CRONE, J.
The Raisors assert that the trial court misconstrued the trial rule governing amendments to a complaint. The parties agree that the Raisors’ cause of action is a personal injury claim subject to a two-year statute of limitations. Ind. Code § 34-11-2-4. The crux of their dispute concerns how the statute of limitations works together with Indiana Trial Rule 15(C), which governs the timing of amendments made to a complaint in order to substitute a party.
Here, the alleged assault occurred on March 17, 2008, and the Raisors filed their complaint against “FQC Group, Inc. d/b/a Fireman’s Raceway Pub” on October 20, 2009. As such, they initiated their action within the applicable two-year statute of limitations. However, FQC never did business as Fireman’s Raceway Pub (“Fireman’s”). Instead, Jimmie’s was the true owner of Fireman’s. Thus, the Raisors’ complaint misidentified the pub’s true owner.
“[T]he onus of bringing suit against the proper party within the statute of limitation is upon the claimant.” Rieth-Riley Const. Co. v. Gibson, 923 N.E.2d 472, 478 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010). As such, it was necessary for the Raisors to amend the complaint to substitute the true pub owner as a defendant. However, they did not officially do so until forty-two days after the two-year limitations period had expired.
As a general rule, a new defendant to a claim must be added prior to the running of the statute of limitations; however, Trial Rule 15(C) provides an exception to that rule by allowing the amendment to relate back to the date of the original complaint under certain circumstances. Crossroads Serv. Ctr., Inc. v. Coley, 842 N.E.2d 822, 825 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005), trans. denied (2006). Where no more than 120 days have elapsed since the filing of the original complaint and (1) where the claim arises out of the same conduct; (2) the substituted defendant has notice such that he is not prejudiced by the amendment; and (3) the substituted defendant knows or should know that but for the misidentification, the action should have been brought against him, then the amended complaint relates back to the date of the original complaint. Ind. Trial Rule 15(C). The party who seeks the benefit of the relation back doctrine bears the burden of proving that the conditions of Trial Rule 15(C) are met. Coley, 842 N.E.2d at 825.
First, we note that neither party disputes that the claim arose out of the same conduct, namely, the alleged assault by the underage patron, and that the issue is whether the pub owner is liable for such conduct. Likewise, the parties agree that Jimmie’s knew or should have known, prior to the running of the statute of limitations, that but for a mistake concerning the identity of the proper party, the action would have been brought against it. When the Raisors’ default letter was delivered to the pub, it was readily apparent to Jimmie’s president Childs that FQC had been misidentified as the defendant pub owner. Immediately thereafter, he sought and obtained a copy of the original complaint and notified FQC of the mistake. Thus, the key issue is not Jimmie’s knowledge that a misidentification had occurred, but rather the timing of Jimmie’s knowledge of the lawsuit.
The Raisors assert that Jimmie’s received notice as required under Trial Rule 15(C). The purpose behind the notice requirement is to ensure that the defendant will not be prejudiced in maintaining its defense on the merits. Porter County Sheriff Dep’t v. Guzorek, 857 N.E.2d 363, 370 (Ind. 2006). “[D]emonstrating prejudice requires the party seeking dismissal of the amended complaint to show that it was unfairly denied the opportunity to present facts or evidence which it would have presented had the amendments been timely.” Id. (citation and quotation marks omitted).
[R]elation back is meaningful only if the statute of limitations had run before the new party was added. If loss of a limitations defense were sufficient to establish prejudice, Trial Rule 15(C)’s explicit extension of the statutory period would serve no purpose. No amendment changing the party after the statute of limitations had expired could ever relate back because the added defendant would always be able to claim prejudice.
Id. at 370-71.
Here, the 120-day period from the date of the original complaint extended to February 17, 2010. At that time, Jimmie’s had no notice of the Raisors’ legal action filed against Carter and FQC. What makes this case unique, however, is that when the 120-day period contained in the rule expired on February 17, 2010, the two-year limitations period for this personal injury action had not yet expired. It would not expire until March 17, 2010, and it was in the interim that Jimmie’s became aware that the Raisors had mistakenly named FQC as a party defendant instead of Jimmie’s. Because Jimmie’s gained actual knowledge of the lawsuit on February 26, 2010, three weeks before the two-year statute of limitations expired, it is difficult to see how its defenses were prejudiced at that time.
Interestingly, Jimmie’s discovered the existence of the lawsuit before FQC was even aware that it had been sued, and it was Jimmie’s that forwarded a copy of the complaint to FQC. On March 3, 2010, immediately after FQC learned that it had been wrongly identified as the pub owner, FQC filed a motion for extension of time to answer the complaint. Meanwhile, the statute of limitations had expired on March 17, 2010, and the Raisors were still unaware of the mistake because FQC’s motion had neither listed its defense of non-ownership nor identified Jimmie’s as the pub’s true owner. As a result, the Raisors were the last of the parties to discover the mistake, since it was not until March 26, 2010, when FQC filed its motion to dismiss, that Jimmie’s was identified as the pub’s true owner.
