Olden v. Hatchell

• Decision Date: 25 April 1984
• Citation: 201 Cal.Rptr. 715,154 Cal.App.3d 1032
• Parties: George Wayne OLDEN, an Incompetent Person, etc., Plaintiff and Appellant, v. James HATCHELL, et al., Defendants and Respondents. AO23307.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 715

201 Cal.Rptr. 715

154 Cal.App.3d 1032

George Wayne OLDEN, an Incompetent Person, etc., Plaintiff and Appellant, v. James HATCHELL, et al., Defendants and Respondents.

AO23307.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 4, California.

April 25, 1984.

Thomas M. Meyer, Point Richmond, for plaintiff and appellant.

Michael Waughtel, Gordon, DeFraga, Watrous & Pezzaglia, Inc., Martinez, for defendants and respondents.

PANELLI, Associate Justice.

George Wayne Olden sued the County of Contra Costa (hereafter the County) and twenty fictitiously named defendants on tort theories, alleging injuries caused by the defendants' failure to provide him with necessary medical treatment and hospitalization while he was in custody at the county jail. After the applicable statute of limitations set forth in the Tort Claims Act ¹ had run, Olden filed an amendment to his complaint, pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 474, substituting the names of respondents, five employees or former employees of the County, in place of five fictitiously named defendants. ² These substituted employee defendants successfully moved to strike that amendment on the ground that the claims against them were barred by the statute of limitations, and this appeal followed. ³ We reverse.

Pursuant to Government Code section 945.6, a suit against a public entity on a cause of action for which a claim is required to be filed must be commenced within six months of service of notice of rejection of the claim. ⁴ Presentation of a claim against a public employee or former public employee for injury resulting from an act or omission in the scope of his public employment is not a prerequisite to the maintenance of an action against the employee, but presentation of a claim against the employing public entity is a prerequisite to bringing such an action. (§§ 911.2, 945.4, 950, 950.2.) Section 945.6 requires an action against the employee to be commenced within the time prescribed for bringing an action against the public entity. (§§ 950.2, 950.6.)

Olden presented a timely claim for personal injuries to the County, as required by section 911.2, and stated therein that the names of the public employees responsible for his injuries were unknown to him at that time. The County rejected the claim on or about June 9, 1981, and notice of the rejection was served upon Olden's counsel. Olden's complaint, filed October 9, 1981, and his amended complaints, contained what is commonly referred to as a "Doe clause," alleging that a certain number of defendants fictitiously named "Doe" (in this case twenty) were responsible for the acts complained of, that their true names were unknown to the plaintiff, and that leave to amend would be sought to add their true names when ascertained. It was also alleged that each defendant sued as "Doe" was an agent and employee of the remaining defendants and acted within the scope of such agency and employment.

Olden's amendment substituting the names of the employee defendants for Does I through V was filed on May 12, 1983. On June 21, 1983, the trial court granted the employee defendants' motion to strike the amendment. ⁵ Olden contends on appeal that the motion was improperly granted because, pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 474 (hereafter section 474), the amendment related back to the filing of the original complaint on October 9, 1981, within the six-month statute of limitations. The employee defendants contend that the motion was properly granted because section 474 does not apply to actions against public employees under the Tort Claims Act. We disagree.

Section 474 provides in pertinent part: "When the plaintiff is ignorant of the name of a defendant, he must state that fact in the complaint, or the affidavit if the action is commenced by affidavit, and such defendant may be designated in any pleading or proceeding by any name, and when his true name is discovered, the pleading or proceeding must be amended accordingly ...." It is a well established rule that when a complaint sets forth a cause of action against a defendant designated by a fictitious name and his true name is thereafter discovered and substituted by amendment, he is considered a party to the action from its commencement so that the statute of limitations stops running as of the date the original complaint was filed. (Austin v. Massachusetts Bonding & Insurance Co. (1961) 56 Cal.2d 596, 599, 15 Cal.Rptr. 817, 364 P.2d 681; Munoz v. Purdy (1979) 91 Cal.App.3d 942, 946, 154 Cal.Rptr. 472; Cooper v. Jevne (1976) 56 Cal.App.3d 860, 873, 128 Cal.Rptr. 724.) ⁶

In Cooper v. Jevne, supra, 56 Cal.App.3d 860, 872-873, 128 Cal.Rptr. 724, the court held that an amendment substituting county building inspectors for fictitiously named defendants after the six-month period specified in section 945.6 had expired related back, for statute of limitations purposes, to the time of filing of the original complaint. The court there apparently assumed, without discussion, that the relation-back doctrine with respect to defendants originally named fictitiously pursuant to section 474 applies to actions against public employees under the Tort Claims Act, just as it applies to other civil actions. The employee defendants here contend that the relation-back doctrine was erroneously applied in Cooper, and that under the rationale of Chase v. State of California (1977) 67 Cal.App.3d 808, 136 Cal.Rptr. 833, that doctrine should not be applied in suits against public employees. We find Chase inapposite to the present case and conclude that the rule applied in Cooper is correct and supported by sound policy considerations.

