Wilson v. Horsley
| Decision Date | 11 March 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 66037-9,66037-9 |
| Citation | 974 P.2d 316,137 Wn.2d 500 |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
| Parties | Diana WILSON, Respondent, v. Gary C. HORSLEY, Petitioner. |
Craig W. Weston, Longview, Respondent.
Petitioner Gary C. Horsley seeks review of the Court of Appeals' decision affirming the Cowlitz County Superior Court's denial of his motions for leave to amend his answer and for a jury trial. We hold that the trial court properly denied Horsley's motion to amend his answer to the complaint in this case. On the issue of the jury trial, however, we hold that Horsley's motion for a jury trial should have been granted. Therefore, we affirm in part and reverse in part.
Petitioner Horsley assaulted Respondent Diana Wilson in 1992, causing Wilson to suffer emotional damage and a permanent injury to her right hand. In 1993, Wilson filed a complaint for personal injuries against Horsley in Cowlitz County Superior Court. Horsley's pro se response to the complaint stated:
In answer to the plaintiffs summons I am not really sure what she is talking about. The only instance I can think of is when on one of her drunks she smacked me in the back of the head and hurt her finger, but what ever she is trying this time I deny any wrong doing.
The case proceeded to mandatory arbitration in early 1994, and resulted in a judgment for Wilson in the amount of $5,500. Horsley then requested a trial de novo. The trial was initially set as a jury trial scheduled for May 2, 1994, but was continued to June 6 upon Horsley's motion. On April 18, Horsley filed a motion for leave to amend his answer to add contributory negligence, self defense, laches, failure to mitigate, comparative negligence, and intoxication as affirmative defenses. Horsley also sought to make a counterclaim against Wilson for assault. 1 The trial court denied Horsley's motion to amend after oral arguments. The court reasoned that allowing Horsley to amend would be "grossly unfair" and "prejudic[ial] to the interests of the plaintiff." Report of Proceedings (5/6/94) at 8-9. Pointing out that all of the issues raised by Horsley had been known by him since the beginning of the litigation almost a year before, the court further noted that Horsley made his motion "on the eve of trial," after the matter had been through arbitration. Id. at 9. The case was, therefore, allowed to proceed within the scope of the original pleadings.
After the court once again continued the trial, this time scheduling it for August 29, Horsley renewed his motion to amend. Horsley raised no new grounds for granting his motion and the motion was denied. Enumerating the reasons for the denial, the court emphasized that Horsley was aware of the factual basis for his proposed defenses prior to the arbitration. Granting Horsley leave to amend his answer would change the case to make it significantly different from that brought before the arbitrator. This difference would make the assessment of attorney fees under Superior Court Mandatory Arbitration Rule (MAR) 7.3 "almost impossible." Clerk's Papers at 30. Further, the court concluded that Horsley's proposed counterclaim was a compulsory counterclaim that should have been pleaded before arbitration. Had Horsley properly included the counterclaim before arbitration, Wilson would have had the option of having the counterclaim arbitrated. Therefore, the court concluded that allowing the amendment after arbitration would be contrary to the litigation reduction purposes of the Mandatory Arbitration Rules.
The trial finally progressed after a third continuance pushed the trial date back to February 1995. In preparation for trial, counsel met in the chambers of the Honorable Unfortunately, this trial resulted in a mistrial after Judge Warme informed the parties that he had inadvertently seen the arbitration award. Immediately after the court granted his motion for a mistrial, Horsley requested that the trial be reset as a jury trial. The trial court denied the motion and reset the case as a nonjury trial scheduled to begin in April 1995. Judge Warme then recused himself.
Judge James E.F.X. Warme, the assigned trial judge. Although there is no record of this conference, it is undisputed that in conference Wilson withdrew her jury trial demand, and that Horsley acquiesced, agreeing to have the matter resolved by a bench trial. However, on the day of trial Horsley asked the court for a continuance and requested a jury trial. These requests were denied, and the trial proceeded.
