Otto B. Kiehl and James H. Smith v. Barry D. Brown

After the reversal of the dismissal of the amended complaint which was ordered in Anderson v. Brown, 524 So.2d 457 (Fla. 3d
DCA 1988), review denied, 531 So.2d 1352 (Fla. 1988), two of the named plaintiffs, the appellants Kiehl and Smith, filed a
second amended complaint which alleged claims on additional grounds against three of the already named party defendants, the
appellees, Brown, Motluck and Nehleber. The trial judge dismissed these claims on statute of limitations grounds. We reverse. It seems clear to us that the so-called "additional claims" were fairly covered and referred to in the allegations by these
plaintiffs, among others, against these defendants, among others, which had been asserted in the admittedly-timely filed amended
complaint. Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.190 provides that an "amendment. . .relates back to the date of the original
pleading" whenever the claim contained in the amendment arises out of the "conduct, transaction or occurrence" attempted
to be set forth in the initial complaint. The latter condition is satisfied, in turn, if, as stated in Keel v. Brown, 162
So.2d 321, 323 (Fla. 2d DCA 1964), cert. denied, 166 So.2d 753 (Fla. 1964), in quoting from an earlier edition of Moore's,
the original pleading gives fair notice of the general fact situation out of which the claim or defense arises.