Macias v. Jaramillo
| Decision Date | 15 August 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 20,510.,20,510. |
| Citation | 129 N.M. 578,11 P.3d 153,2000 NMCA 86 |
| Parties | Linda MACIAS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. James JARAMILLO and Joe C. Jaramillo, Jr., Personal Representatives of the Estate of Joe C. Jaramillo, Deceased, and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, and John Doe (unknown Personal Representative of the Estate of Joe C. Jaramillo, Deceased), Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of New Mexico |
Lynn Barnhill, Nancy Garner & Associates, P.C. Albuquerque, NM for Appellant.
Terri L. Sauer, Miller, Stratvert & Torgerson, P.A. Albuquerque, NM for Appellees.
{1} The issue in this appeal is whether a plaintiff who files an action seeking recovery against an estate loses her cause of action if she has not joined a duly appointed personal representative of the dead person's estate before the statute of limitations has run.
{2} Plaintiff Linda Macias filed a complaint on May 14, 1998, against James Jaramillo and Joe C. Jaramillo, Jr. (the Jaramillos), as personal representatives of the estate of Joe C. Jaramillo, deceased (Decedent), as a result of injuries Plaintiff received when she was struck on June 7, 1995, by an automobile driven by Decedent. Decedent was the father of the Jaramillos. Plaintiff sued the Jaramillos based on a statement of James Jaramillo that the Jaramillos were the personal representatives of Decedent's estate. At the time the complaint was filed, and by the time the statute of limitations had run, neither the Jaramillos nor anyone else had, in fact, been appointed personal representative of Decedent's estate.
{3} Plaintiff filed an amended complaint after the statute of limitations had run, naming Decedent's insurer and "John Doe" as the unknown personal representative of Decedent's estate as defendants. Because the Jaramillos had not been duly appointed as personal representatives of Decedent's estate before the statute of limitations had run against Plaintiff's claim, the district court ruled that the complaint was a nullity and that the amended complaint would not relate back. Consequently, the court dismissed Plaintiff's claim with prejudice. We determine that Plaintiff's claim is viable and reverse.
{4} Soon after the June 7, 1995, accident, Plaintiff's first attorney began correspondence with Decedent's insurer, State Farm, that continued into October 1996. After a year's hiatus in correspondence, Plaintiff's first attorney informed State Farm in October 1997 that he was no longer representing Plaintiff. In January 1998, Plaintiff's second attorney began correspondence with State Farm that continued into March 1998. {5} Decedent died in July 1997. Plaintiff first learned of Decedent's death sometime around April or May 1998, very near the June 7, 1998, statute of limitations deadline. On May 13, 1998, Plaintiff's lawyer spoke on the telephone with James Jaramillo. James told the lawyer that he and his brother Joe were the personal representatives of Decedent's estate. Upon receiving this information, on May 14, 1998, Plaintiff filed her complaint naming as defendants the Jaramillos as personal representatives of their father's estate. On May 15, 1998, Plaintiff's lawyer sent State Farm a copy of Plaintiff's complaint with a letter that stated: "With your permission, I spoke with James Jaramillo about who was the personal representative of his father's estate and he replied it was him and his brother." James was himself a State Farm insurance agent.
{6} The Jaramillos were served on May 29, 1998. They did not file an answer. Rather, on February 23, 1999, some nine months after the complaint was filed, and after the three-year statute of limitations deadline in NMSA 1978, § 37-1-8 (1976) had passed on June 7, 1998, they filed their motion to dismiss. Apparently, settlement discussions, including discussions regarding possible mediation, took place in the interim.
{7} The Jaramillos based their February 23 motion to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that they were not the personal representatives of Decedent's estate, the complaint did not name a true legal entity and no controversy existed giving the court subject matter jurisdiction, and the claim was barred by the statute of limitations. This caused Plaintiff to file a first amended complaint on February 25, 1999, unilaterally dropping the Jaramillos from the caption and adding State Farm and "John Doe (unknown Personal Representative of the Estate of Joe C. Jaramillo, Deceased)" as defendants.
{8} The lawyers who represented the Jaramillos also represented State Farm in defense of the amended complaint. They asked the court to dismiss the first amended complaint on the grounds that the original complaint was a nullity because Decedent was dead and no personal representative had yet been appointed, and that the amended complaint's naming of "John Doe" was similarly defective. Plaintiff filed a proceeding in the district court of Doña Ana County (No. D-307-PB-9900055) on March 25, 1999, in order to obtain appointment of a personal representative of Decedent's estate.
