Drakatos v. RB Denison, Inc., Civ. No. H78-601.

• Decision Date: 09 July 1980
• Docket Number: Civ. No. H78-601.
• Citation: 493 F. Supp. 942
• Parties: Frosinia DRAKATOS, Administratrix of the Estate of Gerasimus Drakatos, Deceased v. R. B. DENISON, INC. and Bendix-Skagit Corporation.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut

493 F. Supp. 942

Frosinia DRAKATOS, Administratrix of the Estate of Gerasimus Drakatos, Deceased v. R. B. DENISON, INC. and Bendix-Skagit Corporation.

Civ. No. H78-601.

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

July 9, 1980.

Stephen C. Embry, O'Brien, Shafner, Bartinik, Stuart & Kelly, Groton, Conn., for plaintiff.

Sharon R. Burger, Day, Berry & Howard, Hartford, Conn., for defendant Bendix-Skagit Corp.

RULING ON MOTION TO FILE AN AMENDED COMPLAINT

JOSÉ A. CABRANES, District Judge:

Plaintiff in this wrongful death action seeks permission to file a second amended complaint alleging jurisdiction under the Death on High Seas by Wrongful Act statute ("the Act"), 46 U.S.C. § 761 et seq. Defendant Bendix-Skagit Corporation ("Skagit") opposes the motion on the grounds that (1) the relation-back doctrine of Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c) does not apply when the original pleading was itself not timely filed; (2) plaintiff's rights in admiralty have been extinguished through lapse of time; and (3) the amendment would cause Skagit undue prejudice.

For the reasons set out below, permission to file the second amended complaint is granted.

I.

This action involves the death on October 25, 1977 of United States serviceman Gerasimus Drakatos on the deck of the USS George C. Marshall, which at the time was docked at Rota, Spain. Plaintiff is administratrix of the decedent's estate. She alleges that Drakatos was killed when struck by planks dropped by a crane in operation on a neighboring vessel, the USS Canopus. The crane was manufactured by defendant Skagit.

In her original complaint, filed in this court on November 8, 1978, plaintiff predicated federal jurisdiction solely on diversity of citizenship. The complaint asserted claims against Skagit based on negligence, strict liability in tort and breach of warranty. In its answer, Skagit contended, inter alia, that the claims were time-barred under the applicable Connecticut statutes of limitation.¹

On November 12, 1979, plaintiff filed her first amended complaint. The complaint reiterated the strict liability and breach of warranty claims against Skagit, but significantly narrowed the scope of the negligence count. Stricken from that count were allegations of defective design, manufacture, inspection and sale, leaving only the charge that Skagit failed to provide adequate warning about the crane's operational hazards.

Plaintiff now concedes that her initial claims based on strict liability and breach of warranty, as well as the deleted portions of the original negligence count, were all time-barred under Connecticut statutes of limitations.² She seeks to restate these claims in her proposed second amended complaint under the aegis of the Act. Thus the proposed amendment states admiralty claims based on strict liability, breach of warranty and negligence in design, manufacture, inspection and sale. It also repeats the common law claim based on alleged failure to warn.³

Plaintiff acknowledges that the admiralty claims, if filed now as an original complaint, would be time-barred under the two-year statute of limitations of the Act, 46 U.S.C. § 763. The issue before the court is whether under Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c) the claims may relate back to the date of plaintiff's initial complaint, in which case they would not be time-barred.⁴

II.

Rule 15(c) provides in pertinent part:⁵

Whenever the claim or defense asserted in the amended pleading arose 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.

There is no question that the admiralty claims advanced in plaintiff's second amended complaint "arose out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set forth or attempted to be set forth in the original pleading." Like the original claims, the new counts seek damages for the death of Gerasimus Drakatos aboard the USS George C. Marshall, allege that his death resulted from the defective functioning of a Navy crane and charge Skagit with liability as the crane's designer, manufacturer and distributor. The old claims and the new assert the same legal theories: negligence, breach of warranty and strict tort liability. Indeed, the language of the old claims and the new is virtually identical; the only significant distinction is that the claims are now grounded in admiralty, rather than in the common law.

Skagit contends that the proposed amendment cannot relate back to the date of the original complaint because the original complaint itself lacked legal substance. Skagit points out that plaintiff's original claims against Skagit were entirely time-barred under Connecticut law except for the negligence claim based on a continuing duty to warn, a claim which Skagit asserts is "specious" and "no more than colorable." Defendant's Memorandum of Law at 6, 8. Skagit argues that the original complaint was effectively null and void ab initio and is therefore insufficient for the purpose of relating back; at most, Skagit suggests, the amended pleadings should be permitted to relate back only insofar as they assert claims based on a continuing duty to warn.

