The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, despite the fact that 7 years had passed, held that an amended complaint related back to the original date of filing thus eliminating a statute of limitations defense. In Joseph v. Elan Motorsports Technologies, 638 F. 3d 555 (7th Cir. 2011) plaintiff filed suit for breach of contract. against Elan Motorsports Technologies Racing Corp. Plaintiff discovered that his contract was with Elan Motorsports Technologies, Inc. and sought leave to amend the complaint to change the defendant to that corporation with relation back to the date of the original complaint. The district judge ruled that the proposed amended complaint did not relate back.
The Court of Appeals pointed out that after the district court ruled on the motion to amend the original complaint , the Supreme Court decided Krupski v. Costa Crociere, 130 S. Ct. 2485, 177 L. Ed. 2d 48 (2010). Under Krupski the Court conducts a two-pronged analysis: whether defendant knew or should have known that plaintiff meant to sue it at the time of the original complaint and whether plaintiff’s delay in naming defendant impaired his ability to defend himself.
In applying Krupski the Seventh Circuit pointed out that both “Elan Corp.” and “Elan Inc.” are managed out of the same office and its operations are conducted from that office in Georgia. The complaint was served on the same person who supervised plaintiffs’ performance under his contract and the court concluded that as soon as he received the complaint he had to know that plaintiff meant to sue Elan Inc. rather than Elan Corp. In reversing the trial court the Court of Appeals said:
Elan Inc. knew, that Wardrop had sued the wrong entity. Elan Inc. sat on its haunches for almost six years while the litigation ground forward, and it would still be squatting on its haunches had Wardrop not finally woken up in 2009 and moved to substitute it as defendant. No prejudice accrued to Elan Inc. in the brief interval between the filing of Wardrop’s original complaint and the receipt of the complaint by the employee who had administered Wardrop’s contract. Elan Inc., if it had promptly disabused Wardrop of his mistake and he had amended his complaint forthwith, would have suffered no harm from delay in the amending of the complaint because there wouldn’t have been any delay. It brought on itself any harm it has suffered from delay, and can’t be allowed to gain an advantage from doing that. (561).