Baldwin v. Wilkie

Citations: 635 S.E.2d 431; 179 N.C. App. 567; 2006 N.C. App. LEXIS 1977Docket: No. COA05-1503.

Court: Court of Appeals of North Carolina; September 19, 2006; North Carolina; State Appellate Court

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Under North Carolina General Statutes Section 1-82, a legal action must be tried in the county where the plaintiffs or defendants reside at its commencement. In this case, the Defendants claimed that venue in Wake County was improper since none of the original parties resided there. However, after amending the complaint to include Plaintiffs who were residents of Wake County, the trial court denied the Defendants’ motion to change venue. The Plaintiffs initially filed a complaint on December 17, 2004, with no original party being a Wake County resident. Subsequent amendments added new Plaintiffs, including residents of Wake County, which influenced the venue decision. The Defendants' appeal, arguing that Chatham County was the proper venue, was rejected. Section 1-83 allows for a change of venue if the designated county is improper, but the trial court has no discretion to deny such a request if made appropriately. The statute specifies that the proper venue is determined at the commencement of the action, defined as the filing date of the complaint. The trial court's denial of the motion to change venue was upheld.

The action commenced on December 17, 2004, with the original complaint filed, which did not identify any parties as residents of Wake County, rendering venue there improper under N.C. Gen. Stat. 1-82. The plaintiffs subsequently filed an amended complaint, as permitted before any responsive pleadings, adding the Churches as plaintiffs and claiming they resided in Wake County, thus aiming to establish proper venue. The plaintiffs referenced Rule 15(c) of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure, arguing that the addition of a Wake County resident allows the amended complaint to relate back to the original complaint's filing date. Rule 15(c) states that an amended claim is considered to have been filed at the time of the original if it pertains to the same transactions or occurrences.

The plaintiffs cited Oak Manor, Inc. v. Neil Realty Co., which supported their argument that such amendments could relate back for venue purposes. In that case, the court upheld venue in Wake County after a plaintiff added defendants, one of whom was a Wake County resident, before responsive pleadings were filed. However, the Supreme Court’s decision in Crossman v. Moore clarified that Rule 15(c) does not apply to the addition of new party-defendants, prompting scrutiny on whether it applies to additional plaintiffs. The Crossman decision indicated that North Carolina's Rule 15 is based on New York law, which allows for the relation back of claims asserted by new plaintiffs to the original filing. The New York case Key Int'l Mfg. Inc. v. Morse/Diesel, Inc. further supported this principle by ruling that claims of a new party plaintiff could be deemed interposed as of the original plaintiff's filing date if they are asserting similar or identical claims.

The court clarified that the rule allowing a newly joined plaintiff's claim to relate back to an earlier claim is limited to specific circumstances: 1) the claims of the new plaintiff must be virtually identical to those of the existing plaintiff; 2) the ad damnum clause in the amended complaint must match that of the original; and 3) there must be a close relationship between the new and original plaintiffs. In this case, the claims of the newly joined plaintiffs, referred to as the Churches, are virtually identical to those of the original plaintiffs, as both groups experienced injuries during the same week and at the same location. Consequently, the Churches' claim is treated as if it were filed at the same time as the original complaint for venue purposes, establishing that venue is proper in Wake County since the Churches reside there. The court affirmed the trial court's decision to deny the defendant's motion to change venue. Although the order is interlocutory and does not resolve the case, it is immediately appealable because it affects a substantial right related to the proper venue. An erroneous denial of a motion to change venue could cause irreparable harm that cannot be rectified after the final judgment.