Brooks v. Isinghood
| Decision Date | 27 June 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 30695.,30695. |
| Citation | 584 S.E.2d 531,213 W.Va. 675 |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | Glenda BROOKS, Administratrix of the Estate of William Richard Brooks, deceased, Plaintiff Below, Appellant v. Charles ISINGHOOD, dba Charles Isinghood Excavating, Ronald Jones, James Cottrill, Kenneth Hartley, Jack Rice and Robert Laughlin, Defendants Below, Appellees. |
Frank Cuomo, Jason A. Cuomo, Cuomo & Cuomo, Wellsburg, for Appellant.
Ancil G. Ramey, Steptoe & Johnson, PLLC, Charleston, for Appellee Laughlin.
S. Jane Anderson, Richard D. Klaber, Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote, Wheeling, for Appellees Ronald Jones, Kenneth Hartley, Jack Rice and James Cottrill.
William E. Galloway, Weirton, for Appellee Charles Isinghood. STARCHER, Chief Justice:
In this appeal from the Circuit Court of Hancock County, we are asked to review a circuit court's dismissal of an amended complaint, on the ground that the amended complaint was filed after the expiration of the statute of limitation. After consideration of the arguments of the parties, we conclude that under Rule 15 of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure, the amended complaint "relates back" to the date the original complaint was filed—a date within the limitation period—and thereby avoids the effects of the statute of limitation.
As set forth below, we reverse the circuit court's dismissal of the amended complaint and remand the case for further proceedings.
On June 7, 1994, decedent William Brooks was employed by defendant-below Charles Isinghood, d/b/a Charles Isinghood Excavating, to dig a trench along a city street in Weirton, West Virginia. Several employees of the City of Weirton—the appellees in this case—were performing work around the trench. While Mr. Brooks was at the bottom of the trench, the walls collapsed, and Mr. Brooks died.
Mr. Brooks' widow, appellant Glenda Brooks, alleges that the City's employees engaged in wanton and reckless conduct in disregard of Mr. Brooks' safety, and alleges that their conduct was partly responsible for the collapse of the trench and Mr. Brooks' death. The appellant's attorney contends that, before he filed a lawsuit against the City or its employees, he examined the Governmental Tort Claims and Insurance Reform Act ("the Act"), the statute governing lawsuits against political subdivisions such as the City. See W.Va.Code, 29-12A-1 to -18. On the basis of language contained in the Act, the appellant's attorney believed he could only name the City in any lawsuit, and could not name the individual employees. Specifically, the appellant's counsel contends he was guided by W.Va.Code, 29-12A-13(b) [1986], which states that lawsuits against political subdivisions such as the City of Weirton "shall name as defendant the political subdivision," but also states that "[i]n no instance may an employee of a political subdivision acting within the scope of his employment be named as defendant."1
Accordingly, in April 1995 the appellant filed a wrongful death action against the City of Weirton.2 The appellant's complaint alleged, inter alia, that the City, through certain employees acting within the scope of their employment with the City, acted recklessly and in willful disregard of the safety of Mr. Brooks. The appellant named only the City as a defendant, and did not name any of the individual City employees in her complaint.
