Court Opinion

ID: 9726552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:57:02.941948+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:28.495910
License: Public Domain

ANDREEN, J., Dissenting.
The majority opinion has surface validity, but seems technical in the extreme. Had Kerr-McGee been served with summons as a Doe defendant, there would have been no problem. Yet although the summons gave it better notice of an asserted cause of action against it by serving it “under the fictitious name of: Trona Medical Clinic” (for it then knew in what capacity it was sued), it escapes a decision on the merits.
The majority acknowledges, as it must, that had the complaint contained fictitious name allegations regarding Trona Medical Clinic, the writ should be denied. It also admits that had the person who prepared the summons inserted Doe I after the words on the printed form: “Notice to the Person Served: You are served ... [1] b. As the person sued under the fictitious name of . . .,” the result would be a denial of the writ.
*602I will establish that the trial court’s judgment denying the motion to quash is supportable on two theories: the amendment to the complaint was properly made and the summons, although defective, was sufficient to assert judicial power over Kerr-McGee. Any other holding results in the spectacle of the most populous state in the nation having substantial legal rights pivot on insubstantial technicalities, is offensive to my sense of justice and is not harmonious with modern practice.
As noted by the majority, Code of Civil Procedure1 section 581a, subdivision (a) precluded service of the complaint upon Kerr-McGee after January 19, 1984, as a Doe defendant, even though it had notice of the action by at least December 21, 1983. The court below attempted to be innovative in order to avoid what it perceived to be an unjust result and ordered that the complaint be amended. In connection with an amendment of a pleading after the statute had run, Justice Holmes wrote: “[Wjhen a defendant has had notice from the beginning that the plaintiff sets up and is trying to enforce a claim against it because of specified conduct, the reasons for the statute of limitations do not exist, and we are of opinion that a liberal rule should be applied.” (New York Cent. & H. R. R. Co. v. Kinney (1922) 260 U.S. 340, 346 [67 L.Ed. 294, 296, 43 S.Ct. 122].)
A rule of liberality has been applied often in California. I will review a few cases to prove the point.
In Austin v. Massachusetts Bonding & Insurance Co. (1961) 56 Cal.2d 596 [15 Cal.Rptr. 817, 364 P.2d 681], after the time for filing a claim under a bond had expired, plaintiffs were allowed to amend their complaint to make a claim upon the bond, substituting the bonding company for one of the fictitious defendants. The Supreme Court observed that the policy that cases should be decided on their merits has gradually broadened the right of a party to amend a pleading without incurring the bar of the statute of limitations. (Id., at p. 600.) Not only was an amendment permitted substituting the bonding company for a fictitious defendant, but also changing the allegations of the complaint, since there had been no claim that a fictitious defendant had been liable as a surety. The court held that an amendment relates back to the original complaint as long as recovery is sought on the same general set of facts.
And in Garrett v. Crown Coach Corp. (1968) 259 Cal.App.2d 647 [66 Cal.Rptr. 590], plaintiff’s complaint for personal injuries incurred when his vehicle was struck by a school bus included the naming of fictitious defendants, but did not contain an allegation that negligent design or manufacture *603caused the accident. After the statute of limitations had passed, plaintiff was permitted to amend, not only to substitute Crown Coach Corp. as Doe I, but to include allegations of negligent design and manufacture of the school bus.
Finally, in Kleinecke v. Montecito Water Dist. (1983) 147 Cal.App.3d 240 [195 Cal.Rptr. 58], a plaintiff sued a sanitary district, when he should have sued a water district. The two districts were represented by the same attorney, who filed an answer on behalf of the sanitary district. The five-year statute of limitations passed. Then, plaintiff learned of his mistake and filed a motion under section 473 seeking to amend his complaint to name the water district as a defendant on the ground that he had mistakenly named the sanitary district. The water district argued that plaintiff was seeking not merely to correct a misnomer as to a defendant but to bring in an entirely new party after the statute of limitations had run. The trial court granted the motion to amend. However, it later granted a summary judgment in favor of the water district on the ground of the running of the statute.
The appellate panel reversed on the ground that the water district was equitably estopped from asserting the statute of limitations. The defense attorney had done nothing more than have some “contacts” with his adversary before suit was filed, fail to notify the plaintiff’s attorney that he had sued the wrong defendant, file an answer containing a general denial to the complaint with mail service to the attorney’s street address rather than to his post office box, and fail to return communications from plaintiff’s attorney, yet this was held sufficient to invoke the doctrine of equitable estoppel.
In the instant action, the trial court, in an attempt to observe the rule that cases should be decided on their merits and with realization of the rule of liberality as to amendments of pleading, used section 473 to amend the complaint so that a named defendant was not “Trona Medical Clinic,” but instead, was “Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation doing business as Trona Medical Clinic.” This is attacked on several grounds.