This argument fundamentally misconceives the liberal purpose and operation of Rule 15(c). To satisfy the requirements of the relation-back rule, an amendment need only spring from the same core event or transaction as that set out in the original complaint. There is no need for the original complaint to have made out a colorable or valid cause of action. Thus amendment under Rule 15(c) is freely granted to cure a defective statement of jurisdiction or to replace an inadequate legal theory. For example, in Tankrederiet Gefion A/S v. United States, 241 F.Supp. 83 (E.D.Mich.1964), plaintiff's original complaint under the Federal Tort Claims Act was dismissed for failure to state a claim. Plaintiff was allowed to amend its complaint to allege jurisdiction under the Suits in Admiralty Act and to have the amended pleading relate back to the date of the original complaint. See also Goss v. Revlon, 548 F.2d 405, 407 (2d Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 968, 98 S.Ct. 514, 54 L.Ed.2d 456 (1977) (change of jurisdictional basis, under Rule 15(c), from Title VII to 42 U.S.C. § 1981) (dictum); Burnstein v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 291 F.2d 8 (7th Cir. 1961) (permitting amendment curing defective allegation of diversity jurisdiction, made after running of statute of limitations, to relate back to filing of complaint); MacGowan v. Barber, 127 F.2d 458, 459-60 (2d Cir. 1942) (amendment curing defective personal jurisdiction). See generally 3 Moore's Federal Practice ¶ 15.153 (2d ed. 1979); 6 C. Wright and A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1497 (1971). Plaintiff is not precluded from relating her amended pleading back to her initial complaint because her original claims were time-barred or allegedly insubstantial. Cf. Marbury Management, Inc. v. Kohn, 629 F.2d 705 at 712, (2d Cir. 1980) ("Generally a complaint that gives full notice of the circumstances giving rise to the plaintiff's claim for relief need not also correctly plead the legal theory or theories and statutory basis supporting the claims"); New York State Waterways Association v. Diamond, 469 F.2d 419, 421 (2d Cir. 1972).

Skagit next argues that plaintiff's amended admiralty claims cannot relate back because the statute of limitations of the Act is "substantive," rather than "procedural," in nature. Skagit asserts that the running of the Act's two-year limitations period serves not merely to time-bar, but actually to extinguish, the plaintiff's cause of action. Once extinguished, Skagit argues, the cause of action cannot be revived through invocation of the relation-back doctrine.

In support of the contention that the plaintiff's cause of action under the Act is no longer viable, Skagit relies on dictum in In re Agwi Navigation Co., 89 F.2d 11, 12 (2d Cir. 1937), in which the court declared that the limitations period of the Act "is not merely a limitation of the remedy, but is a condition upon the right itself." See also Batkiewicz v. Seas Shipping Co., 54 F.Supp. 789 (S.D.N.Y.1944). The vitality of the Agwi dictum is doubtful, however. The dictum was based on language in The Harrisburg, 119 U.S. 199, 214, 7 S.Ct. 140, 147, 30 L.Ed. 358 (1886), which was itself expressly rejected by the Supreme Court in Moragne v. States Marine Lines, Inc., 398 U.S. 375, 90 S.Ct. 1772, 26 L.Ed.2d 339 (1970). In Renner v. Rockwell International Corp., 587 F.2d 1030 (9th Cir. 1978), (per curiam) the Ninth Circuit concluded that the foundations of the Agwi dictum had been undercut by Moragne and by an earlier Supreme Court case, Glus v. Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, 359 U.S. 231, 234, 79 S.Ct. 760, 762, 3 L.Ed.2d 770 (1959); the court held that the limitations period of the Act is a procedural constraint which may be tolled — for example, by fraudulent concealment of the cause of action.

It is unnecessary, however, for this court at this time to pass judgment on the survival or viability of the Agwi dictum, however dubious the "substantive"/"procedural" distinction may be. I conclude that plaintiff's amended pleading may relate back to the filing of the initial complaint regardless of whether the Act's limitations period is viewed as a "procedural" or a "substantive" condition. Rule 15(c) is not a tolling device. It does not operate to suspend the running of a statute of limitations pending the filing of an amendment. Rather, by "relating" the amendment back to the date of the original pleading, the rule renders irrelevant any subsequent running of the limitations clock. The amendment is deemed to have been asserted at the time of the original complaint; whether or not the statute of limitations has elapsed since that time is immaterial.⁶

Plaintiff's position is supported by a series of decisions in which courts have permitted the amendment of complaints to...