Buran v. Coupal

Decision Date21 December 1995
Docket NumberNo. 1,No. 2,1,2
Citation638 N.Y.S.2d 405,87 N.Y.2d 173,661 N.E.2d 978
Parties, 661 N.E.2d 978 Robert T. BURAN et al., Respondents, v. John COUPAL, Appellant. (Action) Robert T. BURAN et al., Respondents, v. Janet COUPAL, Appellant. (Action)
CourtNew York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
OPINION OF THE COURT

KAYE, Chief Judge.

This case calls upon us to address a doctrine which "continues to bedevil the courts" (McLaughlin, 1990 Supplementary Practice Commentaries, McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 7B, CPLR C203:3, 1995 Cum Ann Pocket Part, at 28). Under what circumstances does an amended complaint adding a new defendant, united in interest with the original defendant, relate back to the initial complaint for Statute of Limitations purposes? In particular, must the party seeking leave of court to add a new defendant show "excusable mistake" for the failure to have named the new party originally, or is a mistake alone enough?

Concluding that New York law requires merely mistake--not excusable mistake--on the part of the litigant seeking the benefit of the doctrine, we hold that plaintiffs' second complaint relates back to their original complaint and is therefore timely, thus defeating defendants' claim of adverse possession.

I.

In 1962, plaintiffs Robert and Arlene Buran purchased a one-acre lot in Beekmantown, New York, the deed to which conveys property rights extending north into the waters of Lake Champlain. Five years later, defendants John and Janet Coupal obtained property known locally as Dickson's Farm which abuts the Burans' lot at its northeast corner. Since--unlike the Burans' waterfront property--Lake Champlain is not otherwise accessible from Dickson's Farm, the Coupals in 1973 erected a concrete seawall jutting diagonally across the border of their own lot and over the Burans' property into the waters of the lake.

Unhappy with the seawall, the Burans in 1979 brought a lawsuit for trespass, naming only John Coupal as defendant. Though omitting any reference to his wife in his first two answers, in September 1982, John Coupal filed an "amended amended" answer, for the first time arguing that he owned the lot with his wife as a tenant by the entirety and that the Burans' complaint should be dismissed for failure to name Janet Coupal as a necessary party. Shortly after filing this answer, however, the Coupals transferred ownership of their lot to Ultimate Investment Services Incorporated, Ltd., a corporation they owned and controlled.

After the Burans served a summons on Ultimate Investment, the lot was in 1984 reconveyed to the Coupals. The Burans then filed a second complaint in 1989, this time against Janet Coupal as co-owner. Both complaints contained substantially the same allegations as to the nature of the Coupals' trespass, the only substantive difference being the addition of Janet Coupal as a party defendant. As an affirmative defense to the second lawsuit, Coupal asserted that she and her husband were by then the owners of the disputed property, having adversely possessed it for a period of 10 years.

After consolidation of the two actions in 1992 and a jury trial, Supreme Court ordered removal of the seawall within 120 days and restoration of the land to the Burans, and the Appellate Division affirmed. Both lower courts rejected defendants' contention that Janet Coupal had become owner of the property under the doctrine of adverse possession. Focusing, as did the Appellate Division, on the legal question whether plaintiffs' 1989 complaint against Janet Coupal relates back to the allegations contained in the 1979 complaint against her husband, 1 we agree that defendants failed to meet their burden of proving the affirmative defense of adverse possession.

II.

As codified in New York's Civil Practice Law and Rules, what is commonly referred to as the relation back doctrine allows a claim asserted against a defendant in an amended filing to relate back to claims previously asserted against a codefendant for Statute of Limitations purposes where the two defendants are "united in interest" (CPLR 203[b]; see also, CPLR 203[e] [relation back of new claims against same party].

Aimed at liberalizing the strict, formalistic pleading requirements of the past century (see, Shaw v. Cock, 78 N.Y. 194; Harriss v. Tams, 258 N.Y. 229, 179 N.E. 476) or the "sporting theory of justice" condemned by Roscoe Pound (see, Schiavone v. Fortune, 477 U.S. 21, 32-33, 106 S.Ct. 2379, 2386, 91 L.Ed.2d 18 [Stevens, J., dissenting], while at the same time respecting the important policies inherent in statutory repose (see, Duffy v. Horton Mem. Hosp., 66 N.Y.2d 473, 476-477, 497 N.Y.S.2d 890, 488 N.E.2d 820), the doctrine enables a plaintiff to correct a pleading error--by adding either a new claim or a new party--after the statutory limitations period has expired. The doctrine thus gives courts the "sound judicial discretion" (Duffy, 66 N.Y.2d at 477, 497 N.Y.S.2d 890, 488 N.E.2d 820) to identify cases "that justify relaxation of limitations strictures * * * to facilitate decisions on the merits" if the correction will not cause undue prejudice to the plaintiff's adversary (Lewis, The Excessive History of Federal Rule 15(c) and Its Lessons for Civil Rules Revision, 85 Mich.L.Rev. 1507, 1512 [1987].

