SCHIAVONE ET AL. v. FORTUNE, AKA TIME, INC.
No. 84-1839
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 26, 1986—Decided June 18, 1986
477 U.S. 21
Morris M. Schnitzer argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Theodore W. Geiser and Thomas S. Cosma.
Peter G. Banta argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.
JUSTICE BLACKMUN delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case primarily concerns Rule 15(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and its application to a less-than-precise denomination of a defendant in complaints filed in federal court near the expiration of the period of limitations. Because of an apparent conflict among the Courts of Appeals,1 we granted certiorari. 474 U. S. 814 (1985).
I
The three petitioners instituted this diversity litigation on May 9, 1983, by filing their respective complaints in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Each complaint alleged that the plaintiff was libeled in a cover story entitled “The Charges Against Reagan‘s Labor Secretary,” which appeared in the May 31, 1982, issue of Fortune magazine. The caption of each complaint named
On May 20, petitioners’ counsel mailed the complaints to Time‘s registered agent in New Jersey. They were received on May 23. The agent refused service because Time was not named as a defendant.
On July 18, 1983, each petitioner amended his complaint to name as the captioned defendant “Fortune, also known as Time, Incorporated,” and, in the body of the complaint, to refer to “Fortune, also known as Time, Incorporated,” as a New York corporation with a specified registered New Jersey agent. See id., at 25a, 26a. The amended complaints were served on Time by certified mail on July 21.
Time moved to dismiss the amended complaints. The District Court granted those motions. Id., at 96a, 98a, 100a. It ruled that the complaints, as amended, adequately named Time as a defendant, and therefore were not to be dismissed “for failure of capacity of defendant to be sued.” Supp. App. to Pet. for Cert. 18a. Under New Jersey law, however, see
Although Time acknowledged that the original filings were within the limitations period, it took the position that it could not be named as a party after the period had expired. Time contended that a party must be substituted within the limitations period in order for the amendment to relate back to the original filing date pursuant to Rule 15(c).5
The District Court concluded that the amendments to the complaints did not relate back to the filing of the original complaints because it had not been shown that Time received notice of the institution of the suits within the period provided by law for commencing an action against it. Supp. App. to Pet. for Cert. 23a. It therefore “with great reluctance” granted the motion to dismiss, noting that any dismissal of a claim based upon the statute of limitations “by its very nature is arbitrary.” Id., at 24a. The court also ruled that the “equities of this situation” did not demand that relief
Petitioners moved for reconsideration. By letter opinion filed January 12, 1984, the court adhered to its prior ruling. App. to Brief in Opposition 1a.
On appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the three actions were consolidated. That court affirmed the orders of the District Court. 750 F. 2d 15 (1984). It ruled that the New Jersey statute of limitations ran “on May 19, 1983, at the latest,” for a “substantial distribution” of the issue of May 31, 1982, had “occurred on May 19, 1982, at the latest.” Id., at 16. It regarded the language of
II
It is clear, from what has been noted above, that the three complaints as originally drawn were filed within the limitations period; that service was attempted only after that period had expired; and that the amendment of the complaints, and the service of the complaints as so amended, also necessarily took place after the expiration of the limitations period. The District Court and the Court of Appeals so found, and we have no reason to disagree. The parties themselves do not dispute these facts. Instead, their dispute centers on
Petitioners argue that
Respondent, of course, takes issue with this approach. It claims that the language of
As amended,
This Court, too, in the early days of the federal civil procedure rules, when
Despite these worthy goals and loftily stated purposes, we conclude that the judgments of the Court of Appeals in the present cases were correct.
A
The defendant named in the caption of each of the original complaints was “Fortune,” and Fortune was described in the body of the complaint as “a foreign corporation” having principal offices in the Time and Life Building in New York City. It also was alleged that Fortune was engaged in the publication of a magazine of that name. Attached to the complaint were a copy of the magazine‘s cover for its issue of May 31, 1982, an artist‘s depiction of an alleged payoff, and the text of parts of the article about which petitioners complained. The focus, as pleaded, was on Fortune.
Petitioners nonetheless rely on Fortune‘s status as a division of Time to argue that institution of an action purportedly against the former constituted notice of the action to the latter, as a related entity. Some Courts of Appeals have recognized an “identity-of-interest” exception under which an amendment that substitutes a party in a complaint after the limitations period has expired will relate back to the date of the filing of the original complaint.7 The Court of Appeals in this case rejected that approach. The object of the exception is to avoid the application of the statute of limitations when no prejudice would result to the party sought to be added.
B
The complaints as they were amended, of course, meet the identification standard. While the statement, “Fortune, also known as Time, Incorporated, was and is a corporation of the state of New York,” is not a model of accuracy, it does focus on Time and sufficiently describes Time as the targeted defendant. The next question, then, is whether the amendment, made in July 1983, related back to the filing on May 9, a date concededly within the period of the applicable New Jersey statute of limitations.
Central to the resolution of this issue is the language of
The first intimation that Time had of the institution and maintenance of the three suits took place after May 19, 1983, the date the Court of Appeals said the statute ran “at the latest.” 750 F. 2d, at 16. Only on May 20 did petitioners’ counsel mail the complaints to Time‘s registered agent in New Jersey. Only on May 23 were those complaints received by the registered agent, and then refused. Only on July 19 did each petitioner amend his complaint. And only on July 21 were the amended complaints served on Time.