In early March 1995, shortly after Judge Warme declared a mistrial, Horsley submitted a written request for a jury trial. In his request, Horsley argued that he had consented to trial without a jury only because he was informed by Wilson's attorney that he would have to pay the jury fee if he wanted a jury trial. 2 Since his acquiescence to Wilson's withdrawal of a jury request was based upon "misinformation," Horsley asked that the April trial be reset with a six-person jury. Clerk's Papers at 34. The trial court denied this motion, concluding that Judge Warme did not abuse his discretion in denying Horsley's initial oral request for a jury trial. The case proceeded to a bench trial on the issue of damages before the Cowlitz County Superior Court and resulted in a judgment for Wilson in the amount of $25,454.50 plus costs and attorney fees. Horsley appealed the denial of his motions to amend and for a jury trial.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court. Wilson v. Horsley, 87 Wash.App. 563, 942 P.2d 1046 (1997). The Court of Appeals concluded that there was no "manifest abuse of discretion" in the trial court's denial of Horsley's motion to amend. Wilson, 87 Wash.App. at 568, 942 P.2d 1046 (quoting Herron v.
Tribune Publ'g Co., 108 Wash.2d 162, 165, 736 P.2d 249 (1987)). In addition, the Court of Appeals declined to reach the issue of Horsley's request for a jury, asserting that he failed to present his arguments on the jury trial issue to the trial court. Wilson, 87 Wash.App. at 573-74, 942 P.2d 1046.
We turn first to the issue of Horsley's motion to amend his answer. Since, under CR 15(a), Horsley's right to amend as a matter of course had expired, Horsley could amend his answer "only by leave of court or by written consent of the adverse party." CR 15(a). Rule 15(a) specifically provides that leave to amend "shall be freely given when justice so requires." CR 15(a). These rules serve to facilitate proper decisions on the merits, to provide parties with adequate notice of the basis for claims and defenses asserted against them, and to allow amendment of the pleadings except where amendment would result in prejudice to the opposing party. Caruso v. Local Union No. 690, 100 Wash.2d 343, 349, 670 P.2d 240 (1983); Herron, 108 Wash.2d at 165, 736 P.2d 249.
The decision to grant leave to amend the pleadings is within the discretion of the trial court. Sprague v. Sumitomo Forestry Co., 104 Wash.2d 751, 763, 709 P.2d 1200 (1985); Lincoln v. Transamerica Inv. Corp., 89 Wash.2d 571, 577, 573 P.2d 1316 (1978). Therefore, when reviewing the court's decision to grant or deny leave to amend, we apply a manifest abuse of discretion test. Caruso, 100 Wash.2d at 351, 670 P.2d 240. The trial court's decision "will not be disturbed on review except on a clear showing of abuse of discretion, that is, discretion manifestly unreasonable, or exercised on untenable grounds, or for untenable reasons." State ex rel. Carroll v. Junker, 79 Wash.2d 12, 26, 482 P.2d 775 (1971).
The touchstone for the denial of a motion to amend is the prejudice such an amendment would cause to the nonmoving party. Caruso, 100 Wash.2d at 350, 670 P.2d 240. Factors which may be considered in determining whether permitting Horsley argues that we should liberally construe CR 15(a) in the context of the Mandatory Arbitration Rules to favor permitting amendment without regard to the completed mandatory arbitration. He claims that the trial court should not have considered the completed arbitration in deciding whether to allow him to amend his answer, and cites MAR 7.2(b)(1) as support for this proposition. MAR 7.2(b)(1) provides that "[t]he trial de novo shall be conducted as though no arbitration proceeding had occurred." Contrary to Horsley's assertion, however, nothing in the Mandatory Arbitration Rules precludes a trial court from considering a motion to amend the pleadings in light of a completed mandatory arbitration. MAR 7.2(b) only prohibits reference to the arbitration when considering the merits of the underlying action in a trial de novo. The language in MAR 7.2(b) does not address the trial court's consideration of procedural matters before commencing the trial de novo. The question of what issues may be added to the trial de novo is governed by the Civil Rules, and therefore, as noted above, remains in the discretion of the trial court. M. Wayne Blair, Mandatory Arbitration in Washington, in Washington State Bar Ass'n, Alternate Dispute Resolution Deskbook: Arbitration and Mediation in Washington sec. 2.3(7)(b), at 2-60 (2d ed.1995).
amendment would cause prejudice include undue delay, unfair surprise, and jury confusion. Herron, 108 Wash.2d at 165-66, 736 P.2d 249.
The fact that a motion to amend is made after a completed arbitration may be relevant to the question of whether allowing amendment would prejudice the opposing party. In fact, the Alternate Dispute Resolution Deskbook specifically notes that when determining whether a pleading should be amended, "the court may wish to consider In this case, the trial court determined that the fact that Horsley made his motion to amend after completing mandatory arbitration was relevant to the potential prejudice faced by Wilson. The trial court denied Horsley's motion because...
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