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Wagner v. Georgetown University Medical Center3/8/2001
distinct cause of action requiring proof of facts not contemplated by an action based merely on allegations of negligence," the allegations of general medical negligence in the original pleading "did not provide notice of the series of transactions or occurrences to be proved in a cause of action based on lack of informed consent." Id. at 233. Accord, Bigay v. Garvey, 575 N.W.2d 107, 110 (Minn. 1998); Keenan v. Yale New Haven Hospital, 355 A.2d 253, 254 (Conn. 1974). In contrast, the court in Neeriemer v. Superior Court of Maricopa County, 477 P.2d 746 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1970), held that an informed consent claim would relate back under the Arizona counterpart of Rule 15 (c)(2) to a claim of negligence in the performance of surgery. The court rejected the argument that the informed consent claim could not relate back because it required proof of additional acts not encompassed in the original claim:
This argument, in our opinion, takes too narrow a view of Rule 15 (c). Logically applied, it would prohibit relation back even where the plaintiff alleged an additional specific act of negligence during the operation itself, unless the newly alleged act was related to the previously alleged specific acts. But the general fact situation involving petitioner's claim against the respondent doctors did not spring into existence at the moment that petitioner was allegedly sutured improperly. Suturing was but one incident or part of a broader focal event - the surgical operation. Petitioner emphasizes the term "transaction'' and the entire physician-patient relationship, but in our view, the most reasonable reading of Rule 15 (c) makes the operation the critical "* * * occurrence * * * set forth in the original pleading." Id. at 749.
Considering the operation to be the "occurrence" set forth in the original pleading, the court found it more significant for purposes of relation back that the plaintiff "was not substantially wronged in the sense of his amended claim until he actually underwent the operation to which he now alleges he did not intelligently consent. In other words, the term `lack of informed consent' demands an object, or predicate: consent to what? The operation itself is an indispensable element of the wrong." Id. at 750. Accord, Wall v. Brim, 145 F.2d 492, 493 (5th Cir. 1944); Wagner v. Olmedo, 323 A.2d 603, 604-05 (Del. Super. Ct. 1974); Brown v. Wood, 202 So. 2d 125, 128-30 (Fla. App. 1967).
Although the question before us is an open one on which other courts have divided, the principles that guide our resolution of the question are settled. Relation back is designed to foster the resolution of disputes on their merits rather than on the basis of pleading technicalities, to the extent that resolution on the merits is consistent with the policies underlying statutes of limitations. Accordingly, in Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. District of Columbia, 441 A.2d 969 (D.C. 1982), this court held that under Rule 15 (c)(2) an "amended complaint relates back where `the initial complaint put the defendant on notice that a certain range of matters was in controversy and the amended complaint falls within that range.'" Id. at 972 (quoting Jackson v. Airways Parking Co., 297 F. Supp. 1366, 1382 (N.D. Ga. 1969)). Cases construing the identical federal rule from which our Rule 15 (c)(2) derives, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 15 (c)(2), confirm that the central inquiry is "to determine whether the adverse party, viewed as a reasonably prudent person, ought to have been able to anticipate or should have expected that the character of the originally pleaded claim might be altered or that other aspects of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set forth in the original pleading might be called in
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