Oconee Cnty. v. Cannon

• Decision Date: 01 February 2021
• Docket Number: S20G0584
• Parties: OCONEE COUNTY v. CANNON et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

310 Ga. 728

854 S.E.2d 531

OCONEE COUNTY

v.CANNON et al.

S20G0584

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: February 1, 2021

Terry Eugene Williams, Jason Christopher Waymire, Williams Morris & Waymire, LLC, 4330 South Lee Street, N.E., Building 400, Suite A, Buford, Georgia 30518, Attorneys for the Appellant.

Darl Hilton Champion, Jr., The Champion Firm, P.C., 2675 Paces Ferry Rd SE, Ste 260, Atlanta, Georgia 30339, John David Hadden, The Hadden Law Firm, LLC, 44 Broad Street, Suite 600, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Meredith Stein Watts, The Watts Firm LLC, 125 Clairemont Ave., Suite 240, Atlanta, Georgia 30030, Attorneys for the Appellee.

Peterson, Justice.

Ronald and Christy Cannon sued Oconee County after a vehicle chase initiated by an Oconee County sheriff's deputy ended in their daughter's death. The trial court granted the County's motion for summary judgment, holding that (1) the Sheriff of Oconee County in his official capacity, not the County, was liable for the deputy's actions; and (2) the Cannons could not substitute the Oconee County Sheriff in his official capacity as the defendant in place of Oconee County because the statute of limitations had expired and the relation-back doctrine embodied in OCGA § 9-11-15 (c) did not apply. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's determination as to the proper defendant but reversed its ruling that relation-back did not apply. See Cannon v. Oconee County , 353 Ga. App. 296, 835 S.E.2d 753 (2019). We granted the County's petition for a writ of certiorari to review the Court of Appeals's reversal. We hold that the application of the relation-back doctrine depends on whether the proper defendant knew or should have known that the action would have been brought against him but for the plaintiff's mistake, not on what the plaintiff knew or should have known and not on whether the plaintiff's mistake was legal or factual. We vacate the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand with direction to remand to the trial court for application of the proper standard.

1. Background

On September 14, 2015, Deputy Golden Sanders with the Oconee County Sheriff's Office attempted to stop a Jeep SUV in which Jessica Cannon was a passenger. The SUV accelerated and a brief high-speed pursuit ensued, ending when the SUV collided with a tractor-trailer. Both the driver of the SUV and Jessica were killed in the crash. The Oconee County Sheriff, Scott Berry, met with Jessica's parents, Ronald and Christy Cannon, to inform them of their daughter's death.

The Cannons sent a timely presentment of their claim to Oconee County, the Oconee County Sheriff's Office, and other government officials. (The deputy's patrol car was insured through Oconee County's insurance policy.) In January 2017, the Cannons filed a wrongful death suit naming Oconee County as the lone defendant. The complaint alleged that at the time of the accident, Deputy Sanders "was acting in the course and scope of his employment as a police officer with the Oconee County Sheriff's Office." The County admitted that allegation in its answer. The complaint also alleged that the County was liable for Deputy Sanders's acts and omissions under the doctrine of respondent superior. The County responded with a general denial of that allegation. The County's answer did not raise an improper-party defense, nor did it specifically assert that the County could not be held liable because it was not Deputy Sanders's employer.

In discovery, the County indicated that representatives of the Oconee County Sheriff's Office were "involved in gathering the information to answer Plaintiffs’ discovery requests." The Cannons made multiple requests for documents relating to "your employees," and the County responded to several of those requests by providing information regarding employees of the Sheriff's Office. The Cannons deposed several employees of the Sheriff's Office, including Deputy Sanders and his supervisor. In July 2018, after the County designated Sheriff Berry as its Rule 30 (b) (6) deponent, see OCGA § 9-11-30 (b) (6), the Cannons deposed the Sheriff; that deposition served as both the County's Rule 30 (b) (6) deposition and the Sheriff's personal deposition.

During the litigation, Sheriff Berry sent a letter to counsel for the Cannons regarding an open records request they had sent to the Sheriff's Office requesting communications between the Sheriff's Office and the law firm representing the County. In his letter, Sheriff Berry invoked the attorney-client privilege, stating that communications between the County or Sheriff's Office and the County's counsel were privileged communications, and that Terry Williams, counsel for the County, not only represented the County in the present case but "also provides legal representation and advice to the Oconee County Sheriff's Office." The letter repeatedly referred to Terry Williams as "our attorney."