In Chase, a timely claim for personal injuries was presented to the public entity, the state, and rejected. Within the six-month statute of limitations specified in section 945.6, the plaintiff commenced an action with respect to the accident upon which the claim had been based, naming several specified defendants and a number of fictitiously named defendants. The state was not named as a defendant in the action. After the six-month statutory period had expired, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint, substituting the state for "Doe Twenty". A demurrer on the basis of the statute of limitations was sustained, and the Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that in the circumstances of that case the plaintiff had not commenced his action against the public entity within the six-month period of limitations, which is mandatory and must be strictly complied with. (67 Cal.App.3d 808, 812-814, 136 Cal.Rptr. 833.) We do not believe that Chase provides logical support for the position of the employee defendants in this case. Clearly the plaintiff in Chase knew the identity of the public entity, as he had filed a claim against it. ⁷ Thus he could not possibly have met the requirement of good faith ignorance of the name of a defendant under section 474. Indeed, because presentation of a claim to a public entity is a prerequisite to bringing suit against it (§ 945.4), it appears that a plaintiff could never effectively utilize a fictitiously named defendant to bring in a public entity defendant. Either his action would be barred for failure to present a claim, or he would know the identity of the entity to whom he had presented the claim and thus not be ignorant of its name. ⁸ In our opinion, the statutory scheme does not similarly preclude the use of a fictitiously named defendant to sue a public employee since only a claim against the public entity, and not against the individual employee, is a prerequisite to bringing suit. (§§ 950, 950.2.)

The purpose of section 474 is to enable a plaintiff to avoid the bar of the statute of limitations when he is ignorant of the identity of the defendant. (Munoz v. Purdy, supra, 91 Cal.App.3d 942, 946, 154 Cal.Rptr. 472; Motor City Sales v. Superior Court, supra, 31 Cal.App.3d 342, 345, 107 Cal.Rptr. 280.) The statute must be liberally construed to that end. (Id.; Barrows v. American Motors Corp. (1983) 144 Cal.App.3d 1, 8, 192 Cal.Rptr. 380; Miller v. Thomas (1981) 121 Cal.App.3d 440, 444, 175 Cal.Rptr. 327.) Such construction is supported by "the policy favoring liberality in the amendment of pleadings to encourage litigating causes on their merits". (Marasco v. Wadsworth (1978) 21 Cal.3d 82, 89, 145 Cal.Rptr. 843, 578 P.2d 90; accord: Smeltzley v. Nicholson Mfg. Co. (1977) 18 Cal.3d 932, 136 Cal.Rptr. 269, 559 P.2d 624.) One commentator has described the judicial treatment which has been accorded the statute as "the expansive interpretation given to section 474 throughout its history". (Hogan, California's Unique Doe Defendant Practice: A Fiction Stranger Than Truth (1977) 30 Stan.L.Rev. 51, 76 [hereafter cited as Doe Defendant Practice ].)

Applying the foregoing principles to the present case, we determine that an amendment to a complaint meeting the requirements of section 474 relates back to the date of filing of the original complaint in an action against a public employee or former public employee under the Tort Claims Act. There is no statutory provision precluding application of section 474 to such an action. Had the Legislature intended that the section not apply in such circumstances, it would have said so. Absent such a provision, "the fundamental philosophy that 'cases should be decided on their merits' [citations]" (see Smeltzley v. Nicholson Mfg. Co., supra, 18 Cal.3d 932, 939, 136 Cal.Rptr. 269, 559 P.2d 624) dictates application of section 474 here. (Cf. Ramos v. Madera (1971) 4 Cal.3d 685, 692, 94 Cal.Rptr. 421, 484 P.2d 93 ["Unless the Legislature has clearly provided for [governmental] immunity, the important societal goal of compensating injured parties for damages caused by willful or negligent acts must prevail."]; Van Alstyne, California Government Tort Liability Practice (Cont.Ed.Bar (1980) § 2.6, p. 36 [hereafter cited as CEB]; id. (CEB Supp.1983) p. 3.)

Moreover, the circumstances...