Crowell v. Davis
| Decision Date | 02 April 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. COA12–859.,COA12–859. |
| Citation | 741 S.E.2d 511 |
| Parties | Douglas CROWELL, Plaintiff v. Brian M. DAVIS, Secretswall.Com, [and] John Doe, Defendants. |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal by plaintiff from order entered 17 January 2012 by Judge Laura J. Bridges in Buncombe County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 7 January 2013.
Eric E. Rainey, for Plaintiff.
Burt Langley, P.C., by Katherine Langley, for Defendants.
Plaintiff Douglas Crowell appeals from an order dismissing his complaint against Defendants Brian M. Davis, Secretswall.com, and John Doe for failing to state a claim pursuant to N.C. Gen.Stat. § 1A–1, Rule 12(b)(6), and dismissing his complaint against Defendant Secretswall.com for lack of personal jurisdiction pursuant to N.C. Gen.Stat. § 1A–1, Rule 12(b)(2). After careful consideration of Plaintiff's challenges to the trial court's order in light of the record and the applicable law, we conclude that the trial court's order should be affirmed.
Defendant Davis owns and operates Secret swall.com, which is a website that allows persons to draft and publish anonymous comments concerning various topics. According to Plaintiff, Defendants authored and knowingly published several false statements “naming the Plaintiff and his prior place of employment, and accusing the Plaintiff of wrongdoing and poor moral character, among other accusations.” Despite the fact that these statements were false, Defendants subsequently re-posted them on other websites. At the time that these statements were disseminated on the internet, Plaintiff was “legally eligible for employment with several prospective employers” and was seeking employment. Plaintiff alleged that Defendants posted these anonymous comments for the purpose of “induc[ing] prospective employers to refrain from contracting with the Plaintiff.” Defendant Davis repeatedly threatened to make additional posts if Plaintiff pursued removal of the existing posts “or [took] other actions against Defendants.”
On 31 August 2011, Plaintiff filed a complaint against Defendants in which he attempted to assert claims for libel per se, libel per quod, wrongful interference with a prospective contract, wrongful interference with contract rights, and negligence per se based upon alleged violations of North Carolina's cyberstalking and extortion statutes. On 26 October 2011, Defendants Davis and Secretswall.com filed an answer in which they denied the material allegations of Plaintiff's complaint, asserted various affirmative defenses, and sought dismissal of Plaintiff's complaint on the grounds that the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction over Defendant Secretswall.com and that Plaintiff had failed to state a valid claim for relief against them. On 2 December 2011, Plaintiff filed a motion seeking leave to amend his complaint on the grounds that “justice requires that leave be granted to amend.” On 17 January 2012, the trial court entered an order dismissing Plaintiff's complaint without making any reference to Plaintiff's amendment motion.1 Plaintiff noted an appeal to this Court from the trial court's order.
The extent to which a motion to amend a litigant's pleading should be granted or denied is committed to the sound discretion of the trial court. Coffey v. Coffey, 94 N.C.App. 717, 722, 381 S.E.2d 467, 471 (1989), disc. review improvidently granted,326 N.C. 586, 391 S.E.2d 40 (1990). For that reason, “we review a trial court's ruling on a motion to amend pleadings for abuse of discretion.” Bartlett Milling Co. v. Walnut Grove Auction & Realty Co., 192 N.C.App. 74, 89, 665 S.E.2d 478, 490,disc. review denied,362 N.C. 679, 669 S.E.2d 741 (2008). “An abuse of discretion will be found where a trial court's ruling ‘is manifestly unsupported by reason or is so arbitrary that it could not have been the result of a reasoned decision.’ “ Pinewood Homes, Inc. v. Harris, 184 N.C.App. 597, 607, 646 S.E.2d 826, 833–34 (2007) (quoting State v. Campbell, 359 N.C. 644, 673, 617 S.E.2d 1, 19 (2005), cert. denied,547 U.S. 1073, 126 S.Ct. 1773, 164 L.Ed.2d 523 (2006)).
