No More "heads Defendants Win, Tails Plaintiffs Lose": How the Georgia Supreme Court's Relation Back Decision in Cannon Rebalances Pleading Power
| Publication year | 2022 |
No More "Heads Defendants Win, Tails Plaintiffs Lose": How the Georgia Supreme Court's Relation Back Decision in Cannon Rebalances Pleading Power
Jordan Lipp
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Imagine your daughter dying in a high-speed police chase—when she was not even the driver that evaded police or caused the crash. You want to hold someone accountable, but you do not know who the right person is if you sue: the deputy, the sheriff in his personal capacity, the sheriff in his official capacity, the county, the sheriffs office, the county commissioners, the insurer of the police car? You sue the wrong one, and it is too late. Now what?
Thankfully for you, Georgia has forgiving pleading standards.1 Relation back is a legal fiction that assumes a claim was brought before
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the statute of limitations2 expired, circumventing those statutory requirements.3 But courts must also consider fairness to the new defendant who believed that claim, for which the new defendant now faces liability, was time-barred and void.4
Indeed, as Georgia courts made decisions balancing those interests, they started to reach unpredictable results because they employed different analytical frameworks. After fifty years of Georgia Court of Appeals decisions, the Georgia Supreme Court weighed in for the first time. The court held that relation back applies when a proposed defendant knew or should have known it would have been a party defendant, had the plaintiff not made a legal or factual mistake.5
Jessica Cannon was a passenger in a car that fled police in a highspeed chase.6 On September 14, 2015, she was riding in a Jeep when its driver tried to escape deputy Golden Sanders, who initiated a pursuit, eventually ending in a fiery crash with a tractor-trailer which killed Jessica and the driver.7
Jessica's parents presented8 their claim via a required "ante litem" notice to Oconee County (County), the sheriffs office, and other government entities.9 On January 17, 2017, the Cannons sued the County for wrongful death.10 They alleged in the complaint that Oconee
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County was liable, via respondeat superior,11 for deputy Sanders's actions. In the answer, Oconee County generally denied12 the complaint's paragraph that alleged the County was liable for the deputy's actions in continuing the chase in an unsafe manner13 but did not further reveal who employed him. In fact, however, Sheriff Scott Berry, in his official capacity, was the deputy's employer and the correct defendant.14
During discovery, the County did the Cannons no favors. First, it surreptitiously collaborated with the sheriff's office to respond to discovery requests in misleading ways.15 For instance, the Cannons sent requests to the County regarding "your employees" but which only requested information on deputies, to which the County responded but never explained that the deputies were not its employees.16 Second, the County appointed Sheriff Scott Berry as its Rule 30(b)(6)17 deponent: Sheriff Berry and Oconee County were one in the same for purposes of that deposition.18 Third, in a letter concerning an open records request19
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that the Cannons sent, Sheriff Berry claimed that those communications between the sheriff's office and the County's attorney were privileged because Terry Williams, the County's counsel, represented Sheriff Berry, too.20 Last, the Cannons served an interrogatory asking the County to specify any other potential parties to the lawsuit, to which the County objected and only listed the driver of the Jeep during the chase.21 At no point during discovery did Oconee County specify or suggest that Sheriff Berry was the only proper defendant.22
The statute of limitations expired September 14, 2017, two years after the crash.23 Eleven months later, Oconee County moved for summary judgment, arguing that it did not employ deputies and could not be liable.24 The Cannons jointly filed a response to the motion for summary judgment and their own motion for leave to substitute Sheriff Berry, in his official capacity, as the defendant. The Oconee County Superior Court granted the County's and denied the Cannons' motions for two reasons. First, the trial court granted summary judgment to Oconee County because it ruled that Deputy Sanders was an employee of the sheriff, not the County; the County could not be liable through respondeat superior for a non-employee's acts.25 Second, it denied the Cannons' motion to substitute because the Cannons were factually aware that Sheriff Berry existed;26 thus, the plaintiffs could not have made a mistake concerning
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the proper defendant's identity. Likewise, no evidence supported that Sheriff Berry knew or should have known about the litigation.27