The first assault is that the court did not correct the name of a party, but instead added a new one to the litigation. Concededly, the amendment is greater than those cited in Stephens v. Berry (1967) 249 Cal.App.2d 474 [57 Cal.Rptr. 505] (substitution of Southern Pacific Company for Southern Pacific Railroad Company, Clio Mining Company for Clio Mill and Mining Company and Pickwick Stages System, a corporation for Pickwick Corporation, a corporation). But the difference is one of degree.
In Mayberry v. Coca Cola Bottling Co. (1966) 244 Cal.App.2d 350 [53 Cal.Rptr. 317], two different firms were vertically engaged in the produc*604tion of soft drinks. One was a partnership of three persons operating under the firm name of Coca Cola Bottling Company of Sacramento, a partnership. The other firm, a corporation, was called Coca Cola Bottling Company of Sacramento, Ltd. After the statute of limitations had run, and in the middle of trial, plaintiff learned that his suit against the corporation was faulty; he should have sued the partnership. He moved to substitute the partnership for the corporation, which was granted. The court then granted the corporation’s motion to dismiss. The jurors were discharged and the matter removed from the trial calendar. The partnership then filed a demurrer setting up the bar of the statute of limitations. The demurrer was sustained without leave to amend and a dismissal followed.
The appellate panel reversed. The litmus test was said to be the distinction “between a plaintiff who has committed an excusable mistake and one who seeks a free option among potential liability targets after the statute has run . . . .” {Id., at p. 353.) The court noted that modern business practices often divide integrated business operations—if only for tax purposes— among a group of artificial entities. The court noted the general rule “which permits correction where the plaintiff has committed an excusable mistake attributable to dual entities with strikingly similar business names or to the use of fictitious names.” {Id., at p. 353, italics added.) The appellate panel reversed and ordered the trial court to permit amendment to the complaint.
Admittedly, the case at bench is not as compelling as Mayberry, but there are striking similarities. As in Mayberry, the plaintiffs made a mistake in the designation of a defendant. The trial court made an implied finding that the mistake was excusable. Our plaintiffs are not seeking “free option among potential liability targets after the statute has run,” they are seeking to sue the true entity that operates the Trona Medical Clinic. It served that entity (Kerr-McGee), albeit unartfully. Two other factors cited in Mayberry came into play here—the fact that the real tortfeasor had knowledge of the lawsuit and the desirability of protecting substantive rights.
To the same general effect see Canifax v. Hercules Powder Co. (1965) 237 Cal.App.2d 44. The complaint named “Coast Equipment Company” as a defendant. The actual manufacturer sought to be sued was “Coast Manufacturing and Supply Company.” When the manufacturer moved for summary judgment, the plaintiff sought to amend the complaint to show the true name of the defendant. The trial court denied the motion to amend and granted the motion for summary judgment. The appellate panel reversed. Citing 1 Chadbourn et al., California Pleading, the court stated: “ ‘Where full notice is given and a reasonably prudent person would realize that he is the party intended to be named as the defendant, the court will treat the mistake as harmless misnomer in order to promote substantive rights.’” *605(Canifax v. Hercules Powder Co., supra, 237 Cal.App.2d at p. 58, quoting 1 Chadbourn et al., Cal. Pleading (1961) § 688, p. 575.) There was no covert attempt to substitute a new party. The real defendant was not prejudiced nor misled.
In Canifax, both the erroneous and true nameá had two words in common: “Coast” and “Company.” In the instant case, there was no commonality of designation. But it cannot be gainsaid that Kerr-McGee, as did the defendant in Canifax, knew that the plaintiff was charging it with negligence and that it was the party intended to be charged.
The point of the cases cited is that a mere correction of a misnomer is not an addition of a new party.
There is one California case which approaches the facts of the instant action. In Henderson v. Superior Court (1915) 26 Cal.App. 437 [147 P. 216], the named plaintiff was “United Mercantile Association.” In the body of the complaint, there was an allegation “ ‘[t]hat it is an individual doing business under the fictitious name and style of the United Mercantile Association . . . (Id., at p. 438.) The defendant objected to the introduction of any evidence on the ground that the plaintiff did not have the legal capacity to sue. Although the objection was sustained, the trial court thereupon made an order allowing an amended complaint to be filed which changed the title of the suit to read “I. R. Rubin suing herein as United Mercantile Association.” A complimentary amendment was made in the body of the amended complaint. The court stated: “We think that the complaint here contained a sufficient allegation as to the fact that the plaintiff, while designated by a fictitious name in the title, really was an individual and that under such allegation the complaint was properly allowed to be amended to show who the individual was.” (Id., at p. 439.) The judgment was affirmed.
