent entrustment cause of action to his original complaint based on negligent driving. Both counts sought damages for the same personal injuries. Although advancing a different legal theory, the amendment sought recovery “for the same accident and the same injuries as the original complaint, . . .” (Hirsa v. Superior Court, supra, 118 Cal.App.3d 486, 489, italics added.) Similarly, in Smeltzley the original complaint, alleging personal physical injury resulting from an employer’s unsafe working area, was properly amended to allege “his injuries resulted *1220from a defective machine . . . .” (Smeltzley v. Nicholson Mfg. Co., supra, 18 Cal.3d 932, 934.) Again, “the amended complaint sought recovery for the same accident and the same injuries as the original complaint. ” (Id., at p. 937.) The plaintiffs in Hirsa and Smeltzley did not, by their amendments, seek damages for a different type of injury, merely for a different cause.
Petitioner here seeks recovery in his amended complaint for injuries different from those he originally claimed. An analogous situation was addressed in Shelton v. Superior Court (1976) 56 Cal.App.3d 66 [128 Cal.Rptr. 454]. Husband and wife filed a joint complaint for personal injury damages following an automobile accident. Their subsequent claims for loss of consortium damages were barred by the statute of limitations for “although the facts giving rise to the tortfeasors’ liability for loss of consortium may be related to those in the original complaint, the facts measuring that liability are novel and were not asserted until after the statute had run.” (Id., at p. 77.)1
“[A]though the facts giving rise to the duty owed by the defendants to [petitioner] were the same under the original complaint and the proposed amendment, [the petitioner] has two separate independent rights, one to be free of injury [mental distress] caused by the tortious act of another, and secondly to be free of the loss of [society, companionship and support] resulting from injury to [his son] caused by the tortious act of another.” (Id., at p. 80.) Here, as in Shelton, “it is purely fortuitous that as to [petitioner] both primary rights were violated by the same tortious act. Nevertheless they are severable and independent and the assertion of one within the statutory period does not excuse the failure to assert the other.” (Ibid.) Petitioner’s cause of action for negligent infliction of mental distress does not relate back to the date of filing his original complaint for wrongful death.
I would deny the writ.

 The defendants were put on notice their negligence was alleged as the cause of petitioner’s son’s death but the claim for wrongful death does not include a claim for mental distress. Thus, the defense and discovery was focused on the measure of damages the defendants might be required to pay for the father’s loss of comfort and companionship. They had no reason to investigate the emotional disturbance and shock factors inherent in a Dillon claim. And, in fact, I perceive no basis for requiring a defendant to conduct discovery of an unalleged injury, thereby alerting a plaintiff and inviting additional causes of action.