Woods v. Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis

• Decision Date: 14 June 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-2334,UNIVERSITY-PURDUE,92-2334
• Citation: 996 F.2d 880
• Parties: Carl WOODS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. INDIANAUNIVERSITY AT INDIANAPOLIS, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 880

996 F.2d 880

26 Fed.R.Serv.3d 194

Carl WOODS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. INDIANA UNIVERSITY-PURDUE UNIVERSITY AT INDIANAPOLIS, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 92-2334.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Jan. 20, 1993.

Decided June 14, 1993.

John O. Moss, Moss & Walton, Indianapolis, IN (argued), plaintiff-appellant.

Albert J. Velasquez, Office of University Counsel, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (argued), Michael E. Morkeh, Austin, Rowe & Hamilton, Indianapolis, IN, for defendants-appellees.

Before CUMMINGS and ROVNER, Circuit Judges, and SHADUR, Senior District Judge. ^*

SHADUR, Senior District Judge.

We deal here with a proposed Amended Complaint that seeks to bring individual defendants into a federal civil rights action--persons who were not named as defendants before the expiration of the normal two-year statute of limitations after they had engaged in the conduct that allegedly violated plaintiff's constitutional rights. Because the district court did not properly take into account the provisions of Fed.R.Civ.P. ("Rule") 15(c) in determining whether the Amended Complaint should relate back to the date of the original Complaint as to those newly-named defendants, the record was not fully enough developed to allow that question to be answered here. Accordingly we remand the case to the district court for that purpose.

Legal Framework

In a sharp departure from the old "sporting theory" of litigation, "[t]he Federal Rules reject the approach that pleading is a game of skill in which one misstep by counsel may be decisive to the outcome and affect the principle that the purpose of pleading is to facilitate a proper decision on the merits" (Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 48, 78 S.Ct. 99, 103, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1958)). But competing considerations enter the fray when a lawyer's mistake (either of fact or of law) can prejudice the other side's defense. It may then become difficult or impossible to avoid a result dictated by the skill of counsel rather than by the merits of the client's case.

That tension of competing values is exemplified in Rule 15(c), which now reads in relevant part:

An amendment of a pleading relates back to the date of the original pleading when

(1) relation back is permitted by the law that provides the statute of limitations applicable to the action, or

(2) 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, or

(3) the amendment changes the party or the naming of the party against whom a claim is asserted if the foregoing provision (2) is satisfied and, within the period provided by Rule 4(j) for service of the summons and complaint, the party to be brought in by amendment (A) has received such notice of the institution of the action that the party will not be prejudiced in maintaining a defense on the merits, and (B) knew or should have known that, but for a mistake concerning the identity of the proper party, the action would have been brought against the party. ¹ We have long left no doubt of the broad scope to be given Rule 15(c). As we said in Staren v. American National Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago, 529 F.2d 1257, 1263 (7th Cir.1976):

It is well settled that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are to be liberally construed to effectuate the general purpose of seeing that cases are tried on the merits and to dispense with technical procedural problems. To this end, amendments pursuant to Rule 15(c) should be freely allowed.

And as we said in Hill v. Shelander, 924 F.2d 1370, 1375 (7th Cir.1991):

Rule 15(c) ... recognizes that legitimate legal claims may not be squelched when a party mistakenly identifies a party to be sued within the meaning of Rule 15(c).

This case is on appeal from a grant of summary judgment in defendants' favor on the ground that the claims of plaintiff Carl Woods ("Woods") against them were found to be time-barred--as is plainly the case unless Woods can successfully invoke Rule 15(c). Woods' original Complaint, alleging violations of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985 and 1986, was filed not against any individuals but rather against defendants that could only be construed as Indiana University and its police department. It took considerable time before Woods' counsel finally reshaped the Complaint to target only the ultimate individual defendants in their individual capacities. At that point the district court held that the Amended Complaint did not relate back and that the action against the individuals was outlawed by limitations.

On appeal Woods argues principally that the district court misapplied Rule 15(c) in refusing to relate the Amended Complaint back to the date of the original Complaint. We find that the impact of Rule 15(c) was not properly explored below and, for the reasons that follow, we therefore conclude that this action must be remanded to the district court for further proceedings.