On April 16, 2010, the Raisors filed a motion for leave to file an amended complaint to replace FQC with Jimmie’s as a party defendant. The trial court granted their motion even though the statute of limitations had expired. When the Raisors filed their amended complaint against Jimmie’s on April 28, 2010, the statute of limitations had been expired for forty-two days. Thus, while the amended complaint was not filed until the expiration of both periods, the Trial Rule 15(C) notice requirements were met within the two-year statute of limitations but outside the 120-day period listed within the rule.
When determining how the 120-day time limit interacts with the statute of limitations, it is helpful to examine Indiana Trial Rule 15(C) in conjunction with its federal counterpart. Rule 15(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure contains language nearly identical to Indiana’s rule regarding the requirements of same conduct, non-prejudicial notice of the action, and knowledge that but for a mistake, the action would have been brought against the new party defendant. The federal rule does not include the 120-day limiting language; rather, it cites to the deadline mentioned in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(m) for service of the summons and complaint, which is 120 days after the filing of the complaint.
Indiana’s trial rules do not contain this additional rule regarding service of the summons and complaint, yet it appears that the 2002 amendments to our Trial Rule 15(C) somehow intended to parallel Federal Rule 4(m)’s time limit for service. Before it was revised in 2002, Trial Rule 15(C) “allowed relation back if the requirements were met within the period provided by law for commencing the action against him.” Coley, 842 N.E.2d at 824 n.2 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
This Court’s decision in Coley also provides helpful guidance. In that case, the plaintiffs filed an action against the wrong party defendant, whom they believed was the true owner of the truck stop where Mr. Coley was injured. As in the present case, the Coleys’ personal injury action was subject to a two-year statute of limitations. They filed their original action three days before the two-year limitations period expired, but they misidentified the defendant truck stop owner. A couple months later, during a telephone conference with the purported truck stop owner, they learned that they had sued the wrong defendant property owner and sought to file an amended complaint under Trial Rule 15(C). The trial court granted the Coleys’ request to utilize the relation back doctrine in Trial Rule 15(C) to file an amended complaint 137 days after the date of their original complaint, and this Court reversed. We find Coley to be distinguishable from the present case, however, because there, the plaintiffs failed to present any evidence to indicate that the true owner of the truck stop was placed on the required notice of the misidentification until after the two-year statute of limitations had expired. Thus, they did not establish that the requirements of Trial Rule 15(C) were met at any time during the limitations period. In contrast, here, Jimmie’s gained actual notice of the misidentification of the pub owner before the two-year limitations period expired. Thus, in Coley, the statute of limitations had expired before the Trial Rule 15(C) requirements were met, and the 120-day limit for relation back had expired before the plaintiffs filed their amended complaint. Here, there were three weeks remaining in the two-year limitations period when the trial rule’s notice requirements were met.
We agree with the Coley Court, when it noted that the 2002 revision to Trial Rule 15(C) “gives a party attempting to have their amended complaint relate back to their original complaint an additional 120 days in which to give notice of the institution of the action.” Coley, 842 N.E.2d at 824 n.2 (emphasis added). Practically speaking, this revision would allow a plaintiff who waits to file his complaint on the last possible day within the two-year limitations period to have 120 days after the expiration date to substitute a proper party defendant. In this case, Jimmie’s gained actual knowledge of the Raisors’ mistake on February 26, 2010. If the Raisors had waited until March 17, 2010, the last day to file their original complaint against FQC, then they would have had an additional 120 days from that date, July 15, 2010, to substitute Jimmie’s as a party defendant. The fact that the Raisors filed their original complaint earlier should not work to penalize them. We do not believe that the amended trial rule was designed to shorten the period of time that plaintiffs have to file their claims. See Guzorek, 857 N.E.2d at 368 (“the basic goal of the trial rules [is] to promote decisions on the merits”). [Footnote Omitted.] Otherwise, the relation back function would be rendered meaningless. Simply put, where the statute of limitations is still running, the 120-day limit found in Trial Rule 15(C) cannot be permitted to operate prematurely to bar the claim.
In sum, we conclude that where, before the statute of limitations expires, a substituted defendant gains knowledge of a lawsuit clearly intended to be filed against it, but erroneously filed against another defendant, the 120-day limitation to the relation back doctrine cannot operate to shorten the time period in which a plaintiff who utilizes the entire limitations period would be afforded to file an amended complaint under Trial Rule 15(C). In other words, assuming the requirements of Trial Rule 15(C) are otherwise met, the 120-day limit will be applied only to enlarge the applicable statute of limitations. In so holding, we do not intend to create an open-ended rule; rather, in keeping with fairness to the parties and the spirit of the trial rules, we conclude that, as long as Trial Rule 15(C)’s requirements are otherwise met within the statute of limitations, the last date to file an amended complaint would be 120 days after the statute of limitations has expired. Thus, because the statute of limitations had not expired when Jimmie’s discovered the Raisors’ misidentification of the pub owner defendant, Jimmie’s was not prejudiced by the trial court’s action in granting the Raisors leave to file their amended complaint. As such, we conclude that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of Jimmie’s.
KIRSCH, J., and BRADFORD, J., concur.