Berard v. RYDER STUDENT TRANSP. SERVICES

• Decision Date: 15 March 2001
• Docket Number: No. 99-260-Appeal.,99-260-Appeal.
• Citation: 767 A.2d 81
• Parties: Patricia A. BERARD v. RYDER STUDENT TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, INC.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

767 A.2d 81

Patricia A. BERARD v. RYDER STUDENT TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, INC.

No. 99-260-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

March 15, 2001.

Present WEISBERGER, C.J., LEDERBERG, BOURCIER, FLANDERS, and GOLDBERG, JJ.

Robert E. Savage, Warrick, for Plaintiff. Theodore Orson, Richard J. Land, Barry A. Guryan, Daniel J. Blake, Providence, for Defendant.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

The sufficiency and adequacy of a pro se complaint forms the gravamen of this appeal. The plaintiff, Patricia A. Berard, appeals from the granting of a motion to dismiss her complaint in favor of the defendant, Ryder Student Transportation Services, Inc. We assigned this case to the show cause calendar and directed both parties to show cause why the issues raised by this appeal should not be summarily decided. Because neither party has done so, we proceed to decide the appeal at this time.

The relevant facts in this matter are as follows. The defendant formerly employed plaintiff as a school bus driver. On August 26, 1996, plaintiff filed a complaint with the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights (RICHR or commission), alleging sexual harassment and discrimination. On June 16, 1998, at her request, the commission granted plaintiff the right to sue defendant in state court pursuant to G.L.1956 § 28-5-24.1.¹ Thereafter, on June 23, 1998, acting pro se (without the benefit of any legal representation), plaintiff filed a welter of documents in Superior Court. She contends that one or more of these documents should have been deemed as her pro se complaint against defendant, even though she neglected to label any one of them as her complaint. Thus, of the more than sixty pages that plaintiff filed in the clerk's office on June 23, 1998, it is unclear which of them she intended to serve as her actual complaint. What is clear is that none of them satisfied the pleading requirements, including Rule 10 of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure.² Moreover, even if all of the documents plaintiff filed on June 23, 1998, could somehow be "adopted by reference" into one pleading, in accordance with Rule 10(c), and considered together to constitute the complaint, they still failed to state with any specificity plaintiff's cause of action, nor did they set forth a claim upon which relief could be granted. See Super. R. Civ. P. 8(a).

In response to this submission, defendant filed a "Motion for More Definite Statement," asserting that plaintiff's filing did not contain "a description of the causes of action which she is pursuing" or "any prayer for relief or other description of the relief sought." Later, defendant also filed a "Motion to Strike," seeking to delete from the record the more than sixty pages of documents that plaintiff had filed as her purported complaint. The defendant alleged that the documents were "redundant, immaterial, [and] impertinent" pursuant to Rule 12(f) of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure.

After a hearing, a Superior Court motion justice granted these motions and ordered that, within thirty days, "the Plaintiff shall file with this Court and shall serve upon Defendant's attorneys, a complaint capable of evaluation and response by the Defendant." Further, the court ordered that if plaintiff failed to comply with the order within thirty days, all documents filed by plaintiff would be stricken and her case would be dismissed.

Following the hearing, plaintiff filed several additional documents, two of which were entitled "Response for More Definite Statement" and "Response to Request for More Definite Statement." The latter document seemed to set forth, in a rambling and narrative form, alleged facts about a relationship plaintiff had maintained with a fellow employee. The former document contained plaintiff's request for damages. Thereafter, on November 4, 1998, defendant filed a "Motion to Strike and Dismiss" plaintiff's purported complaint, alleging that plaintiff still had not complied with the court's previous order. The defendant alleged that plaintiff's response to its request for a more definite statement was "impertinent to any legal claim" and "scandalous." Following a second hearing before the motion justice, the court granted defendant's motions and entered its dismissal order on that same date. The plaintiff thereafter filed a timely notice of appeal.

The issue on appeal is whether the motion justice erred in granting defendant's motion to dismiss. The plaintiff contends that while she may not have complied technically with the rules relative to the filing of a complaint, defendant nevertheless had constructive knowledge of her claims based upon the fact that previously she had filed a charge of discrimination against defendant with the RICHR. The plaintiff also suggests that the motion justice's dismissal of the complaint in this case was too harsh a sanction, especially in light of her pro se status. The defendant counters by positing that the motion justice properly exercised her discretion in dismissing plaintiff's complaint. By filing an improper jumble of documents, defendant argues, plaintiff not only failed to comply with the rules initially, but also she failed to comply with the court's subsequent order that required her to file a pleading capable of an appropriate evaluation and response by defendant.

Pursuant to Rule 41(b)(2) of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure, a motion justice may, in his or her discretion, dismiss any action for failure of the plaintiff to comply with the Rules of Civil Procedure. In this case, the motion justice determined that plaintiff's complaint was deficient because it did not conform to Rule 8(a), which provides in pertinent part:

"A pleading which sets forth a claim for relief * * * shall contain (1) a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief, and (2) a demand for judgment for the relief the pleader seeks."

This Court has stated that a plaintiff is not required to plead the ultimate facts that must be proven to succeed on the complaint, nor must the plaintiff set out the legal theory upon which the claim is based. See Haley v. Town of Lincoln, 611 A.2d 845, 848 (R.I.1992). "All that is required is that the complaint give the opposing party fair and adequate notice of the type of claim being asserted." Id. (citing Freidenthal, Kane, and Miller, Civil Procedure §§ 5.7, 5.8 at 252-56 (West 1985); 1 Kent, R.I. Civ. Prac. § 8.2 at 83-84 (1969)).

Nevertheless, after scrutinizing the documents that plaintiff filed, we are persuaded that her purported complaint did not comply with the applicable rules because it failed to notify defendant adequately of the nature of plaintiff's claim and the grounds upon which she was basing her request for relief. Indeed, her initial filing failed to indicate which of the more than sixty pages of different types of documents constituted the complaint. Moreover, it included documents that were not even the work product of plaintiff, such as a response from the compliance manager of defendant's company to plaintiff's charge of sexual harassment and discrimination before the commission. No defendant who was served with this morass of paper could respond in the way that the applicable rules provide for pleadings in Superior Court to be answered. Thus, this submission was woefully inadequate to satisfy the requirements of Rules 8 and 10.

Furthermore, despite the fact that the motion justice afforded her an opportunity to cure her deficient complaint by filing one that complied with the rules, plaintiff still failed to do so. The motion justice determined that plaintiff's supplemental filing was also inadequate and, therefore, she ruled that pl...