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Greczyn v. Colgate-Palmolive3/21/2005
Argued January 3, 2005
On this appeal, we address the interplay of the statute of repose protecting designers and builders, N.J.S.A. 2A:14-1.1, and the rule governing our fictitious-party practice. R. 4:26-4. The case arose when plaintiff was injured on a staircase in a building approximately nine years after its completion. One month prior to the expiration of the ten-year statute of repose, plaintiff filed suit against the building's owner and several fictitious defendants, identified as the designers and builders of the staircase. A year after the expiration of the ten-year period, plaintiff amended her complaint, substituting the name of the designer of the staircase for one of the fictitious defendants. The designer moved for summary judgment, which the trial court granted and the Appellate Division affirmed. We granted plaintiff's petition for certification and now reverse.
We hold that, when plaintiff's injury and the filing of her lawsuit occur within the period of repose, utilization of our fictitious-party practice allows a previously unknown, although functionally identified, designer or builder to be named after the expiration of the period of repose, so long as plaintiff has acted diligently.
I.
The essential facts in the case are not in dispute. Plaintiff, Wendy Greczyn tripped and fell on a staircase in the Colgate-Palmolive office center in Piscataway on March 11, 1999. On October 3, 2000, Greczyn filed suit to recover damages for personal injuries allegedly arising from that fall. She joined her employer, Colgate-Palmolive, solely for the purposes of discovery and named as additional defendants John Does, one through twenty, and ABC Corps., one through twenty. Greczyn described fictitious defendants eleven through fifteen as the designers of the staircase on which she fell, and then, during discovery, learned that Kling Lindquist was the designer involved in the renovation and construction of that staircase. Kling Lindquist substantially completed its work on the staircase in November 1990, nearly ten years prior to Greczyn's initial complaint. In October 2001, a trial judge granted Greczyn's motion to amend her complaint, substituting Kling Lindquist for a fictitious defendant. Greczyn filed an amended complaint in December 2001, explicitly naming Kling Lindquist in the suit for the first time.
In March 2003, a different trial judge granted Kling Lindquist's motion for summary judgment based on the ten-year statute of repose found in N.J.S.A. 2A:14-1.1.
The Appellate Division affirmed, relying on the distinction between a statute of limitations and a statute of repose. Acknowledging the considerations undergirding fictitious-party practice, the court nevertheless concluded that a statute of repose does not permit "relation back" under fictitious party practice because relation back "would result in the complete evisceration of the period of repose the Legislature intended to confer." Greczyn v. Colgate Palmolive, 367 N.J. Super. 385, 393 (App. Div. 2004). Moreover, the court concluded that because a statute of repose is substantive, it cannot be tolled under equitable principles. Id. at 394. This petition for certification ensued. 180 N.J. 453.
II.
The parties reiterate the arguments they advanced before the Appellate Division. Greczyn contends that both the accident and the original lawsuit occurred within the ten-year statute of repose and that that is all that is required. She argues that the occurrence of the injury and the filing of suit within the ten-year period is what distinguishes this case from the cases cited by Kling Lindquist and the Appellate Division. She further argues that
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