In the case at bench, the plaintiffs were not casting about attempting to bring in a completely new party, their intent was to bring an action against the party responsible for running Trona Medical Clinic, and the trial court recognized that. Accordingly, it amended the pleadings which in effect substituted the name of Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation doing business as Trona Medical Clinic for Trona Medical Clinic.
The majority takes comfort in the fact that the amendment was more than a “correction of obvious and minor mistakes, such as in spelling of a defendant’s name.” (Fn. 3, p. 599 of maj. opn.) The amendments in Mayberry, Canifax and Henderson were of greater import than a mistake in spelling a name. In Mayberry, a corporation rather than a partnership was *606sued. In Canifax, the defendant was named in three words: “Coast Equipment Company.” The amendment inserted in its place “Coast Manufacturing and Supply Company.” In Henderson, the named plaintiff was an association. An amendment was effected which substituted an individual using the name of an association.
I concede that the trial court took an additional step by the amendment in the instant case. There is no commonality of words between Trona Medical Clinic and Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation. Does that fact mean that a new party has been added? I think not. The identity of the party was the same; only the name was changed. Although it is not ordinarily necessary to state it, there is a difference in meaning between the words “identity” and “name.” “Identity” is the state of being a specific person or thing, and no other. “Name” is the word or group of words by which a person or thing is referred. (Funk & Wagnalls Standard College Diet. (1973) pp. 665, 898.) The identity was the thing operating the clinic; the name was that which people used to refer to it. The trial court did nothing more than change the name of an existent party. It did not add a new party. A recognition of this fact does not result in cataclysmic appellate development; it is a logical extension of existing practice. It is a refusal to exalt form over substance.
Kerr-McGee was before the court at all times under its fictitious name Trona Medical Clinic. When the plaintiffs filed their complaint with the clerk of the trial court, they signaled that they had decided to invoke the court’s aid to vindicate asserted rights invaded by the entity responsible for the operation of the clinic. Kerr-McGee learned that it was the target when it was served. It is in no way prejudiced by a recognition of the difference between its identity and its name.
The majority notes that the court amended the complaint on its own motion. When the court acted, Kerr-McGee did not object on the ground of lack of notice or otherwise. The point was waived.
The majority makes much of the fact that the plaintiffs concede that the statement on the summons that Kerr-McGee was served as the person sued under the fictitious name of Trona Medical Clinic is a legal impossibility. Perhaps it was. The real point, under modern pleading and practice theory, is that Kerr-McGee knew very well that it was being served as a fictitious defendant. The statement on the summons “You [Kerr-McGee] are served as the person sued under the fictitious name of Trona Medical Clinic” is adequate notice that plaintiffs sought to invoke the court’s jurisdiction over Kerr-McGee under section 474. Since this is the case, there is no reason to hold that the summons was void. Although the trial court did not deny the *607motion to quash on the theory that the summons was sufficient to assert judicial power over Kerr-McGee, that fact is not fatal. If the judgment denying the motion to quash was correct, the fact that the trial court gave the wrong reason is unimportant. (Davey v. Southern Pacific Co. (1897) 116 Cal. 325, 329 [48 P. 117].)
Due to years of conditioning, it is easy for us to lose sight of the reality of our fictitious-name practice. The whole thing would be an appropriate subject for treatment by Lewis Carroll. A plaintiff’s attorney lists by fictitious names several imaginary defendants so that if new targets are discovered during the three-year period of section 581a, they may be brought into the suit via the fiction that they were actually defendants all along. This delightful subterfuge is peculiar to California. It exists in neither federal civil practice nor the practice of the other 49 states. (Hogan, California’s Unique Doe Defendant Practice: A Fiction Stranger Than Truth (1977-1978) 30 Stan.L.Rev. 51.)
The plaintiffs in the instant action attempted to use the fictitious name practice in a straightforward (although technically incorrect) way. They knew the identity of the alleged tortfeasor—it was the person or entity responsible for the operation of the Trona Medical Clinic. It was only the name that was in doubt. There was a real defendant out there somewhere; plaintiffs were sure of his or its existence. A more questionable, but nevertheless sanctioned, California practice is where the plaintiff does not know the defendant’s identity, and does not know of his possible involvement. It is in this latter instance—in which the plaintiff has no knowledge of the identity or involvement of a defendant whose very existence is conjectural— that courts should be careful to insure that a plaintiff has leaped through all of the hoops of section 474, for it can be truly said that a new party has been added to the action and the only justification is California’s peculiar statute. But where, as in the instant case, the identity of the party was known, the only thing unknown being the true name, it is no disservice to Kerr-McGee or to the cause of justice to tolerate less meticulous practice.
I therefore believe that the amendment was proper under section 473 and that the service of the summons was a valid act under section 474. I would deny the writ.

All statutory citations are to the Code of Civil Procedure.