Glen v. Am. Airlines
| Decision Date | 03 August 2020 |
| Docket Number | NO. 4:20-CV-482-A,4:20-CV-482-A |
| Parties | ROBERT M. GLEN, Plaintiff, v. AMERICAN AIRLINES, INC., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas |
Came on for consideration the motion to dismiss filed by defendant, American Airlines, Inc. Doc.1 52. Having considered the motion, the response by plaintiff, Robert M. Glen, the reply and supplemental authority filed in support thereof, the response to such supplemental authority, the record, and applicable legal authorities, the. court finds that such motion should be granted.
In his amended complaint, plaintiff pleads the following:
Plaintiff, a naturalized citizen of the United States, is originally from Cuba. Doc. 47 ¶ 15. Plaintiff's mother and aunt owned adjacent plots of beachfront land ("the Properties") in Varadero, Cuba in the late 1950s. Id. ¶¶ 28-39. Inconnection with the Cuban revolution, the communist Cuban government confiscated the Properties. Id. ¶ 40. When plaintiff's aunt and mother died in 1999 and 2011, respectively, their claims to the Properties passed to. plaintiff by inheritance. Id. ¶ 42. Since at least 1996, the Properties have been used for beachfront hotels ("the Subject Hotels"), which the Cuban government helped to build, develop, and operate. Id. ¶¶ 44, 46.
Prior to the initiation of this action, defendant's customers could book accommodations' in Cuba, including the Subject Hotels, through defendant's hotel booking website. Id. ¶¶ 101-02, 145. Between January 23, 2018 and July 19, 2019, users of defendant's booking website made twenty-four separate reservations at the Subject Hotels. Id. ¶ 147. Defendant earned commissions in connection with reservations made that the Subject Hotels. Id. ¶ 148.
On September 26, 2019, plaintiff initiated this action by filing a complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Doc. 1. On March 12, 2020, plaintiff filed his amended complaint. Doc. 47. In his amended complaint, plaintiff brings a single cause of action againstdefendant, trafficking in confiscated property pursuant to the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, 22 U.S.C. § 6021 et. seq. ("the Act"), also known as the LIBERTAD Act or the Helms-Burton Act. Id. ¶¶ 1, 164-75. The Act provides U.S. nationals whose property was confiscated by the communist Cuban government with a private right of action against persons who traffic in such property. 22 U.S.C. § 6082(a).
On March 27, 2020, defendant filed its motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, to transfer venue. Doc. 52. After plaintiff responded to the motion, Doc. 56, and plaintiff replied to the response, Doc. 64, the motion was granted as to its requested transfer, and the action was transferred to this court, Doc. 67. This court now considers the motion insofar as it seeks dismissal.
In its motion, defendant argues that plaintiff's claim should be dismissed because, inter alia, plaintiff (I) lacks Article III standing, Doc. 52 at 3-5, (II) failed to satisfy the Act's preconditions to suit, id. at 10-12, and (III) failed to adequately plead facts to satisfy the scienter element of his claim, id. at 12-19.
Plaintiff's claim should be dismissed. Plaintiff lacks Article III standing, and even if he had standing to sue defendant, his claim would nonetheless be dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.
Plaintiff has failed to show that he has standing to bring the above-captioned action. The United States Constitution limits federal courts' jurisdiction to "actual cases or controversies." Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 818 (1997). "Standing to sue is a doctrine rooted in the traditional understanding of a case or controversy." Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S.Ct. 1540, 1547 (2016). This doctrine limits the category of litigants who may bring a lawsuit in federal court. Id. To have standing, a plaintiff must have (I) suffered an injury in fact, (II) that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant, and (III) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision. Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992). "The party invoking federal jurisdiction bears the burden of establishing these elements." Id. at 561. Plaintiff fails to carry this burden.
