The Fourth Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined the plaintiff’s motion to amend the complaint after the statute of limitations had run to add parties under a “relation back” doctrine should not have been granted. The decision includes comprehensive discussions of the “unity of interest” component of the “relation back” doctrine which are too detailed to fairly summarize here:
“[T]he relation back doctrine allows a claim asserted against a defendant in an amended filing to relate back to claims previously asserted against a codefendant for [s]tatute of [l]imitations purposes where the two defendants are united in interest” … . Group, however, “was not a codefendant” when plaintiff moved for leave to amend the complaint because the court had already granted Group’s motion for summary judgment seeking dismissal of the complaint against it on the ground that it was a similarly named, but unrelated entity mistakenly sued by plaintiff that conducted a different business in a different state and never had any relationship to the subject plaza … .
.. [P]aintiff also failed to meet her burden of establishing that appellants were united in interest with Square. The record … indicates that appellants and Square are ” ‘separate and distinct business entities which have no jural relationship’ ” … , and plaintiff “failed to come forward with evidence that there is any type of interrelationship between them that would give rise to vicarious liability and entitle [her] to rely upon the relation back doctrine” … . Stepanian v Bed, Bath, & Beyond, Inc., 2022 NY Slip Op 04477, Fourth Dept 7-8-22
Practice Point: To add parties under the “relation back” doctrine, the parities must be “united in interest” with those named in the original complaint. This decision discusses the criteria for “united in interest” in some detail and is worth consulting on that issue.