Amparan v. Lake Powell Car Rental Cos.

• Citation: 882 F.3d 943
• Decision Date: 13 February 2018
• Docket Number: No. 17-2094,17-2094
• Parties: Edmundo AMPARAN; Kimberly L. Amparan, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. LAKE POWELL CAR RENTAL COMPANIES, Defendant-Appellee, and Mevlut Berkay Demir; Denizcan Karadeniz; PV Holding Corporation, a Delaware corporation, Defendants.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (10th Circuit)

882 F.3d 943

Edmundo AMPARAN; Kimberly L. Amparan, Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v. LAKE POWELL CAR RENTAL COMPANIES, Defendant-Appellee,andMevlut Berkay Demir; Denizcan Karadeniz; PV Holding Corporation, a Delaware corporation, Defendants.

No. 17-2094

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

Filed February 13, 2018

Thomas C. Bird (Kurt Wihl with him on the briefs), Keleher & McLeod, P.A., Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Robert F. Gentile (Jonathan A. Garcia with him on the brief), Guebert Bruckner P.C., Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before BACHARACH, MURPHY, and McHUGH, Circuit Judges.

McHUGH, Circuit Judge.

Edmundo Amparan and Kimberly L. Amparan (the "Amparans") appeal from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Lake Powell Car Rental Companies ("Lake Powell") on the Amparans' claims for negligent entrustment and loss of consortium. The claims arose from a vehicle accident involving a motorcycle operated by Mr. Amparan and a Ford Mustang rented by Lake Powell to Denizcan Karadeniz and operated by Mevlut Berkay Demir. Mr. Karadeniz and Mr. Demir are both Turkish nationals who were under the age of twenty-five at the time of the accident. Because the Amparans failed to come forward with evidence from which the jury could find an essential element of their claim for negligent entrustment, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual History

On July 14, 2014, a group of Turkish nationals, including Mr. Karadeniz, visited Lake Powell to rent two vehicles. Mr. Karadeniz produced a valid Turkish driver's license and a valid credit card. Mert Tacir, another member of the group, produced a valid Turkish driver's license. The owner and operator of Lake Powell, Paul Williams, asked the remaining individuals in the group if they possessed valid driver's licenses. Mr. Demir responded that he possessed a valid driver's license. At the time of the rental, Mr. Karadeniz, Mr. Tacir, and Mr. Demir were all twenty-one years old.

Although Mr. Williams recognized that Mr. Karadeniz and Mr. Tacir were under the age of twenty-five, he nonetheless agreed to rent a Dodge Caravan and a Ford Mustang to Mr. Karadeniz and to permit Mr. Tacir to be an additional authorized driver for the Ford Mustang. None of the other members of the group, including Mr. Demir, completed an "Additional Driver Application/Agreement."¹ Evidence in the record supports the conclusion that Mr. Williams's decision to rent two vehicles to an individual under the age of twenty-five and to permit an additional driver under the age of twenty-five violated internal policies propagated by Lake Powell's licensor, Avis Rent A Car Systems, LLC ("Avis").² The Amparans further contend that Lake Powell's rental and entrustment of the vehicles to individuals under twenty-five ran contrary to age-based restrictions employed by other companies in the car rental business.

During the course of the rental, Mr. Demir operated the Ford Mustang. Mr. Demir, unfamiliar with the traffic rules governing left turns at intersections, turned left on a standard green light without yielding to oncoming traffic. Mr. Amparan, traveling in the oncoming direction, unsuccessfully attempted to swerve to avoid hitting the turning vehicle operated by Mr. Demir and the two vehicles collided. As a result of the collision, Mr. Amparan alleges he suffered multiple broken bones, a punctured lung, and various other injuries.

B. Procedural History

The Amparans commenced this action by filing a complaint in New Mexico state court, naming Mr. Demir, Mr. Karadeniz, and Avis as defendants. Avis removed the action to federal court. After an initial round of discovery, the district court granted the Amparans leave to amend their complaint and the Amparans added Lake Powell as a defendant.³ Relevant to this appeal, the amended complaint raised claims against Lake Powell for negligent entrustment and loss of consortium.⁴

