Court Opinion

ID: 9620879
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:49:00.54495+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:55.046704
License: Public Domain

MINTON, Justice,
dissenting.
Kentucky Rules of Civil Procedure (CR) 15.03(2) is our relation-back-due-to-mistake rale. It allows an amended complaint adding a new party to relate back to the date of the original pleading in order to preserve the claim. The rale overrides a statute of limitations defense by the added party if the added party “knew or should have known that, but for a mistake concerning the identity of the proper party, the action would have been brought against him.”
Taking an expansive view of CR 15.03, the majority condones Harralson’s failure to sue Jacobs within the two-year statute of limitations by treating the failure as a “mistake.” To -reach this conclusion, the majority must ignore the fact that Harral-son knew, or reasonably should have known, well before the statute of limitations expired that Jacobs was potentially liable for Harralson’s damages. I believe the majority’s approach distorts CR 15.03 and frustrates the intent of KRS 304.39-230(6). Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
Although not explicit in CR 15.03, our precedent holds that a material misrepresentation as to the liability of a potential defendant may sometimes serve as a basis for relief under CR 15.03. This allows an amended complaint adding a new party-defendant to relate back even though the amended complaint is filed outside of the statute of limitations, provided that the alleged fraudulent act was not discovered until after the expiration of the statute of limitations. Underhill v. Stephenson, 756 S.W.2d 459, 460-461 (Ky.1988). “In a Kentucky action for fraud, the party claiming harm must establish six elements of fraud by clear and convincing evidence as follows: a) material representation^] b) which is false[,] c) known to be false or made recklesslyt,] d) made with inducement to be acted upon[,] e) acted in reliance thereon[,] and f) causing injury.” United Parcel Service Co. v. Rickert, 996 S.W.2d 464, 468 (Ky.1999).
The majority misapplies the doctrine of fraud, as expressed in Underhill, in two ways. First, the statute of limitations in the case before us is far more restrictive than the statute analyzed in Underhill. The statute of limitations in Underhill was “one [ ] year from the date of the occurrence or from the date when the cause of action was, or reasonably should have been, discovered by the party injured.” Underhill, 756 S.W.2d at 460. Here the terms of the statute of limitations make no similar provision for the application of the discovery rule because KRS 304.39-230(6) plainly requires any action by Harralson to have been brought “not later than two [ ] years after the injury[.]” So the General Assembly has chosen as a matter of public policy that the discovery doctrine should not operate to save claims like Harralson’s claim against Jacobs. I believe the majority’s de facto application of a discovery rale to Harralson’s belated amendment *341naming Jacobs is contrary to the statutory intent.
Second, the rationale in Underhill should not apply to the case at hand because, unlike the nurse in Underhill, there is no indication that Jacobs told a he to mislead Harralson concerning Jacobs’s potential liability until after the expiration of the statute of limitations. In fact, the trial court expressly held to the contrary: “[a]n examination of the pleadings does not reveal Jacobs intentionally concealed or misrepresented his actions. Thus, the statute of limitations is not tolled in this case and Harralson’s claim against Jacobs does not relate back to the original pleading.”
Jacobs’s statements to the investigating officer, although perhaps not as detailed as those in his deposition, were not outright falsehoods. For example, Jacobs told the investigating officer that Monger was driving fast and that her vehicle hit the side of his (Jacobs’s) vehicle, which set off the chain-reaction collision. The investigating officer repeatedly testified in his deposition that all of the drivers told him essentially the same story about the accident. The majority unjustifiably castigates Jacobs’s statement to the officer, even though that statement was not markedly inconsistent with those given by other drivers involved in the accident. Also, it is important to note that any opinion Jacobs may have expressed as to the cause of the accident cannot constitute fraud. Everett v. Downing, 298 Ky. 195, 182 S.W.2d 232, 236 (1944) (“[t]he general rule is that expressions of opinion do not constitute a fraud.”). There is no indication whatsoever that Jacobs’s statement to the investigating officer was given in order fraudulently to induce Harralson to refrain from suing Jacobs. Thus, the fourth required element of fraud was not met.
