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Woods v. World Truck Transfer12/3/1999
This appeal involves a personal injury action that was dismissed because the Clerk of the Circuit Court for Davidson County refused to accept and file a summons that had not been prepared on an original form provided by the clerk. By the time the plaintiff provided another summons acceptable to the clerk, the time for filing the complaint and the summons had elapsed. Accordingly, on motion of one of the defendants, the Circuit Court for Davidson County dismissed the personal injury claim because it was time-barred. We have determined that the clerk's office exceeded its authority when it declined to accept and file the summons and, therefore, that the trial court erred by dismissing the complaint. Accordingly, we vacate the order dismissing the personal injury claims and remand the case for further proceedings.
I.
Mina Woods was traveling on Interstate 65 in Nashville when her automobile was struck by a tractor trailer truck. The force of the collision drove Ms. Woods's automobile into a concrete median. After striking the median, Ms. Woods's automobile ricocheted back into the path of another oncoming tractor trailer truck and then careened over a grassy embankment. Ms. Woods was seriously injured, and her automobile was substantially damaged.
On February 1, 1993, Ms. Woods and her husband filed suit in the Circuit Court for Davidson County against World Truck Transfer, Inc., the owner of the truck that first struck her automobile, and Edward Seigham, the driver of the truck. Ms. Woods had difficulty serving World Truck Transfer and Mr. Seigham because they were Ohio residents. The original process to World Truck Transfer was returned unserved on February 23, 1993, marked "forwarding order expired." Likewise, the original process to Mr. Seigham was returned unserved on March 25, 1993, marked "unclaimed." Alias process issued on Mr. Seigman was also returned unserved in August 1993, marked "moved."
Ms. Woods and her husband undertook to save their personal injury claims from untimeliness by recommencing their action against both World Truck Transfer and Mr. Seigham pursuant to Tenn. R. Civ. P. 3. Accordingly, their lawyer, who practices in Memphis, mailed a new complaint and summons to the trial court clerk. The clerk received the suit papers on January 27, 1994. While the clerk's office filed the new complaint on January 27, 1994, it declined to accept or file the summonses accompanying the complaint because they were prepared on photocopies of the original printed summons form used by the circuit courts in Davidson County. In a telephone conversation, the chief deputy clerk requested Ms. Woods's lawyer to provide new summonses on original forms and agreed to mail these forms to Memphis. The lawyer prepared new summonses, and they were received by the trial court clerk on February 18, 1994.
As with the original suit, the process in the second case was initially returned unserved. The process issued to Mr. Seigham was returned on March 11, 1994, marked "moved, not forwardable," and the original process to World Truck Transfer was returned marked "forwarding order expired." Stymied by their continuing inability to effect service through the Secretary of State, Ms. Woods and her husband placed alias summonses in the hands of a private process server in Ohio who was eventually able to locate and serve World Truck Transfer on June 7, 1994. All efforts to serve Mr. Seigham proved unsuccessful.
World Truck Transfer promptly moved for a partial summary judgment on the ground that the second complaint was untimely under the statute of limitations in Tenn. Code Ann. ยง 28-3-104(a)(1) (Supp. 1999). World Truck Transfer argued that Ms. Woods
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