In a civil action, I believe the defendant has to be explicitly identified at some point.

If you don't know the identity of a defendant, you have to include the unknown defendant as a "John Doe", i think.

I am pretty sure that yesterday's dissmissal of NSF removes NSF from liability as to the current lawsuit.

Since the dismissal was apparently without prejudice, I suppose its possible that NSF could be added back in later.

But I have never heard of a defendant being dismissed and then added back in later.