Harralson clearly was aware of Jacobs’s involvement in the accident from the beginning. The accident report names Jacobs as a driver. And in a six-vehicle chain-reaction collision in which human experience tells us each driver along the chain will likely have at least a slightly different version of the facts underlying the accident, a reasonably prudent plaintiff would not rely solely on the police report when assessing potential comparative fault of the other drivers. So Harralson’s claimed blind reliance on the contents of the police report fails the fifth requirement of fraud — reasonable reliance upon the claimed fraudulent act. See Bassett v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, 428 F.Supp.2d 675, 682 (E.D.Ky.2006) (holding that rebanee upon a misrepresentation must be reasonable).
Contrary to the majority’s repeated statement that Jacobs testified in his March 2003 deposition that he entered Monger’s lane of traffic before the accident, Jacobs’s actual testimony on that point was far less definite.1 So I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that Jacobs’s deposition was (a) totaby contrary to his statement to the investigating police officer, and (b) was a surprise and a revelation to Harralson. Even if one were to accept the shaky premise that Harralson had no reason to suspect Jacobs’s potential liability until after the expiration of the statute of limitations, I find it troublesome *342that Harralson tarried before attempting to amend his complaint to name Jacobs. As the record shows, Monger alluded to Jacobs’s potential liability in her December 2002 deposition, yet Harralson took no action against Jacobs until April 2003, approximately a month after Jacobs’s deposition. So approximately four months elapsed from the time Monger testified as to Jacobs’s potential liability until the time Harralson sought to add Jacobs. Such dilatoriness undercuts Harralson’s argument that he filed suit against Jacobs as soon as became aware of Jacobs’s potential liability.
This case is an example of the inherent tension that inevitably exists between a plaintiffs interest in the application of the relation back doctrine and the defendant’s interest in the application of the statute of limitations. Thus, “[i]n order to maintain a proper balance between these competing interests, if a new party is to be added after the limitations period has run, then all three requirements of CR 15.03 must be strictly construed.” Phelps v. Wehr Constructors, Inc., 168 S.W.3d 395, 397 (Ky.App.2004).
I would construe the “mistake” clause of CR 15.03 to cover mistakes as to the proper identity of a defendant but not a mistake as to whether a person known to have been involved in the allegedly negligent conduct that gave rise to the action bears any potential liability. Id. (“The Phelpses’ failure to include Wehr occurred because of a lack of knowledge of Wehr’s potential liability, not because of a misnomer or misidentification. We do not read the word ‘mistake’ in CR 15.03(2)(b) to include a lack of knowledge. For purposes of CR 15.03(2)(b), ignorance does not equate to misnomer or misidentification.”) (internal footnote omitted); Rendall-Speranza v. Nassim, 107 F.3d 913, 918 (D.C.Cir.1997) (construing Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 15(c), which is substantially similar to CR 15.03, and holding that “[njothing in the Rule or in the Notes indicates that the [relation back due to mistake] provision applies to a plaintiff who was fully aware of the potential defendant’s identity but not of its responsibility for the harm alleged. In fact, the Notes speak of a defendant that may properly be added under Rule 15(c) as an ‘intended defendant,’ and of an amendment pursuant to the Rule as ‘a name-correcting amendment.’ ”).
The ultimate effect of the majority’s opinion is to stretch CR 15.03 to cover mistakes stemming from a party’s active ignorance or failure to exercise due diligence, rather than what I believe to be the proper course: strictly construing CR 15.03 to cover only mistakes as to identity so that statutes of limitation may also serve their intended purpose.
Because the statements made by Jacobs do not appear to have misled Harralson sufficiently to invoke the doctrine of fraud and the application of CR 15.03 and because the majority’s expansion of the relation-back provision rewards Harralson for his failure to investigate fully and promptly the circumstances surrounding the accident and concomitant failure to assert his claim timely against Jacobs, I respectfully dissent.
ROACH, J., joins.

. Page 22 of Jacobs’s deposition contains the following colloquy:
Q. When you made contact with her vehicle, part of your vehicle was in the right lane. Is that a fair statement?
A. I really don’t know whether it was— you know, I really don't know. When I started to pull into the right-hand lane and put my signal on and started to ease over, I don’t know how far over to the left of my lane I was, whether my easing over took me over the line. I can’t tell you that. I know that I had cleared and started to pull over, and then all of a sudden, we made contact.