United States ex rel. Arrow Electronics, Inc. v. G.H. Coffey Co.: Judicial Interpretation of Timely Notice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c)

In 1966, the United States Supreme Court amended Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c) to eliminate lower court confusion regarding "relation back" of pleading amendments which sought to change the party against whom the claim was asserted. The Rule, as presently formulated, permits a plaintiff to add or change a party defendant after the statute of limitations has run provided that . . . . While the current Rule is more precise than the pre-1966 Rule in defining when "relation back" is permissible, it has not eliminated the sharp divergence among judicial opinion regarding the proper application of the Rule. There are three distinct situations in which a plaintiff could employ Rule 15(c) to change the defendant named in a complaint. The first situation is the so-called "misnomer" in which the proper defendant has notice and has been served with process, but the name listed in the complaint is technically incorrect. The second situation arises when a plaintiff fails to name a particular person as a defendant and that person knows he should have been named in the complaint. The third situation, probably the most troublesome, arises when the plaintiff names the wrong person as a defendant and the proper defendant never receives notice of the suit; pursuant to Rule 15(c), the plaintiff then seeks to substitute the name of the proper defendant for the person incorrectly named as the defendant.