{9} The district court held that Plaintiff's claim was barred by the statute of limitations and her amended complaint did not relate back under Rule 1-015(C) NMRA 2000. Based on those determinations, the court granted the Jaramillos' motion to dismiss and entered a "Final Order" on May 5, 1999, dismissing the action and all claims with prejudice. However, the dismissal was "not without a considerable degree of consternation on the Court's part."
{10} On appeal, Plaintiff contends that (1) the Jaramillos lacked standing to bring a motion to dismiss the first amended complaint, (2) John Doe had the capacity to be sued, (3) the first amended complaint relates back to the original complaint, (4) equitable estoppel precludes a statute of limitations defense, and (5) public policy favors the right of action over the right of limitation.
{11} The district court felt constrained by our decision in Mercer v. Morgan, 86 N.M. 711, 526 P.2d 1304 (Ct.App.1974), in which we held that a complaint filed against a dead person was a nullity and that an amendment to add the personal representative after the statute of limitations had run would not relate back under Rule 1-015(C).
{12} We are convinced that the Mercer rule should not apply in this case, and that under the circumstances of this case Rule 1-015(C) is applicable, and the only question is whether Rule 1-015(C) conditions have been met to allow relation back. We first look at whether the complaint was a nullity. We next discuss Rule 1-015(C).
{13} Our "nullity" jurisprudence appears to have begun with Mercer in 1974. This Court cited a 1949 annotation in American Law Reports and several cases from other jurisdictions in saying "[w]e follow the general rule that a suit brought against a defendant who is already deceased is a nullity and of no legal effect." Mercer, 86 N.M. at 712,526 P.2d at 1305. This Court then ruled that an amendment adding a duly appointed personal representative after the running of the statute of limitations did not relate back under Rule 15(c), because there was no pending action to which it could relate. See id. at 712-13, 526 P.2d at 1305-06.
{14} More recently, our Supreme Court in Chavez v. Regents of the University of New Mexico, 103 N.M. 606, 611-12, 711 P.2d 883, 888-89 (1985), held that an amendment to add the personal representative as a party plaintiff after the statute of limitations had run related back to the filing of the original complaint under Rule 1-015(C). The statute of limitations had run before the personal representative was appointed. See Chavez, 103 N.M. at 610, 711 P.2d at 887. The Court in Chavez distinguished Mercer, saying that it "is not the situation in the present case," Chavez, 103 N.M. at 610, 711 P.2d at 887. The facts in Chavez differ from those in Mercer and the present case in that Chavez involved a plaintiff who failed to first secure the appointment of a personal representative to commence a wrongful death action. However, the circumstances in Chavez are close enough for us to draw on the policy statements that support the Chavez decision. The Supreme Court stated:
New Mexico follows the principle that in the interests of justice and to promote the adjudication of a case upon its merits, amendments should be freely granted and allowed to relate back to the date a complaint was originally filed so as to avoid the bar of the statute of limitations whenever the requirements of Rule 15(c) are met. Where the real parties in interest received sufficient notice of the proceedings or were involved unofficially at an early stage, the statute of limitations should not be used mechanically to bar an otherwise valid claim.
Id. at 610, 711 P.2d at 887 (citations omitted). The Court specifically determined that the complaint was "[not] a nullity ab initio requiring dismissal and the institution of a new suit after the plaintiff qualifies as a personal representative," id., and overruled this Court's decision in Mackey v. Burke, 102 N.M. 294, 694 P.2d 1359 (Ct.App.1984). Mackey held that Id. at 299, 694 P.2d at 1364. Mackey was an action by the decedent's parents, in which the father was not made personal representative until after the statute of limitations had run. See id. Mackey was overruled despite the existence of a statute stating that an action for wrongful death "`shall be brought by and in the name or names of the personal representative or representatives of such deceased person.'" Id. at 296, 694 P.2d at 1361 (quoting NMSA 1978, § 41-2-3 (1953)).
{15} Here, Plaintiff was injured by an insured tortfeasor who then died. Decedent was certainly no...
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...arise before the death of the decedent unless such claims are filed within one year after the decedent's death. See Macias v. Jaramillo, 129 N.M. 578, 583, 11 P.3d 153, 158 (Ct.App.2000) (stating that “[u]nder Section 45–3–803(A)(1), a tort claim against a decedent's estate that arose befor......
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Wagner v. Pruett (In re Vaughan Co.)
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