Amore ex rel. Brum of Amore v. Accor

• Decision Date: 10 January 2008
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 06-0198 (RMU).
• Citation: 529 F.Supp.2d 85
• Parties: Rollin AMORE, as co-administrator of the ESTATES OF Susanne AMORE and Salvatore Michael Amore, deceased, Plaintiff, v. ACCOR NORTH AMERICA, INC. et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

529 F.Supp.2d 85

Rollin AMORE, as co-administrator of the ESTATES OF Susanne AMORE and Salvatore Michael Amore, deceased, Plaintiff, v. ACCOR NORTH AMERICA, INC. et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 06-0198 (RMU).

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

January 10, 2008.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Christopher William Helimich, Patton Boggs LLP, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.

Robert Bruce Wallace, Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker LLP, Washington, DC, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

RICARDO M. URBINA, District Judge.

GRANTING THE DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT; DENYING THE PLAINTIFF'S MOTION To AMEND THE COMPLAINT

I. INTRODUCTION

This case arrives on the defendants' motion for summary judgment¹ and the plaintiffs motion to amend the complaint. The defendants are subsidiary corporations of a corporation that was allegedly involved in the instruction of train attendants whose negligence led to the deaths of the plaintiffs family, the Amores. The plaintiff seeks to impute the alleged liability of the parent corporation to its subsidiaries, so that this court may exercise jurisdiction. The plaintiff's complaint, however, does not allege facts sufficient to impute liability by piercing the corporate veil. Furthermore, a court in the Southern District of New York has already dismissed one of the subsidiaries named in this suit. Consequently, the court grants the defendants' motion for summary judgment and denies the plaintiffs motion to amend the complaint.

II. BACKGROUND

A. Factual History

On November 6, 2002, the plaintiffs mother and brother died in a train fire while traveling from Paris to Munich. Notice of Removal (Feb. 6, 2006) at 2. The plaintiffs brother's wife and two children also died in the fire. Id. The fire allegedly began when a train conductor negligently set fire to the train, then absconded to safety without waking any of the sleeping passengers. Id.

On July 21, 2003, Carolyn Reers filed a complaint in New York as the co-administrator of the Amore estates. Defs.' Mot. to Dismiss, Ex. B. Reers brought a wrongful death and survival action against nu. merous defendants, including Accor, Societe Anonyme ("Accor S.A.") and Accor North America, Inc. ("Accor N.A."), two of the defendants in the instant action. Id. ¶¶ 45-66. Reers' complaint alleged that Accor S.A. and Accor N.A. negligently trained the attendants and failed to properly maintain and operate the train itself, causing the Amore family members to experience pain and suffering prior to their deaths. Id.; First Am. Compl. ¶¶ 26, 32.

Accor S.A. filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on multiple grounds, including the doctrine of forum non conveniens, in the Southern District of New York. Defs.' Mot., Ex. F at 34-46. After the parties submitted briefs on Accor S.A.'s arguments and after the court held oral arguments on Accor SA.'s motion to dismiss, Judge Cedarbaum issued a forty-six-page opinion holding that the doctrine of forum non conveniens barred the plaintiffs suit. Id. Applying the two-prong test for the application of forum non conveniens set forth by the Supreme Court in Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501, 67 S.Ct. 839, 91 L.Ed. 1055 (1947), Judge Cedarbaum held that France was an adequate alternative forum for litigation and that the relevant public and private interest factors favored litigating in France. Id. at 35-46. Judge Cedarbaum dismissed the action and concluded it was "unnecessary to reach the Accor defendants' argument that the complaint fails to state a claim against them." Id. at 46.

On October 28, 2003, Accor N.A. filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). First Am. Compl., Ex. D. An affidavit by Thomas A. Leghorn, the executive vice president, general counsel and secretary of Accor N.A. is attached to the motion to dismiss. Id. The plaintiff responded to this motion, requesting that Accor N.A. be voluntarily dismissed. Defs Mot., Ex. D at 6. Judge Cedarbaum then granted the defendant's unopposed motion to dismiss Accor N.A. Def.'s Mot., Ex. C.

B. Procedural History

On November 7, 2005, the plaintiff filed a complaint against Accor N.A., Accor S.A. and Sofitel Group, LLC in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. First Am. Compl. ¶¶ 5-10. The plaintiff seeks "to recover the damages suffered by the decedents prior to their deaths, which were directly and proximately "mused by the ineffective training that the railcar attendants received from the defendants." Id. ¶ 1. On February 6, 2006, the defendants removed the case to this court. Notice of Removal (Feb. 6, 2006). The defendants subsequently filed a motion to dismiss the claims against Accor S.A. and Accor NA., and the plaintiff filed a motion for leave to file an amended complaint seeking to "reflect the corporate name of the actual owner of the Sofltel Lafayette Square Hotel." Pl.'s Mot. to Am. Compl. at 1. On November 9, 2006, the court ordered the plaintiff to show cause, why the case should not be dismissed as barred by res judicata. Because res judicata bars, the plaintiffs' claims against Accor S.A., on April 30, 2007, the court, sua sponte dismissed the claims against it. The court now turns to the defendants' motion to dismiss the remaining two defendants and the plaintiffs' motion to amend the complaint.