As we observed in Duffy v. Horton Mem. Hosp., 66 N.Y.2d at 477, 497 N.Y.S.2d 890, 488 N.E.2d 820, however, allowing the relation back of amendments adding new defendants implicates more seriously these policy concerns than simply the relation back of new causes of action since, in the latter situation, the defendant is already before the court. Recognizing this difference, in Mondello v. New York Blood Ctr., 80 N.Y.2d 219, 226, 590 N.Y.S.2d 19, 604 N.E.2d 81, we recently adopted the three-part test enunciated in Brock v. Bua, 83 A.D.2d 61, 443 N.Y.S.2d 407, now prevailing in the Federal and State courts for determining when the doctrine would permit the addition of a new party to relate back to an earlier pleading.

Under this standard, the three conditions that must be satisfied in order for claims against one defendant to relate back to claims asserted against another are that:

"(1) both claims arose out of same conduct, transaction or occurrence, (2) the new party is 'united in interest' with the original defendant, and by reason of that relationship can be charged with such notice of the institution of the action that he will not be prejudiced in maintaining his defense on the merits and (3) the new party knew or should have known that, but for an excusable mistake by plaintiff as to the identity of the proper parties, the action would have been brought against him as well." (Brock v. Bua, at 69, 443 N.Y.S.2d 407 [citations omitted].)

Mondello involved claims of negligence brought first against a hospital and later against a blood bank arising from plaintiffs' infection with the HIV virus after receiving a blood transfusion. In applying the Brock test to the facts of that case and rejecting the argument that the hospital and the blood bank were sufficiently united in interest to support application of the doctrine, we had no occasion to consider the scope of the requirement under the third prong, or whether the failure of plaintiff's counsel to name the blood bank originally was "excusable" (80 N.Y.2d at 230, 590 N.Y.S.2d 19, 604 N.E.2d 81). Here, by contrast, since it is undisputed that the first and second prongs of the Brock test are satisfied, 2 we now address the issue explicitly left open in Mondello and decide that excusability of the mistake is not an absolute requirement under New York law (see, Virelli v. Goodson-Todman Enters., 142 A.D.2d 479, 482-484, 536 N.Y.S.2d 571 [applying third prong, but declining to accept excusability requirement].

Though patterned largely after the Federal relation back rule (Mondello, 80 N.Y.2d at 226, 590 N.Y.S.2d 19, 604 N.E.2d 81), the test articulated in Brock differs from its Federal counterpart in one crucial respect: it contains, as an additional requirement, that plaintiff's omission of the party in the original pleading be excusable. In marked contrast to Brock's third prong, rule 15(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure merely requires that the new 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 the party" (Fed.Rules Civ.Pro., rule 15[c][3][B]. Thus, unlike Brock, "the Federal rule does not qualify the nature of the mistake" (Virelli, 142 A.D.2d at 483, 536 N.Y.S.2d 571; see also, Livingston Export Corp. v. M/V Ogden Fraser, 727 F.Supp. 144, 147 ["The only additional condition precedent to invoking the New York relation back doctrine is excusable neglect."].

Underscoring the difference is the fact that, though omitted from the text of rule 15(c), language similar to "excusable mistake" is used in other provisions of the Federal rules. Rule 6, for example, permits parties to make late filings "where the failure to act was the result of excusable neglect " (Fed.Rules Civ.Pro., rule 6[b] [emphasis added]; see also, Fed.Rules Civ.Pro., rule 13[f] [amended counterclaim may be filed upon showing of excusable neglect]. It is thus plain that, at least with respect to the Federal rule on which New York's own three-part test was premised, there is no requirement of "excusable" mistake (see also, Schiavone v. Fortune, 477 U.S. 21, 31, 106 S.Ct. 2379, 2385, 91 L.Ed.2d 18, supra ).

In fact, the "excusable mistake" requirement appears to have originated as a judicial gloss imposed on rule 15(c) in a category of Federal decisions denying plaintiffs the benefit of the doctrine on...

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