Factual Background

Carl Woods joined the Indiana University Police Department as a police officer in March 1973. Over twelve years later (on July 17, 1985) other officers allegedly witnessed Woods wearing hospital uniforms ("scrubs"). Based on that information Lieutenant Frank Ingram signed an affidavit that served as support for a search warrant of Woods' home. During the search officers uncovered and seized such items as scrubs, marijuana and drug paraphernalia. On July 22, 1985 Indiana University suspended Woods, and then on July 26, 1985 it fired him.

On August 19, 1985 the Marion County prosecutor brought criminal charges against Woods. Those charges led to Woods' conviction on a Class A misdemeanor: possession of drug paraphernalia. However, because "no reasonable well-trained officer could have held an objectively reasonable belief the search was constitutional" (Woods v. State, 514 N.E.2d 1277, 1283 (Ind.App.1987)), the Indiana Court of Appeals threw out the conviction.

On July 15, 1987 Woods filed a federal civil rights action against "Indiana-University-Purdue University at Indianapolis and Indiana University Police Department of Indianapolis." That original Complaint and the accompanying summons were served on the University's Police Chief John Mulvey two days later. Because Indiana University enjoys the same Eleventh Amendment immunity as the State of Indiana itself (Shannon v. Bepko, 684 F.Supp. 1465 (S.D.Ind.1988)), on November 10, 1988 the district court granted defendants' motion for judgment on the pleadings. That dismissal was specifically stated to be without prejudice.

On December 12, 1988 Woods filed an Amended Complaint, naming as defendants George W. Combs, John Mulvey, Scott Evenbeck, Clifford Robinson, Maurice Smith, Clyde Rogers, Douglas Cox, Francis Ingram and Larry Propst, all of whom were employees of the University or its police department during 1985. On March 2, 1990 the district court, citing Brunken v. Lance, 807 F.2d 1325, 1329 (7th Cir.1986), dismissed Woods' claims against those defendants in their official capacities.

Finally, in an opinion dated May 6, 1992 the district court granted summary judgment dismissing Woods' claims against those defendants in their individual capacities as time-barred. That decision--which resulted from the district court's reading of Rule 15(c)--engendered this appeal, over which we have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo (Wilcox v. Niagara of Wisconsin Paper Corp., 965 F.2d 355, 357 n. 1 (7th Cir.1992)).

Rule 15(c)

Once an action has been timely filed, fairness militates against allowing a limitations defense to an opposing party who knows of the action within the required time frame--even though that party is named as a defendant only later, in an amendment that arises out of the same conduct, transaction or occurrence addressed in the original pleading (see generally 6A Charles Wright, Arthur Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil 2d § 1496, at 64; id. § 1498, at 107 (2d ed. 1990 & 1992 pocket part)). That concept, which has its roots in the equitable notion that dispositive decisions should be based on the merits rather than technicalities, has been embodied since 1937 in Rule 15(c) (see Justice Stevens' dissent from the now-overturned decision in Schiavone v. Fortune, 477 U.S. 21, 38, 106 S.Ct. 2379, 2388, 91 L.Ed.2d 18 (1986) ("The principal purpose of rule 15(c) is to enable a plaintiff to correct a pleading error after the statute of limitations has run if the correction will not prejudice his adversary in any way."). As Justice Black commented in 1954 on an Order Adopting Revised Rules of the Supreme Court of the United States, 346 U.S. 945, 946:

The principal function of procedural rules should be to serve as useful guides to help, not hinder, persons who have a legal right to bring their problems before the courts.

Consistent with its history and purpose, Rule 15(c) has uniformly been applied to relate back amendments that cure defective statements of jurisdiction or venue or that change the theory on which plaintiff seeks recovery. ² Many courts (though not all ³) have similarly employed Rule 15(c) to allow the relation back of amendments changing or adding parties so long as no prejudice will ensue (see, e.g., Travelers Indem. Co. v. United States ex rel. Constr. Specialties Co., 382 F.2d 103, 106 (10th Cir.1967)).

But the path has not always been smooth. Most notoriously, Schiavone reached a result incongruous with Rule 15(c)'s equitable history and purpose. ⁴ Some background explanation is needed to demonstrate the anomaly posed by that decision.

If a plaintiff files a timely complaint, Rule 4(j) requires that each defendant be served with process within 120 days (unless that period is extended for good cause), on pain of dismissal if service has not been accomplished. Even though Rule 4(j) dictates a dismissal...