In August 2018, the County filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing among other things that Deputy Sanders was an employee of the Oconee County Sheriff's Office, not the County, and thus the County could not be held vicariously liable for the deputy's alleged negligence. The Cannons then submitted a motion to substitute Sheriff Berry in his official capacity as the defendant in place of the County under OCGA § 9-11-15 (c), the relation-back statute, in the event the trial court found him, and not the County, to be the proper defendant.

The trial court granted the County's motion for summary judgment, concluding that the County could not be held vicariously liable for Deputy Sanders's actions because deputies are employees of the Sheriff, and the Sheriff's Office is independent from the County. The trial court also denied the Cannons’ motion to substitute. It found that OCGA § 9-11-15 (c) (2) was not satisfied because the Cannons were aware of Sheriff Berry's existence and knew that the Oconee County Sheriff's Office was Deputy Sanders's employer; thus, as a matter of law, "there could be no mistake concerning the identity of Sheriff Berry" as a proper party. The trial court also found that there was "no evidence that Sheriff Berry had or should have had knowledge" that the Cannons made a mistake regarding his identity.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the County¹ but reversed the trial court's denial of the Cannons’ motion to substitute Sheriff Berry, in his official capacity, as a party defendant. See Cannon , 353 Ga. App. 296, 835 S.E.2d 753. In determining that the Cannons could substitute Sheriff Berry after the expiration of the statute of limitations, the Court of Appeals relied on the United States Supreme Court's interpretation of the federal relation-back rule ( Rule 15 (c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ) set forth in Krupski v. Costa Crociere S.p.A. , 560 U.S. 538, 130 S.Ct. 2485, 177 L.Ed.2d 48 (2010). The Court of Appeals concluded that "the Cannons made a deliberate but mistaken choice to sue the County" based on their misunderstanding regarding the proper party to sue under the applicable statute, and that Sheriff Berry should have known he would be the party sued but for the Cannons’ mistake because he and his office coordinated with the County to defend the suit before the statute of limitations expired. See Cannon , 353 Ga. App. at 302-303 (2), 835 S.E.2d 753. The court analogized the Cannons’ case to Georgia cases prior to Krupski such as Fontaine v. Home Depot, Inc. , 250 Ga. App. 123, 550 S.E.2d 691 (2001), where plaintiffs were allowed to substitute one corporate defendant for another related entity after the statute of limitations expired, and distinguished those situations from cases in which the plaintiff "sought to add individual defendants who had no reason to believe that the suit might be brought against them." Cannon , 353 Ga. App. at 303 (2), 835 S.E.2d 753 (emphasis in original). We issued a writ of certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals properly relied on Krupski .

As we explain below, although our analysis differs from that of the Court of Appeals, we also conclude that the United States Supreme Court's interpretation in Krupski of the federal rule upon which our own relation-back statute is modeled offers the best textual interpretation of OCGA § 9-11-15 (c). We thus agree with the Court of Appeals that the Cannons made a mistake concerning the identity of the proper defendant. But we disagree that the record — especially given the findings of the trial court — allows an appellate court to conclude that Sheriff Berry, in his official capacity, should have known he would be the party sued but for the Cannons’ mistake. We therefore vacate the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand the case with direction to remand to the trial court to apply the proper standard.

2. The most natural reading of OCGA § 9-11-15 (c) (2) emphasizes the extent of the defendant's knowledge, not the nature of the plaintiff's mistake, and encompasses all mistakes – legal and factual – regarding the identity of the proper party.

We review a trial court's decision on a motion to add a party to an existing action for abuse of discretion. See Western Sky Financial, LLC v. Ga. , 300 Ga. 340, 357 (3) (a), 793 S.E.2d 357 (2016). But a "trial court's discretion must be exercised in conformity with the governing legal principles." Ford Motor Co. v. Conley , 294 Ga. 530, 538 (2), 757 S.E.2d 20 (2014). "[W]hen a plaintiff can satisfy the statutory requirements for relation back of an amendment, set out in OCGA § 9-11-15 (c), denying a motion for leave to amend the complaint to add a defendant is an abuse of the trial court's discretion." Callaway v. Quinn , 347 Ga. App. 325, 329, 819 S.E.2d 493 (2018) (citation and punctuation omitted).

When determining the meaning of a statute, we consider the text of the statute itself, because "[a] statute draws its meaning from its text." City of Marietta v. Summerour , 302 Ga. 645, 649 (2), 807...