Thus began a long and tortuous procedural history in which the circuit court attempted to clarify the proper defendants and causes of action. On October 11, 1995, the City filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that because the appellant had received workers' compensation benefits as a result of her husband's death, the City was immune from suit under the Act. The Act, specifically W.Va.Code, 29-12A-5(a)(11) [1986], states:
In an order dated April 25, 1997, the circuit court partially agreed with the City's argument and reasoned that under the Act, the City was directly immune from suit because the appellant's cause of action against the City was also "covered by" a workers' compensation law. However, the circuit court declined to grant summary judgment to the City, holding that the City could still be held indirectly responsible. A different portion of the Act, W.Va.Code, 29-12A-5(b), states that an employee of a political subdivision can be held liable for actions that are done "with malicious purpose, in bad faith, or in a wanton or reckless manner[.]"3 The circuit court ruled that through the operation of this statute, the City could be held indirectly liable for the "wanton or reckless" acts of its employees committed within the scope of their employment. However, under W.Va. Code, 29-12A-13(b)—the same statute that the appellant's attorney read as prohibiting actions directly against City employees—the circuit court concluded that any suit arising from the "wanton or reckless" actions of City employees must be brought in the name of the City and not against the individual employees themselves.4
Thereafter, the circuit court certified questions to this Court asking, inter alia, whether a plaintiff could name a political subdivision such as the City as a defendant in a tort action, where the plaintiff's claim against the political subdivision was barred by the provisions of the Act, but the plaintiff's claims against the employees of the political subdivision remained viable because the employees were alleged to have acted in a wanton or reckless manner in the course of their employment. In answering the question, the circuit court concluded that such a plaintiff was required by the Act to name only the political subdivision, and was prohibited from naming the individual employees of the political subdivision.
In Brooks v. City of Weirton, 202 W.Va. 246, 503 S.E.2d 814 (1998) ("Brooks I"), this Court reached a different conclusion. We held that if a political subdivision was immune under the provisions of the Act, then the political subdivision could not be directly named as a defendant under the Act. Instead, the Court indicated that if an employee's conduct was actionable under the Act, and even if the political subdivision was financially responsible for the employee's conduct, then any lawsuits regarding the employee must proceed in the employee's name. This Court stated:
In the instant case, the plaintiff has alleged that the City's sanitation workers, acting within the scope of their employment, ran a jackhammer and a drill near the trench where Mr. Brooks was working—in reckless disregard of the fact that the City employees' activity might cause the trench to collapse.
Under these alleged facts, W.Va.Code, 29-12A-5(b)(2) [1986], authorizes suit against the City employees, if it is proved that their "acts or omissions were ... in a wanton or reckless manner...."
202 W.Va. at 255, 503 S.E.2d at 823. The Court therefore held, in Syllabus Point 5, that:
W.Va.Code, 29-12A-13(b) [1986] prohibits the naming of an employee of a political subdivision acting within the scope of employment as a defendant for the purpose of directly establishing the liability of a political subdivision. However, W.Va.Code, 29-12A-13(b) [1986] does not prohibit the naming of an employee of a political subdivision acting within the scope of employment as a defendant for purposes of establishing the employee's liability, when one or more of the statutory exceptions in W.Va.Code, 29-12A-5(b) [1986] to employee immunity is present.
The Court's opinion in Brooks I was issued on May 19, 1998. On June 19, 1998, the appellant sought and was granted leave by the circuit court to amend her complaint to name the appellees, five individual employees of the City of Weirton who were alleged to have caused—through wanton or reckless conduct—the death of Mr. Brooks. The amended complaint was filed over four years after Mr. Brooks' June 7, 1994 death.
The appellees filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint, contending that the causes of action against the appellees were barred by the two-year statute of limitation. See W.Va.Code, 55-2-12 [1959] ().
The circuit court, at a hearing in November 1998 and in an order dated December 18, 2001, concluded that the appellant's amended complaint was filed after the statute of limitation had expired. However, the circuit court noted that under Rule 15 of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure, if a plaintiff makes a "mistake concerning the identity of the proper party" in a complaint, then the plaintiff's amendment to the complaint adding the proper defendant "relates back to the date of the original pleading," and circumvents the statute of limitation.
The appellees argued that "mistake" in Rule 15 can only mean a mistake of fact, a misnomer, not a mistake of law. The circuit court agreed, and reasoned that the appellant's attorney chose not to sue the individual appellees because of a misinterpretation of the Act. The circuit court found that the appellant filed the amended complaint against the appellees because a judicial decision rendered the appellees amenable to suit, not because a mistake was made by the appellant factually identifying who to sue. In other words, it appears the circuit court agreed with the appellees that the appellant made a mistake of law, not a mistake of fact. The circuit court further concluded that an appellate court decision that renders an additional party amendable to suit is not sufficient to permit the new party to be added after the expiration of the statute of limitation....
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