Lake Powell moved for summary judgment. Relative to the negligent entrustment claim, Lake Powell argued, in part, that, even if it implicitly entrusted the Ford Mustang to Mr. Demir, it neither knew nor should have known that Mr. Demir was likely to operate the Ford Mustang in such a manner as to create an unreasonable risk of harm to others. Subsequent to Lake Powell's motion for summary judgment, the Amparans filed a notice of testifying expert, identifying James S. Tennant as an expert on both the risk posed by young drivers and standards of care in the car rental industry. The Amparans also contested Lake Powell's motion for summary judgment, arguing in part that Lake Powell's violation of internal policies regarding renting to, or approving as additional drivers, individuals under twenty-five constituted sufficient evidence to permit the finding that Lake Powell knew or should have known that Mr. Demir was likely to operate the Ford Mustang in such a manner as to create an unreasonable risk of harm to others. Through separate motions, Lake Powell sought to strike Mr. Tennant's expert report and to strike all or part of the Amparans' response to the motion for summary judgment.

The district court commenced its summary judgment order by providing "constructive criticism" to counsel for the Amparans concerning their failure to conform responsive filings to the local rules and to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c). Although the district court indicated it would not consider factual assertions in the Amparans' response to summary judgment that did not comply with District of New Mexico Local Rule of Civil Procedure 56.1(b) and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c)(1)(A), the district court denied Lake Powell's motions to strike as moot. The district court deemed the motions to strike moot based on its conclusion that the Amparans' evidence regarding Lake Powell's alleged violation of internal policies was insufficient, on its own, to permit a reasonable jury to conclude that Lake Powell knew or should have known that Mr. Demir was likely to operate the Ford Mustang in such a manner as to create an unreasonable risk of harm to others. And while the district court found that there were disputes of fact with respect to whether Lake Powell entrusted the Ford Mustang to Mr. Demir and whether Lake Powell violated any internal policies, the district court concluded that these genuine disputes of fact were not material because resolution of the disputes in favor of the Amparans did not alter the summary judgment calculus. Finally, the district court concluded that because the Amparans' substantive tort claims failed, the derivative loss of consortium claim also failed.

On appeal, the Amparans argue that the district court failed to perform a proper analysis under Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins , 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938), in that a New Mexico court would view evidence of a violation of internal policies, which are also allegedly industry standards, sufficient to advance a claim for negligent entrustment. In support of this argument, the Amparans primarily rely on Grassie v. Roswell Hospital Corp. , 150 N.M. 283, 258 P.3d 1075 (Ct. App. 2010), and the expert report of Mr. Tennant. Separately, the Amparans urge us to address the merits of Lake Powell's motions to strike.⁵

II. DISCUSSION

Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Lake Powell on the Amparans' claims for negligent entrustment and loss of consortium. Further, because the district court denied Lake Powell's motions to strike such that all materials remain in the record for our consideration on appeal and because we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment, we find it unnecessary to analyze the merits of Lake Powell's motions to strike.

A. Standard of Review

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Universal Underwriters Ins. Co. v. Winton , 818 F.3d 1103, 1105 (10th Cir. 2016). Summary judgment is appropriate "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). "[T]he substantive law will identify which facts are material. Only disputes over facts that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law will properly preclude the entry of summary judgment. Factual disputes that are irrelevant or unnecessary will not be counted." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. , 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). On appeal, "[w]e examine the record and all reasonable inferences that might be drawn from it in the light most favorable to the non-moving party." Berry & Murphy, P.C. v. Carolina Cas. Ins. Co. , 586 F.3d 803, 808 (10th Cir. 2009). In so doing, we "need not defer to factual findings rendered by the district court." CareFirst of Md., Inc. v. First Care, P.C. , 434 F.3d 263, 267 (4th Cir. 2006) (citing Seamons v. Snow , 206 F.3d 1021, 1026 (10th Cir. 2000) ).

B. Summary Judgment Analysis

This appeal turns on the straightforward question of whether the Amparans advanced sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable jury to conclude that they established every element of a claim for negligent entrustment. Under Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins , "federal courts sitting in diversity apply state substantive law and federal procedural law." Gasperini v. Ctr. for Humanities, Inc. , 518 U.S. 415, 427, 116 S.Ct. 2211, 135 L.Ed.2d 659 (1996). "When the federal courts are called upon to interpret state law, the federal court must look to rulings of the highest state court, and, if no such rulings exist, must endeavor to predict how that high court would rule." Stickley v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. , 505 F.3d 1070, 1077 (10th Cir. 2007). Where a state's highest court has not addressed an issue of law, a starting point for conducting an Erie analysis is the decisions of the state's intermediate court of appeals and those decisions are "not to be disregarded by...