In his brief, Plaintiff contends that the trial court erred by dismissing his complaint without allowing him to amend his prior allegations. More specifically, Plaintiff alleges that the trial court's failure to make findings of fact or provide any indication of the reasoning underlying its failure to grant Plaintiff's amendment motion prior to dismissing Plaintiff's complaint constituted a clear abuse of discretion. We do not find Plaintiff's argument persuasive.2
“A party may amend his pleading once as a matter of course at any time before a responsive pleading is served[;] ... [o]therwise[, as is the case here,] a party may amend his pleading only by leave of court or by written consent of the adverse party.” N.C. Gen.Stat. § 1A–1, Rule 15(a). As Plaintiff correctly notes, leave to amend should be “freely given when justice so requires,” Id., with the “[l]iberal amendment of pleadings [being] encouraged by the Rules of Civil Procedure in order that decisions be had on the merits and not avoided on the basis of mere technicalities.” Phillips v. Phillips, 46 N.C.App. 558, 560–61, 265 S.E.2d 441, 443 (1980) (citing Mangum v. Surles, 281 N.C. 91, 98–99, 187 S.E.2d 697, 702 (1972)). A trial judge does, however, have the authority to deny an amendment motion in appropriate instances. Nationsbank of N.C., N.A. v. Baines, 116 N.C.App. 263, 268, 447 S.E.2d 812, 815 (1994) () (citation and quotation marks omitted); Coffey, 94 N.C.App. at 722, 381 S.E.2d at 471 () (citing Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182, 83 S.Ct. 227, 230, 9 L.Ed.2d 222, 226 (1962)).
At the time that he sought leave to amend his complaint, Plaintiff provided no explanation of the reason that he sought to amend his complaint, did not attach a proposed amendment to his motion, and never described the additions, deletions, or changes that he sought to make in the event that his request to amend his complaint was allowed. In fact, Plaintiff has not described the nature of his proposed amendment with any degree of specificity on appeal either. In light of Plaintiff's complete failure to describe the nature of the amendment that he proposed to make to his complaint, the trial court had no basis for determining whether Plaintiff's request for leave to amend had been unduly delayed, would be futile, or would unlawfully prejudice Defendants and we have no basis for determining whether the trial court's failure to rule on Plaintiff's amendment motion before dismissing his complaint constituted an abuse of discretion or impermissibly prejudiced Plaintiff. As a result, Plaintiff is not entitled to relief from the trial court's order on the grounds that the order in question implicitly denied Plaintiff's motion for leave to amend his complaint.3
Secondly, Plaintiff contends that the trial court erred by dismissing his complaint for failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted pursuant to N.C. Gen.Stat. § 1A–1, Rule 12(b)(6). In seeking to persuade us of the merits of this contention, Plaintiff contends that he pled sufficient facts to preclude dismissal of any of his claims and that the trial court erred by reaching a contrary conclusion. We do not find any of Plaintiff's arguments to this effect persuasive.
As a result of the fact that a “motion to dismiss under N.C. [Gen.Stat. § 1A–1, Rule] 12(b)(6) tests the legal sufficiency of the complaint,” “the allegations of the complaint must be viewed as admitted, and on that basis the court must determine as a matter of law whether the allegations state a claim for which relief may be granted.” Stanback v. Stanback, 297 N.C. 181, 185, 254 S.E.2d 611, 615 (1979) (citations omitted). In other words, “[b]ecause this appeal is based on defendants' motion to dismiss, we treat plaintiff['s] factual allegations as true.” Block v. County of Person, 141 N.C.App. 273, 275, 540 S.E.2d 415, 417 (2000). The same is not, however, true of the plaintiff's legal conclusions. Jackson v. Bumgardner, 318 N.C. 172, 174–75, 347 S.E.2d 743, 745 (1986) () (citing Sutton v. Duke, 277 N.C. 94, 98, 176 S.E.2d 161, 163 (1970)). A complaint is subject to dismissal pursuant to N.C. Gen.Stat. § 1A–1, Rule 12(b)(6) “(1) when the complaint on its face reveals that no law supports plaintiff's claim; (2) when the complaint reveals on its face the absence of fact sufficient to make a good claim; [and] (3) when some fact disclosed in the complaint necessarily defeats the plaintiff's claim.” Oates v. JAG, Inc., 314 N.C. 276, 278, 333 S.E.2d 222, 224 (1985) (). We review a trial court's decision to grant a motion to dismiss pursuant to N.C. Gen.Stat. § 1A–1, Rule 12(b)(6) using a de novo standard of review. Jones v. Coward, 193 N.C.App. 231, 233, 666 S.E.2d 877, 879 (2008). “Under a de novo review, the court considers the matter anew and freely substitutes its own judgment for that...
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...of Appeals has held squarely that that statute provides no basis for a negligence per se claim. Crowell v. Davis, 226 N.C. App. 431, 741 S.E.2d 511, 2013 WL 1315853, at *6 (Apr. 2, 2013) (table) ("In his pleadings, Plaintiff attempted to allege various negligence per se claims, with each su......