Court Opinion

ID: 9748213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:55:20.072592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:32.840485
License: Public Domain

Annabelle Clinton Imber, Justice, concurring. I concur case, to reassert my concerns with the majority’s treatment ofRules 15(c) and 17(a) of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure. As I stated in St. Paul Mercury Ins. Co. v. Circuit Court of Craighead County, 348 Ark. 197, 73 S.W.3d 584 (2002), the interaction between Rule 15(c), which allows an amended pleading to relate back “if the claim or defense asserted in the amended pleading arose out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set forth or attempted to be set forth in the original pleading,” and Rule 17(a), which states that the substitution of a real party in interest “shall have the same effect as if the action had been commenced in the name of the real party in interest,” allows an amended complaint that substitutes new plaintiffs to relate back to the date of the original complaint when there has been an understandable mistake. Ark. R. Civ. P. 15(c), 17(a) (2004). Instead, the majority’s reasoning in this case, that the original complaint filed by less than all the statutory beneficiaries is a nullity and thus the amended complaint cannot “relate back” to the date of filing of the original complaint, effectively eviscerates the applicability of Rule 15(c) in any case arising out of a statutory claim.1 In my view, a better analysis is that the plaintiffs could not amend to add new plaintiffs because, in this case, where we have consistently interpreted the statute to require the joinder of all the statutory beneficiaries, the failure to include the sisters was not an understandable mistake.   The majority’s application is a broader application of the nullity concept than what was at issue in Davenport v. Lee, 348 Ark. 148,72 S.W13d 85 (2002), where this court held that a wrongful-death claim filed pro se constituted the unauthorized practice of law, and thus the complaint was a nullity. While I agree with the limited Davenport application, I cannot agree that any case where a statutory claim is filed by an inappropriate party constitutes a nullity, regardless of whether the complaint involves the unauthorized practice of law.