DocketNumber: No. CV94 0301800S
Citation Numbers: 1996 Conn. Super. Ct. 9186
Judges: CORRADINO, J.
Filed Date: 11/7/1996
Status: Non-Precedential
Modified Date: 7/5/2016
The defendant U-Haul filed a motion for summary judgment directed to the §
The plaintiffs claim it is appropriate to allow the amendment CT Page 9188 because the added allegations relate back to the allegations of the original complaint.
Our court has held that an issue such as the one before the court is determined by deciding whether the proposed amendment relates back to the original complaint and cause of action. It has further held that our relation back doctrine "is akin to Rule
Because the rationale of the relation back rule is to ameliorate the effect of the statute of limitations, rather than to promote the joinder of claims and parties, the standard for determining whether amendments qualify under Rule 15(c) is not simply an identity of transaction test; although not expressly mentioned in the rule, the courts also inquire into whether the opposing party has been put on notice regarding the claim or defense raised by the amended pleading."
Along these lines, the court in Bartel v. Stamm,
"Limitation is suspended by the filing of a suit because the suit warns the defendant to collect and preserve his (sic) evidence in reference to it. When suit is filed in a Federal Court under the rules, the defendant knows that the whole transaction described in it will be fully sifted, by amendment if need be, and that the form of action or the relief prayed for or the law relied on will not be confined to the first statements."
Also see Campell v. A.C. Petersen Farms,
In Zagurski v. American Tobacco Co.,
"[T]he question is whether the defendant ought to have known from the original complaint the facts the plaintiff is now adding. Whether to permit an amendment is not decided by mechanically measuring it against a statute of limitation. Once a complaint has been served, the policy behind the statute of limitations has been satisfied so long as the different theories introduced by the amendment fuse together with the `conduct, transaction or occurrence' set forth in the complaint. . . . The defendant has had notice from the beginning that plaintiff is trying to enforce a claim for damages sustained from smoking the cigarettes it manufactured and marketed. It is not unreasonable to require it to anticipate all theories of recovery and prepare its defense accordingly."
As Wright says then at § 1497, page 93, the appropriate approach in these cases "is to determine whether the adverse party ought to have been able to anticipate or should have expected that the character of the originally pleaded claim might be altered or that other aspects of the conduct, transaction or occurrence set forth in the original pleading might be called into question."
To focus this fair notice test in terms of actual courtroom litigation, it has also been said that: "A fair test in determining whether an amended pleading introduces a new cause of action is whether evidence tending to support the facts alleged could have been introduced under the former pleadings." Wisbeyv. American Community Stores Corp.,
In Gurliacci the first complaint alleged the defendant was acting negligently in operating his motor vehicle while intoxicated and thereby injured the plaintiff. The trial court allowed the complaint to be amended after the limitations period had passed by adding allegations that the defendant was acting CT Page 9190 wilfully, wantonly, and maliciously or outside of the scope of his employment. The Supreme Court upheld the trial court saying the "amendment reiterated the negligence claim based on Mayer's operation of a motor vehicle but added that Mayer was acting either wilfully, wantonly, and maliciously or outside the scope of his employment. The new allegations did not inject `two different sets of circumstances and depend on different facts' . . . but rather amplified and expanded upon the previous allegations by setting forth alternate theories of liability.",
In Sharp v. Mitchell, supra, the court held it would be inappropriate to permit the complaint to be amended on a relation back theory. The original complaint was based on an allegation of negligent supervision; men were sent into an underground storage which lacked proper ventilation, contained fumes, poor lighting and didn't have safety equipment. The amended complaint sought to allege negligent design and construction of the underground storage area. The court held that "the defendants did not have fair notice of the claim of negligent construction and design, id. page 73. That was so because, as noted in Gurliacci
at
This Court believes that the relation back doctrine should be liberally interpreted but not beyond the bounds of fair notice. The original complaint asserted a vicarious theory of liability under §
More importantly, the set of witnesses the defendant would have to interview and the investigation it would have to conduct to meet the new claim is entirely different from the work that would have to be done to defend against the original operation claim under §
Under §
No lawyer faced with the original claim here could expect or could fairly be held to have expected that he or she would be required, when the original suit was filed, to garner information or interview witnesses in anticipation of the entirely different claim asserted in the amendment. This is not merely a new theory of relief based on the same set of factual allegations but rather a situation where a whole new set of factual allegations is made to support a different claim for relief. There can be no relation back because the amendment is not part of the same cause of action.
"A cause of action is that single group of facts which is claimed to have brought about an injury to the plaintiff and which entitles the plaintiff to relief", Bridgeport Hydraulic Co. v. Pearson,
139 Conn. 186 ,197 CT Page 9192 (1952)
No single group of facts supports both of these claims so the request to amend must be denied.
CORRANDINO, J.