Castonguay v. Mac's Convenience Stores
| Decision Date | 10 August 2022 |
| Docket Number | 1:21-cv-00083-JDL |
| Parties | DEREK CASTONGUAY, Plaintiff, v. MAC'S CONVENIENCE STORES dba CIRCLE K, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maine |
ORDER ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS
The Plaintiff, Derek Castonguay, alleges that the negligence of a store clerk employed by the Defendant, Mac's Convenience Stores dba Circle K (hereinafter “Mac's Convenience”), caused Castonguay to be seriously injured by a third party who physically assaulted Castonguay at the store and then followed Castonguay after he left the store and shot him minutes later at an off-premises location. Mac's Convenience has filed a Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings (ECF No. 16), pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c), arguing that Castonguay's complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted because Maine law does not impose a duty on a convenience store to prevent a customer from being assaulted by a third party after that customer has left the store. For the reasons that follow, I deny the motion.
The following facts are drawn from the Plaintiff's First Amended Complaint (ECF No. 40).
Mac's Convenience operates a 24-hour convenience store located on High Street in Caribou. The store is approximately 600 feet from the Caribou Police Department. Derek Castonguay is a resident of Van Buren, Maine, and was 17 years old when the following events occurred.
Castonguay entered the store on January 11, 2020, at 12:19 a.m. He had arrived at the store in a car that remained parked outside. The female driver and a male passenger stayed in the car. Castonguay selected snack foods to purchase and then lined up to pay for them at the cash register. At 12:27 a.m., the store's exterior video surveillance camera captured footage of a man leaning through the car's backseat window. The man then assaulted the car's male passenger who was still seated in the back seat. The man then entered the store, walked directly toward Castonguay and punched Castonguay twice in the head. This assault occurred in plain view of the store's overnight clerk. Castonguay dropped his items and ran toward the back of the store and away from the assailant, who remained in the store, pacing back and forth in front of the check-out counter before he left.
The car's male passenger then entered the store, bleeding from his mouth, and told the store clerk that he had been assaulted in the parking lot. Next, at 12:30 a.m., the female driver of the car drove away, leaving Castonguay and the male passenger stranded inside the store for approximately 45 minutes until a taxi arrived for them.
The store clerk had encountered the assailant in the store previously and suspected that he was involved in drug trafficking. As Castonguay and the male passenger were waiting for the taxi to arrive, they expressed worry that the assailant would return to hurt them. They were particularly concerned because, as they told the store clerk, they believed that the assailant had a gun. The store clerk was also concerned that the assailant would return and cause additional harm, but he ultimately took no action.
Eventually, the taxi arrived and Castonguay and the male passenger got in and left. The assailant, who was in his own vehicle, had remained close by and watched as Castonguay and the male passenger entered the taxi. The assailant tailed the taxi as it departed from the store. After driving for three minutes, the taxi stopped, at which point the assailant stopped his car and got out. The assailant approached the taxi, drew a handgun, and fired three shots into the taxi. One of the bullets struck Castonguay, causing severe and permanent injuries.
Kando v. R.I. State Bd. of Elections, 880 F.3d 53, 58 (1st Cir. 2018). “To survive a motion for judgment on the pleadings, therefore, a plaintiff must plead ‘enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” ACA Connects - Am.'s Commc'ns Ass'n v. Frey, 471 F.Supp.3d 318, 323 (D. Me. 2020) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). The court must take well-pleaded facts in the complaint as true and must draw all reasonable inferences in the nonmovant's favor. Barchock v. CVS Health Corp., 886 F.3d 43, 48 (1st Cir. 2018).
Facts are well-pleaded when they are non-conclusory and non-speculative. Schatz v. Republican State Leadership Comm., 669 F.3d 50, 55 (1st Cir. 2012). “Like Rule 12(b)(6), Rule 12(c) does not allow for any resolution of contested facts; rather, a court may enter judgment on the pleadings only if the uncontested and properly considered facts conclusively establish the movant's entitlement to a favorable judgment.” Aponte-Torres v. Univ. of P.R., 445 F.3d 50, 54 (1st Cir. 2006).
