Susan Roberts v. Ron Michaels, D/B/A Mid-South Vending

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• granting leave to amend where plaintiff misnamed defendant-employer, but timely served the complaint on its president and general manager, such that the employer received actual notice of the suit
• describing as legal error district court’s “fail[ure] to consider the well-recognized distinction between a complaint that sues the wrong party, anda complaint that sues the right party by the wrong name.”
• allowing amended complaint that provided the correct name of the corporate defendant to relate back because the “misnomer principle is most obviously appropriate in cases where the plaintiff has sued a corporation but misnamed it”
• noting a defendant “ha[s] the right to be accurately named in the process and pleadings of the court” (quoting United States v. A.H. Fischer Lumber Co., 162 F.2d 872, 873–74 (4th Cir. 1947))
• addressing a “misnomer situation” in the context of Rule 4(m)’s service time limits
• plaintiff allowed to amend from “Midsouth Food Vending Service, Inc.” to “Ron Michaels d/b/a Mid-South Vending”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).