The question in this case is whether claims asserted in an untimely amended pleading relate back to a timely original pleading that was filed but never served.
In this case, an arbitrator found that plaintiff, a Buffalo police officer, was guilty of certain disciplinary charges and recommended her dismissal; the City subsequently terminated plaintiff’s employment. With the aid of counsel, plaintiff then filed but did not serve a complaint asserting claims against defendants the City and the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association (PBA). Plaintiff’s counsel later withdrew, and plaintiff filed and served a pro se amended complaint, asserting the same four claims against defendants and adding a new fifth claim. Defendants moved pursuant to CPLR 3211(a) to dismiss the amended complaint as time-barred and for failure to state a cause of action; plaintiff moved pursuant to CPLR 306-b for an order extending her time to serve the original complaint.
Supreme Court denied plaintiff’s CPLR 306-b motion and sua sponte dismissed the original complaint; the court also granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the amended complaint, finding in relevant part that the first two causes of action were untimely.
The Fourth Department affirmed in a 3-2 decision. The majority held that the trial court permissibly exercised its discretion in denying the motion to extend plaintiff’s time to serve her original complaint. As to timeliness, the court held that the first two causes of action in plaintiff’s amended complaint did not relate back to the original complaint because the earlier pleading was never served. The court noted that “the ‘linchpin’ of the relation back doctrine is notice to the defendant within the applicable limitations period,” and concluded that the absence of service meant that no such notice was provided in this case. While the trial court erred in dismissing the original complaint sua sponte, the court held that this error was harmless in light of the court’s decision to affirm dismissal of the amended complaint.
The dissenters would not have excused the trial court’s error in dismissing the original complaint. That erroneous dismissal was critical, the dissenters concluded, because the claims in the amended complaint related back to the original complaint. For the dissenters, the relation-back doctrine did not turn on whether the original complaint was served, but rather turned on whether that pleading was properly interposed. And a pleading is interposed, they noted, when it is filed, not when it is served.
Plaintiff appealed to the Court of Appeals as a matter of right.
Return to the case page for Vanyo v. Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, Inc.