Currier v. Sutherland
| Decision Date | 19 October 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 08SC587.,08SC587. |
| Citation | 218 P.3d 709 |
| Parties | David H. CURRIER and Heather S. Schultz, Petitioners v. Michael SUTHERLAND, Special Administrator of the Estate of Eloy Lopez; Estate of Eloy Lopez; and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, Respondents. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
This case involves invocation of the remedial revival statute, section 13-80-111(1), C.R.S. (2009), in a case where a complaint was timely filed against a deceased, nonexistent defendant and was later amended to name the estate of the deceased and the special administrator of that estate as defendants. We granted certiorari to review the court of appeals' decision in Currier v. Sutherland, 215 P.3d 1155 (Colo.App.2008), in order to determine whether the statute can be used in such a case to revive a timely claim improperly filed against a non-existent defendant when the proper defendants were not added until after the statute of limitations ran. We hold that it cannot because the trial court retained subject matter jurisdiction over the case despite the initially improper defendant, and the untimely amended complaints do not relate back to the timely filed complaint. The trial court therefore properly dismissed the case on statute of limitations grounds, and the judgment below is affirmed.
Petitioners David H. Currier and Heather S. Schultz were involved in a motor vehicle/bicycle collision with Eloy Lopez on August 15, 2002. Currier and Schultz filed a personal injury complaint in trial court on August 11, 2005, four days before the three-year statute of limitations1 for their claims expired, naming Lopez as the sole defendant. Unbeknownst to Currier and Schultz, Lopez had died on January 17, 2005. Currier and Schultz did not learn about Lopez's death until November 18, 2005, when they were unable to serve process on him. At that point, they also learned that no estate had been opened for him. Currier and Schultz had an estate ("the Estate") opened for Lopez on December 29, 2005. They then filed an amended complaint on March 6, 2006, naming the Estate as the defendant. On May 22, 2006, Currier and Schultz filed a second amended complaint, adding Michael Sutherland, the special administrator of the Estate, as an additional defendant. The Estate moved for summary judgment, alleging that the claims were barred by the three-year statute of limitations.
The trial court dismissed the case, concluding that the claims were barred by the statute of limitations. Currier and Schultz agreed that the case should be dismissed, but wanted the court to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds rather than based on the statute of limitations, so that they could re-file the action pursuant to the remedial revival statute, section 13-80-111(1).2 The trial court rejected that argument and based its dismissal on the running of the statute of limitations.3
Currier and Schultz appealed, contending that the trial court should have dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds. The court of appeals disagreed, holding that a deceased defendant lacks the capacity to be sued, and that such a lack of capacity does not divest a trial court of subject matter jurisdiction over an action against that defendant. The court of appeals therefore affirmed the trial court's dismissal based on the expiration of the statute of limitations.
The result in this case turns first on whether the trial court had jurisdiction over the claims brought against Lopez, the deceased defendant. If the trial court retained jurisdiction throughout the proceedings, the case was properly dismissed based on the expiration of the statute of limitations, and Currier and Schultz cannot use the remedial revival statute to pursue claims against Lopez's estate. If, on the other hand, the trial court had no jurisdiction over the claims against Lopez, the case should have been dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, and the remedial revival statute can be invoked.
The second phase of our analysis requires us to determine whether the amended complaints relate back to the original complaint. If they do, they can be considered timely filed; if they do not, the claims are barred by the statute of limitations.
We conclude first that the trial court retained both subject matter jurisdiction over the claims and personal jurisdiction over the defendants throughout the proceedings. The remedial revival statute therefore cannot be used to revive the claims. Secondly, we hold that the amended complaints do not relate back to the original complaint because the newly added defendants were not on notice of the claims. As a result, the claims are barred by the statute of limitations, and the judgment below is affirmed.
The remedial revival statute reads, in relevant part,
If an action is commenced within the period allowed by this article and is terminated because of lack of jurisdiction or improper venue, the plaintiff ... may commence a new action upon the same cause of action within ninety days after the termination of the original action....
The court of appeals, in analyzing whether the remedial revival statute could be applied in this case, focused on whether or not the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case and did not address whether the trial court had personal jurisdiction over the deceased defendant. Because the statute at issue provides "lack of jurisdiction" as grounds for its application, we must analyze each type of jurisdiction—subject matter and personal—in order to determine whether the statute applies. Upon performing this analysis, we conclude that the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case and that any defect in personal jurisdiction over the deceased defendant was cured by the amended complaints, and therefore the trial court properly refused to dismiss based upon lack of jurisdiction in order to allow the remedial revival statute to apply.4
This court has never addressed whether a court has jurisdiction over claims against a deceased defendant. "Subject matter jurisdiction involves the `court's authority to deal with the class of cases in which it renders judgment.'" Bd. of County Comm'rs v. Collard, 827 P.2d 546, 551 (Colo. 1992) (quoting Monaghan Farms v. City & County of Denver, 807 P.2d 9, 18 (Colo. 1991)). Trial courts in Colorado are courts of general jurisdiction, and they "have original jurisdiction in all civil ... cases." Colo. Const. art. VI, § 9(1). A trial court's "unrestricted and sweeping jurisdictional powers" are only limited by "a statute or constitutional provision which specifically designates a forum or spells out standards for decision." Matter of A.W., 637 P.2d 366, 373 (Colo. 1981).
Distinct from the issue of a court's subject matter jurisdiction over a case is a party's capacity to sue or be sued. The difference between the two has been described in the following way:
Capacity has been defined as a party's personal right to come into court, and should not be confused with the question of whether a party has an enforceable right or interest or is the real party in interest. Generally, capacity has been conceived of as a procedural issue dealing with the personal qualifications of a party to litigate and typically is determined without regard to the particular claim or defense being asserted.
6A Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1559 (2d ed.1990). This court has long recognized that a party's lack of capacity has no effect on a court's subject matter jurisdiction. See e.g., Funk v. Funk, 76 Colo. 45, 46-47, 230 P. 611, 612 (1924) ().
There has historically been a national split of authority regarding whether a party's lack of capacity affects the court's subject matter jurisdiction, but the recent trend has been to distinguish capacity from subject matter jurisdiction. See 6A Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1559 (2d ed. 1990) ().
This split of authority is evident even within our own court of appeals' decisions on the issue. Compare Jenkins v. Estate of Thomas, 800 P.2d 1358 (Colo.App.1990), and Defelice v. Johnson, 931 P.2d 548 (Colo.App.1996)( that a court lacks jurisdiction to proceed where the defendant has died, no personal representative has been assigned, and no estate has been created), with Ashton Props. Ltd. v. Overton, 107 P.3d 1014 (Colo.App.2004), and SMLL, L.L.C. v. Peak Nat'l Bank, 111 P.3d 563 (Colo.App.2005)( that, while a non-existent party lacks the capacity to sue or be sued, a defendant's non-existence does not affect a court's subject matter jurisdiction over a case).
In holding that a trial court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over a claim brought against a deceased defendant, the Jenkins court relied on the principle that, "[t]o be a true party, [a] person must be...
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