A personal representative is not required to take notice of the pendency of an action or to defend against it until she is made a party thereto. Colorado National Bank of Denver v. Irvine, 105 Colo. 588, 101 P.2d 30 (1940). Not having been made a party, petitioner was not obliged to make an appearance at the hearing and she subsequently had no remedy by appeal of the judgment of the district court. Her only plain, speedy, and adequate remedy is by recourse to the original jurisdiction of this court.
Consequently, when a complaint is filed against a person already deceased, an amended complaint naming the estate or its representative relates back to the date of filing of the original complaint only if the estate had actual knowledge of the "institution of the action" within the limitations period. Defelice, 931 P.2d at 551-52; cf. Shepherd, 41 Colo.App. at 405, 591 P.2d at 1041 ("[A]lthough defendant may have known of the initiation of the action against the administrator of her husband's estate, there was no evidence that she received such notice that she would not be prejudiced in maintaining a defense against the new cause of action asserted against her."); Colo. Nat'l Bank v. Irvine, 105 Colo. 588, 590-91, 101 P.2d 30, 31 (1940) (personal representatives were not required to take notice or defend until they were made parties). Here, of course, no one disputes that the estate was not aware of the lawsuit within the applicable limitations period, as the estate was opened only after that period.
Basin relies on the decisions in Hoery v. United States, 64 P.3d 214 (Colo. 2003); ColoradoNational Bank v. Irvine, 105 Colo. 588, 101 P.2d 30 (1940); and Middelkamp v. Bessemer Irrigating Ditch Co., 46 Colo. 102, 103 P. 280 (1909). In those cases, the Colorado Supreme Court held that a plaintiff in an action for permanent injuries to land must recover all damages, past, present, and future, in one action.