Plaintiff has not pleaded that he has suffered an injury in fact. "To establish an injury in fact, a plaintiff must show that he or she suffered 'an invasion of a legally protected interest' that is 'concrete and particularized' and 'actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.'" Spokeo, 136 S.Ct. at 1548 (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560). Plaintiff has not shown that he suffered a concrete injury. "A 'concrete' injury must be 'de facto'; that is, it must actually exist." Id. A concrete injury may be intangible, and "Congress has the power to define injuries and articulate chains of causation that will give rise to a case or controversy where none existed before." Id. at 1549 (citation omitted). However, "Congress' role in identifying and elevating intangible harms does not mean that a plaintiff automatically satisfies the injury-in-fact requirement whenever a statute grants a person a statutory right and purports to authorize that person to sue to vindicate that right." Id. In other words, "Article III standing requires a concrete injury even in the context of a statutory violation." Id.
In his response, plaintiff states that neither the Cuban government's confiscation of the Properties nor the Subject Hotels' operations on the Properties constitute injuries in fact in this action. Doc. 56 at 10. Instead, plaintiff argues thathis injury is based entirely on defendant's alleged violation of the substantive rights given to plaintiff by the Act. Id. However, "Congress cannot erase Article III's standing requirements by statutorily granting the right to sue to a plaintiff who would not otherwise have standing." Spokeo, 136 S.Ct. at 1547-48. Plaintiff complains that defendant fails to compensate plaintiff when defendant earns commissions on reservations made at the Subject Hotels. Id. at 11. It is unclear how plaintiff is injured by such an action. Defendant did not deprive plaintiff of the Properties or the profits he might make if he owned and operated hotels on the Properties. Instead, defendant merely does business with the Subject Hotels. It is unclear why plaintiff believes he should be entitled to defendant's commissions and is injured by not receiving such payment; plaintiff would not be entitled to a portion of defendant's commissions even if he owned the Properties and operated the Subject Hotels.
Plaintiff relies on a non-binding opinion from the Southern District of Florida and Justice Thomas's concurring opinion in Spokeo to argue that "the Supreme Court recognized [in Spokeo] where Congress has endowed plaintiffs with a substantive legal right, as opposed to creating a procedural requirement, the plaintiffs may sue to enforce such a right without establishingadditional harm." Doc. 56 at 9-10 (quoting Guarisma v. Microsoft Corp., 209 F. Supp. 3d 1261, 1265 (S.D. Fla. 2016)). The court is not convinced. In Spokeo, the Supreme Court did not limit the concrete harm requirement to actions related to the violation of procedural requirements. See 136 S.Ct. at 1549 ().
Plaintiff also argues that a finding that he lacks standing "would write Title III out of existence." Doc. 56 at 11. Even if such a statement is true, "[t]he assumption that if [plaintiff has] no standing to sue, no one would have standing, is not a reason to find standing." Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA, 568 U.S. 398, 420-21 (2013); Valley Forge Christian Coll. V. Am. United for Separation of Church & State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 489 (1982).
Because plaintiff failed to plead that he suffered a concrete injury, he has not carried his burden regarding Article III standing, and this action must be dismissed.
Even if plaintiff had standing to bring this suit, his claims would be dismissed. The facts pleaded by plaintiff, accepted as true, (I) do not show that he is entitled to bring aclaim under the Act and (II) do not show that defendant had the required state of mind to be held liable.
Rule 8(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides, in a general way, the applicable standard of pleading. It requires that a pleading contain "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief," Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), "in order to give the defendant fair notice of what the claim is and the grounds upon which it rests." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (). Although a pleading need not contain detailed factual allegations, the "showing" contemplated by Rule 8 requires the pleader to do more than simply allege legal conclusions or recite the elements of a cause of action. Id. at 555 & n.3. Thus, while a court must accept all of the factual allegations in the pleading as true, it need not credit bare legal conclusions that are unsupported by any factual underpinnings. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679 (2009) ().
Moreover, to survive a motion to dismiss, the facts pleaded must allow the court to infer that the pleader's right to reliefis plausible. Id. at 678. To allege a plausible right to relief, the facts pleaded must suggest liability; allegations that are merely consistent with unlawful conduct are insufficient. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 566-69. "Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for...
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