Castonguay contends that Mac's Convenience, as a business proprietor of a convenience store, owed him a legal duty under Maine common law to protect him from a foreseeable risk of harm posed by the third-party assailant. He further asserts that because the assault began at the store, it was foreseeable that he remained at risk of further harm from the assailant. In response, Mac's Convenience argues that although a convenience store owes a duty of reasonable care to its customers while they are on the premises-which sometimes includes protection from foreseeable harm caused by third parties-under Maine law, that duty ends when a customer leaves the store's premises. Additionally, Mac's Convenience contends that Maine law does not require the store to protect a customer from suffering an assault by a third-party off the premises. I begin my analysis of the parties' arguments by considering the applicable principles of negligence under Maine law.
Negligence is comprised of four elements: “(1) a duty of care owed to the plaintiff; (2) a breach of that duty; (3) an injury; and (4) causation, that is, a finding that the breach of the duty of care was a cause of the injury.” Bell ex rel. Bell v. Dawson, 2013 ME 108, ¶ 17, 82 A.3d 827 (quoting Est. of Smith v. Cumberland Cty., 4 2013 ME 13, ¶ 16, 60 A.3d 759).
The motion for judgment on the pleadings turns on the question of whether Mac's Convenience owed a duty of care to Castonguay as a matter of law. “The existence of a duty of care is a question of law, while issues of the breach of a duty of care are usually questions of fact.” Reid v. Town of Mt. Vernon, 2007 ME 125, ¶ 14, 932 A.2d 539. However, although the question of whether a duty exists is one of law, to determine whether a duty exists. Brown v. Delta Tau Delta, 2015 ME 75, ¶ 14, 118 A.3d 789.
Maine generally follows a no-duty rule, so that in instances of a failure to act, Belyea v. Shiretown Motor Inn, LP, 2010 ME 75 ¶ 9, 2 A.3d 276 (quoting Bryan R. v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc'y of N.Y., Inc., 1999 ME 144, ¶ 14, 738 A.2d 839). Such a special relationship exists between the proprietor of a convenience store and the store's customers. A proprietor may be “liable for an assault upon a guest or patron by another guest, patron, or third person where he has reason to anticipate such assault, and fails to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances to prevent the assault or interfere with its execution.” Kaechele v. Kenyon Oil Co., 2000 ME 39, ¶ 8, 747 A.2d 167 (quoting Brewer v. Roosevelt Motor Lodge, 295 A.2d 647, 651 (Me. 1972)); see also Boudreau v. Shaws, 955 F.3d 225, 234 (1st Cir. 2020). This duty may include “warning of or protection from a danger that originates from third persons outside the business premises,” Howe v. Stubbs, 570 A.2d 1203, 1203 (Me. 1990), when that danger is reasonably foreseeable, Kaechele, 2000 ME 39 ¶ 10, 747 A.2d 167. Thus, a special relationship does exist if the proprietor has reason to anticipate that a patron will be assaulted and fails to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances to prevent the assault or interfere with it. I now turn to consider whether the store clerk here had reason to anticipate the assault against Castonguay, by considering the facts at hand related to foreseeability as analyzed in similar cases.
To begin, in Boudreau v. Shaw's, the First Circuit determined that the onpremises murder of a store patron by a third party was not foreseeable and, thus, that the store was not liable. 955 F.3d at 225. Boudreau presented a tragic fact pattern: an elderly woman shopping at a supermarket was brutally murdered in the ice cream aisle by a regular customer of the store, and the victim's estate subsequently brought suit against the store asserting wrongful death and conscious pain and suffering under Maine law. Id. at 227. The First Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the store after concluding that the store did not owe the woman a duty to protect her from the attack. Id. at 228....
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