It seems to us inevitably to follow that notice to Time and the necessary knowledge did not come into being “within the period provided by law for commencing the action against” Time, as is so clearly required by
We do not have before us a choice between a “liberal” approach toward
We are not inclined, either, to temper the plain meaning of the language by engrafting upon it an extension of the limitations period equal to the asserted reasonable time, inferred from
Any possible doubt about this should have been dispelled 20 years ago by the Advisory Committee‘s 1966 Note about
“An amendment changing the party against whom a claim is asserted relates back if the amendment satisfies the usual condition of Rule 15(c) of ‘arising out of the conduct . . . set forth . . . in the original pleading,’ and if, within the applicable limitations period, the party brought in by amendment, first, received such notice of the institution of the action—the notice need not be formal—that he would not be prejudiced in defending the action, and, second, knew or should have known that the action would have been brought against him initially had there not been a mistake concerning the identity of the proper party” (emphasis supplied). Advisory Committee‘s Notes on Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15, 28 U. S. C. App., p. 551; 39 F. R. D. 83.
Although the Advisory Committee‘s comments do not foreclose judicial consideration of the Rule‘s validity and meaning, the construction given by the Committee is “of weight.” Mississippi Publishing Corp. v. Murphree, 326 U. S. 438, 444 (1946).
The commentators have accepted the literal meaning of the significant phrase in
The linchpin is notice, and notice within the limitations period. Of course, there is an element of arbitrariness here, but that is a characteristic of any limitations period. And it is an arbitrariness imposed by the legislature and not by the judicial process. See Note: Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
The judgments of the Court of Appeals are affirmed.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE WHITE join, dissenting.
Certain principles are undisputed. If petitioners had filed their suits alleging that Fortune magazine libeled them on precisely the same date; had added the magic words “also known as Time, Incorporated” to the word “Fortune“; and had done everything else exactly the same, petitioners would be entitled to proceed with their legal actions. Because petitioners committed the “fatal” error, ante, at 30, of identifying the defendant by its name of publication rather than its name of incorporation, however, the Court finds that they fell through a trapdoor—despite the fact that the magazine publisher‘s agent contemporaneously noted his understanding that the suits were directed against the magazine publisher (Time, Incorporated) fully as much as if petitioners had included the magic words.
In my view, the Court‘s decision represents an aberrational—and, let us hope, isolated—return to the “sporting
I
Before examining the language and the history of
The caption of the original complaints identified the defendant only as “Fortune.” The description of the defendant in paragraph 2 of those complaints further explained that petitioners intended to sue “a foreign corporation having its principal offices at Time and Life Building, Sixth Avenue and 50th Street, New York, New York 10020 engaged in the publication of a magazine called ‘Fortune’ which is distributed
“Remarks: Discrepancy in corporate title noted. Letter from atty. indicates papers are for Time, Incorporated as publisher of Fortune. Service was made by mail pursuant to Rule 4(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” Id., at 35a.
On July 18, 1983—well in advance of the September 6 deadline for service of process—petitioners filed an amendment to the complaints and redesignated “Fortune” as “Fortune, also known as Time, Incorporated.” Id., at 25a-26a. Again, there is no suggestion that this redesignation did cause, or could have caused, Time, Incorporated, any prejudice in maintaining its defense on the merits of the case. Nor is there any suggestion that Time, Incorporated, would have received better notice, or earlier notice, of the institution of the action if the magic words had been added to the initial complaints. The only question is whether
II
The majority relies exclusively on the “plain language” of
According to the majority, petitioners’ complaints are barred because they did not satisfy a four-pronged test articulated in
The plain language of
The misdescription in this case, however, is not remotely of the kind that the Rule‘s “plain language” addresses. By any standard of fair notice, the difference between the description of the publisher of Fortune in the original complaints and the description of the publisher of Fortune in the amended complaints is no more significant than a misspelling, or perhaps a reference to “Time, Inc.” instead of “Time, Incorporated.”
In short, I would not construe this amendment as one “changing the party” against whom petitioners’ claims are asserted. Although the words “Time, Incorporated” were first added to the complaints by the amendment, that entity cannot, in my judgment, fairly be described as a party “brought in by amendment” within the meaning of
III
Even if I agreed that the change in designation from “Fortune” to “Fortune also known as Time, Incorporated” brought in a new party, and even if I were willing to disregard the undisputed evidence of the Time, Incorporated agent‘s contemporaneous understanding of the unadorned “Fortune” designation, I would still find the majority‘s “plain language” analysis unpersuasive.
The heart of the majority‘s analysis is that petitioners failed to satisfy the fourth factor of the test it discerns in
This construction is confirmed by a reference to the content of the notice requirement—what the majority labels the second prong of the four-part test. Ante, at 29. The Rule requires that the party affected by the amendment must have “received such notice of the institution of the action that he will not be prejudiced in maintaining his defense on the merits.” This language surely indicates that if the notice that the defendant actually receives is just as timely and just as informative as that which would have been received if no mistake had occurred, the purpose of the requirement has been satisfied. In this case, Time, Incorporated would have known nothing different on May 23, 1983, if the complaints sent to its agent referred to “Fortune, also known as Time, Incorporated” than it knew from the complaints as sent, with their reference to “Fortune.” Respondent has not even contended otherwise. Yet, for the Court, the first complaints would have been completely timely, and the second are completely barred.
IV
That the majority‘s reading of the “plain language” leads to bizarre results is not altogether surprising. For the majority, relying so heavily on what it views as the clarity of the language before it, ignores the mission and history of
The principal purpose of
Prior to 1966,
V
The Court does not tell us whether it would enforce an equally harsh construction of the Rule if the scrivener‘s error
The Court recognizes that “there is an element of arbitrariness here,” ante, at 31, but finds solace in the fact that arbitrariness is no stranger to the law. Ibid. The Court is, of course, correct that arbitrariness sometimes arises from the application of rules and laws to the complexity of human experience. Far less understandable is the Court‘s willingness to aggravate, rather than alleviate, that arbitrariness, particularly when the decision to do so is demonstrably at odds with the language, purpose, and history of the Rule.
I respectfully dissent.