Aguirre

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs and appellants Jennie Aguirre, Glenn DiCaro, Judy Gilleland, Rosemary Islava, Aliyah Islava, Ruth Linnea Karmelich, and Olivia Santos (plaintiffs)1 named defendant and respondent John Larkin, as Co-Trustee of the Residual Trust of the Fred R. Rippy Trust and as Trustee of the QTIP Trust of the Fred R. Rippy Trust (Larkin), as a Doe defendant in a lawsuit concerning the alleged illegal storage and dumping of chemicals on real property once owned by the Fred R. Rippy Trust. The trial court sustained, without leave to amend, Larkin’s demurrer to the fourth amended complaint on statute of limitations grounds, ruling that the Doe amendment did not relate back under Code of Civil Procedure section 4742 to the original complaint’s filing date and that Larkin had been prejudiced by plaintiffs’ failure timely to serve him with a complaint. On appeal, plaintiffs contend that the trial court erred in ruling that their addition of Larkin through a Doe amendment did not relate back to the original complaint’s filing date; if the relation back doctrine did not apply, then they sufficiently alleged late discovery; and the trial court abused its discretion in denying them…