Philadelphia criminal defense attorney Brian Zeiger, founding partner of The Zeiger Firm, has authored an article that appears in the most current volume of the Texas Journal on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights. The article examines a circuit court split on the interpretation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15, that sometimes operates to deny some plaintiffs the opportunity to bring § 1983 actions against police departments and their officers. In his article, Zeiger advocates for an amendment to the “relation back” doctrine which would allow plaintiffs to amend a complaint to include names of officers that were unknown at the time the complaint was filed, even if the statute of limitations has run.
