Amended Complaint Can Sue Cops in Individual Capacity
A complaint in a police brutality suit did not specify the capacity in which the defendants were sued. A later amended complaint that specified their individual capacities related back to the time of the original complaint. This may not have been a change in parties, but even if it was, the standards of Rule 15(c), Fed.R.Civ.P., are met. Since the original complaint could not have supported a finding of official capacity liability, the failure to specify individual capacity was a mistake and the defendants knew or should have known that but for this mistake they would be sued individually. See: Brown v. Shaner, 172 F.3d 927 (6th Cir. 1999).
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