On direct appeal,28 the Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed the summary judgment ruling but reversed the denial of the Cannons' motion to substitute.29 The court of appeals analogized the case to past cases that allowed plaintiffs to substitute closely related corporations for one another in a lawsuit. In turn, it attempted to distinguish cases in which a plaintiff sought to add an individual as a defendant, which the court contended was a separate line of cases.30
The Georgia Supreme Court granted certiorari and affirmed both court of appeals's rulings but, instead of reversing and rendering a decision, it remanded the case back to the trial court for further consideration in light of its decision.31 The court held that the relation back doctrine applies when the proper defendant—here, Sheriff Berry—knew or should have known the plaintiff would have sued it before the statute of limitations expired, had the plaintiff not made a mistake concerning the identity of the proper party.32 The Court disapproved of cases that (1) analyzed the plaintiff's knowledge or (2) rejected relation back because a plaintiff made a mistake of law.33
When a plaintiff seeks to substitute a new defendant into a lawsuit after the statute of limitations expires, the plaintiff must satisfy section 9-11-15(c) of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated.34 Relation back acts as a pressure release valve when harsh statutes of limitation prevent
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resolutions of claims on the merits.35 But courts do not apply relation back carte blanche because that would "render statutes of limitation completely toothless."36 The relevant Code section has three elements:37
Whenever the claim or defense asserted in the amended pleading [1] arises out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set forth or attempted to be set forth in the original pleading, the amendment relates back to the date of the original pleading. An amendment changing the party against whom a claim is asserted relates back to the date of the original pleadings if the foregoing provisions are satisfied, and if within the period provided by law for commencing the action against him the party to be brought in by amendment [2] has received such notice of the institution of the action that he will not be prejudiced in maintaining his defense on the merits, and [3] 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.38
A. Early Cases Focus on Proposed Defendants' Knowledge
Early cases applying § 9-11-15(c)39 focused on proposed defendants when applying the statutory relation back doctrine.40 As a matter of first
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impression, Sims v. American Casualty Co.,41 a 1974 Georgia Court of Appeals case, decided that a claim does not relate back when the plaintiff originally names "John Does" as unknown defendants and seeks to substitute new parties—who know nothing about the lawsuit—after the statute of limitations passes.42
In that case, Mrs. Sims, as administratix of her son's estate, sued eighteen insurance companies for negligence after alcohol-based products ignited at her son's worksite, causing a fire that consumed and killed him.43 The court held that the claim did not relate back, on two alternative grounds.44 First, there was no evidence that the proposed defendants knew about the institution of the action, so they faced prejudice in defending themselves.45 Second, no evidence showed that they knew about the plaintiff's mistake or knew that they would have been named as a defendant but for that mistake.46 The court did not consider the plaintiff's knowledge when deciding whether she made a mistake.47 Instead, only the defendant's knowledge mattered.48
In the 1980s, courts expanded the defendant-knowledge analysis past the "John Doe" context.49 Over and over, courts held a claim did not relate
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back because "there is no evidence that the party sought to be added was aware of the institution of [plaintiffs] action during the period of limitation."50
On the other hand, Watkins v. Laser/Print-Atlanta, Inc.,51 held that an amended complaint did relate back when a proposed defendant—an individual person—accepted service of process on behalf of the original defendant.52 Because the putative defendant accepted service in what was originally a timely filed action, the person knew or should have known about the lawsuit.53 As a whole, this line of early cases set precedent for courts to consider the proposed defendant's knowledge about the lawsuit when deciding relation back issues.54
B. Later Cases Flip to Examining Plaintiffs' Knowledge
Over time, courts began to analyze plaintiffs' states of mind, not what the proposed defendants knew.55 Courts first began chipping away at the established analysis of defendants' knowledge in Collins v. Byrd,56 a short opinion in which the Georgia Court of Appeals—more focused on clarifying sovereign immunity issues—cursorily concluded that the plaintiff's claim did not...
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