## Facts

- John Bonerb was a rehabilitation patient at a drug and alcohol treatment facility operated by the Richard J. Caron Foundation in Westfield, Pennsylvania.
- As part of treatment, Bonerb participated in a mandatory exercise program that included playing basketball on the facility’s court.
- On November 29, 1991, Bonerb allegedly slipped and fell on the basketball court and suffered personal injuries.
- On October 1, 1993, Bonerb filed a negligence complaint alleging the facility negligently maintained the basketball court.
- On July 25, 1994, the court permitted substitution of new counsel for Bonerb.
- On September 1, 1994, after investigating, new counsel moved to amend the complaint to add a counseling-malpractice claim tied to the rehabilitation program and the mandatory exercise requirement.
- The Foundation opposed amendment, arguing the malpractice theory was barred by Pennsylvania’s two-year limitations period and did not relate back to the original pleading.

## Issues

1. Whether an amendment adding a counseling-malpractice cause of action after the limitations period expired relates back under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c) to a timely negligence complaint based on the same injury and treatment episode.
2. Whether leave to amend should be denied as futile or prejudicial when the new claim would be time-barred unless relation back applies.

## Decision

- The court granted leave to amend.
- The court held the counseling-malpractice claim related back under Rule 15(c) because it arose from the same conduct, transaction, or occurrence described in the original complaint: the plaintiff’s participation in the facility’s mandatory exercise program and resulting injury on November 29, 1991.
- The court found no undue prejudice, undue delay, or bad faith sufficient to overcome Rule 15(a)’s liberal amendment standard.
- Because the amendment related back, it was not rejected as futile on statute-of-limitations grounds.

## Legal Principles

- Leave to amend under Rule 15(a) should be freely given when justice so requires, absent undue prejudice, undue delay, bad faith, or futility.
- An otherwise time-barred claim may be added only if it relates back under Rule 15(c).
- Relation back under Rule 15(c) turns on whether the new claim arises from the same conduct, transaction, or occurrence set out in the original pleading.
- The relation-back inquiry focuses on the original pleading’s “operative facts” and whether those facts gave the defendant fair notice of the general factual basis for the later-added claim.
- A change in legal theory (e.g., from premises negligence to counseling malpractice) does not defeat relation back when the amended claim rests on the same factual episode identified at the outset.

## Conclusion

The court permitted the plaintiff to amend his complaint to add a counseling-malpractice theory because the amendment concerned the same rehabilitative episode and injury already pleaded, giving the defendant adequate notice; the claim therefore related back under Rule 15(c) and was not barred by limitations.


Bonerb v. Richard J. Caron Found., 159 F.R.D. 16 (W.D.N.Y. 1994)