III. ANALYSIS

A. Res Judicata Bars the Claims Against Accor N.A.

1. Legal Standard for Res Judicata

"The doctrine of res judicata prevents repetitious litigation involving the same causes of action or the same issues." LAM. Nat'l Pension Fund. v. Indus. Gear Mfg. Co., 723 F.2d 944, 946 (D.C.Cir.1983). Res judicata has two distinct aspects— claim preclusion and issue preclusion (commonly known as collateral estoppel)—that apply in different circumstances and with different consequences to the litigants. NextWave Pers. Commc'ns, Inc. v. Fed. Commc'ns Comm'n, 254 F.3d 130, 142 (D.C.Cir.2001) (citing id.); Novak v. World Bank, 703 F.2d 1305, 1309 (D.C.Cir.1983). Under claim preclusion, "a final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in that action." Drake v. Fed. Aviation Admin., 291 F.3d 59, 66 (D.C.Cir.2002) (quoting Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 94, 101 S.Ct. 411, 66 L.Ed.2d 308 (1980)). Under issue preclusion or collateral estoppel, "once a court has decided an issue of fact or law necessary to its judgment, that decision may preclude relitigation of the issue in a suit on a different cause of action involving a party to the first case." Yamaha Corp. of Am. v. United States, 961 F.2d 245, 254 (D.C.Cir.1992) (quoting Allen, 449 U.S. at 94, 101 S.Ct. 411). In short, "claim preclusion forecloses all that which might have been litigated previously," while issue preclusion "prevents the relitigation of any issue that was raised and decided in a prior action." I.A.M. Nat'l Pension Fund, 723 F,2d at 949; Novak, 703 F.2d at 1309. In this way, res judicata helps "conserve judicial resources, avoid inconsistent results, engender respect for judgments of predictable and certain effect, and [ prevent serial forumshopping and piecemail litigation." Hardison v. Alexander, 655 F.2d 1281, 1288 (D.C.Cir.1981); see also Allen, 449 U.S. at 94, 101 S.Ct. 411.

2. The Southern District of New York Previously Dismissed the Claims Against Accor N.A.

Defendant Accor N.A. contends that Judge Cedarbaum's dismissal acted as a final judgment on the merits and precludes the instant action. Def.'s Mot. at 7. Specifically, Accor N.A. alleges that the plaintiffs purported voluntary dismissal pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1) was invalid because the court properly converted the motion to dismiss to a motion for summary judgment, thus precluding the plaintiff from unilaterally dismissing defendant Accor NA. Id. at 89. Alternatively, Accor N.A. avers that the voluntary dismissal is ineffective due to the conditional and ambiguous nature of the notice. Id. at 9-10. Without responding to Aecor N.A.'s arguments directly, the plaintiff takes a different tack, insisting that the law of the case requires the court to permit the claims against Accor NA. Pl.'s Opp'n at 3-4. And, even if it was not law of the case, the plaintiff contends that the voluntary dismissal of Accor N.A. was valid and without prejudice. Id. at 4; Pl.'s Response to Show Cause Order (Nov. 21, 2006) at 2-3.

The court may dispatch the plaintiffs first argument swiftly. The plaintiffs declaration that "[t]his Court already has determined that Plaintiffs claim against Defendant Accor NA is not precluded by the previous litigation in the Southern District of New York" mischaracterizes the posture of these claims. Pl.'s Opp'n at 3 (emphasis. added). Neither the court's Memorandum Opinion of April 7, 2007, nor any other order by this court substantively addresses the claims against Accor N.A. See Mem. Op. (Apr. 30, 2007). Contrary to the plaintiffs interpretation, this court's April 30, 2007 Order, which discharged a show cause order that required the parties to brief "why this case should not be dismissed on the basis of res judicata," Minute Order (Nov. 11, 2006), did not substantively resolve the issue of res judicata. See Mylan Labs., Inc. v. Leavitt, 495 F.Supp.2d 43, 47 (D.D.C.2007) (noting that for the law-of-the-case doctrine to apply a court must have already decided the issue).

Also unavailing is the plaintiffs contention that the previous dismissal of Accor N.A. was without prejudice. To be sure, a plaintiff may unilaterally dismiss a defendant without prejudice "at any time before service by the adverse party of an answer or of a motion for summary judgment, whichever first occurs." FED. 41(a)(1)(i). The plaintiff, however, fails to address Accor N.A.'s arguments that the voluntary dismissal was untimely and deficient. Def.'s Mot. at 7-10. As such, it is within the court's...