Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

Yes, if you listed Doe Defendants in your original complaint, you can substitute Does for the newly named deendants. If you failed to list Does, you may be out of luck. You can sometimes file an Amended compalint if it has not been served yet, otherwise, you may need to file a motion to get the court's permisison to fiel an Amended complaint.

This is why people who are serious about winning their cases hire lawyers. Every lawyer in town names John Doe 1 through 10 as a defendant (see CCP � 484), and adds language to the complaint about how Plaintiff Is Ignorant of their true identities. When the true identity of John Doe is discovered, the plaintiff's lawyer then moves to amend the complaint to change John Doe #1 to XYZ Corp. or whatever. This way the complaint is still within the legal time limit even if you don't find out the real name for months or years. If you didn't name any John Does, and the statute of limitations expires before you find out their identities, then, Oops! You are SOL.

The other attorneys are correct about the use of Doe defendants. If you cannot use a Doe amendment, however, all is not lost (unless, as Mr. Stone points out, the statute of limitations has run). You do need a court order to amend once an answer is on file, but considering it will result in their client getting out of the case, the current defendant's counse should gladly stipulate to the order for amendment.