finding that the amended complaint related back to the timely filed original complaint because it directed attention to facts concerning the reading of sonograms and X-rays
How later courts described this case
- finding that the amended complaint related back to the timely filed original complaint because it directed attention to facts concerning the reading of sonograms and X-rays
- reviewing de novo whether the trial court properly granted summary judgment on the basis that the amended complaint did not relate back to the timely filed original complaint
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JUSTICE COOK, specially concurring:
I concur.
The right to amend does not depend on whether the cause of action is substantially similar to that set out in the original pleading; the true inquiry is whether plaintiff is “ ‘ “attempting to slip in an entirely distinct claim in violation of the spirit of the limitations act.” ’ ” Steinberg v. Dunseth, 276 Ill. App. 3d 1038, 1044 , 658 N.E.2d 1239, 1245 (1995), quoting Sompolski v. Miller, 239 Ill. App. 3d 1087, 1091 , 608 N.E.2d 54, 57 (1992), quoting Simmons, 32 Ill. 2d at 497, 207 N.E.2d at 444 (which in turn quotes O. McCaskill, Illinois Civil Practice Act Annot., at 126-27 (Supp. 1936)). There has been a shift in focus from the identity of the cause of action to the identity of the occurrence or transaction. Zeh, 111 Ill. 2d at 279, 489 N.E.2d at 1348. This transactional approach is also employed in the modern res judicata cases: assertions of different theories of relief arising out of a single group of operative facts will not avoid the bar of res judicata. River Park, Inc. v. City of Highland Park, 184 Ill. 2d 290, 309-11 , 703 N.E.2d 883, 892-93 (1998); cf. Yette, 263 Ill. App. 3d at 425-26, 635 N.E.2d at 1093-94 (amendment denied, where it would have changed theory from failure to remove ice to one of unnatural accumulation).