Johnson v. PNC Bank, N.A.
| Decision Date | 27 March 2020 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. ELH-19-3136 |
| Parties | RICHARD A. JOHNSON Plaintiff v. PNC BANK, N.A. Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
This case is rooted in an unfortunate incident of mistaken identification. Plaintiff Richard Johnson has sued defendant PNC Bank, N.A. ("PNC"), claiming that PNC falsely identified plaintiff to law enforcement as a person who had fraudulently negotiated a stolen check. ECF 2 (the "Complaint").1 Asserting claims of negligence (Count I) and defamation (Count II), Johnson alleges that, as a PNC customer, PNC breached its fiduciary duty to him to protect his privacy and reputation and also defamed him. He seeks compensatory damages in an unspecified amount greater than $75,000.
Presently pending is PNC's motion to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (ECF 8), which is supported by a memorandum. ECF 8-1 (collectively, the "Motion"). Plaintiff opposes the Motion (ECF 9), and defendant has replied. ECF 12. The Motion is fully briefed, and no hearing is necessary to resolve it. See Local Rule 105.6.
For the reasons that follow, I shall grant the Motion.
PNC engages in retail banking. It is a national banking association incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. See PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., Annual Report (Form 10-K), at 1 (Mar. 2, 2020). In 2019, PNC had over 50,000 employees and 2,296 retail banking branches. Id. at 34.
On or about October 3, 2018, Mr. Johnson visited a PNC retail branch located at 206 E. Ridgeville Boulevard in Mount Airy, Maryland (the "Mount Airy Branch"). ECF 2, ¶ 7. While there, plaintiff presented his identification to a bank teller and cashed a check. Id. At approximately the same time, an unknown individual cashed a check that had been stolen earlier that day from a mailbox in Carroll County, Maryland. Id. ¶ 8.
The mailbox theft was reported to law enforcement, and the case was assigned to United States Postal Inspector Dan Goolsby. On October 12, 2019, Inspector Goolsby contacted the Mount Airy Branch. Id. ¶ 9. He explained that he was investigating a mail theft and that one of the stolen checks had cleared two days prior at the Mount Airy Branch. Id. Inspector Goolsby asked the Mount Airy Branch to furnish video surveillance footage for the period of time when the fraudulent check was negotiated. Id.
In response, PNC's employees and agents, including Robert Smetzer, allegedly provided Inspector Goolsby with a "single photograph of Plaintiff from the video surveillance footage of bank transactions occurring on October 3, 2018." Id. ¶ 10. In so doing, PNC "falsely identif[ied] plaintiff as the person who fraudulently negotiated the check . . . ." Id.
In turn, Inspector Goolsby asked the Carroll County Sheriff's Office to post the photograph on its Facebook page in order to solicit information concerning the theft from the public. Id. ¶ 11. The Carroll County Sheriff complied, and a flyer containing the photograph was posted on Facebook on November 5, 2018. The caption above the image stated that "'a check was fraudulently negotiated by the individual pictured below.'" Id. (emphasis in original).
According to plaintiff, the flyer remained on the Carroll County Sheriff's Facebook page for 24 hours. Id. ¶ 12. During that time, it received "thousands of views and was even shared on Facebook by the victim of the mailbox theft." Id. ¶ 12. The image "was removed only after Plaintiff was forced to go through great time and effort to clear his name, including multiple phone calls, and his personal attendance at an embrace interview, during which he was treated as a criminal suspect." Id.
Plaintiff claims that he is "a prominent business and family man who grew up in Carroll County" and who "has worked his whole life to establish an excellent reputation." Id. ¶ 13. Further, plaintiff claims that as a result of defendant's "false accusation" he has experienced "loss of his standing and reputation in the community, shame, mortification, and mental anguish." Id. ¶ 14.
A defendant may test the legal sufficiency of a complaint by way of a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). In re Birmingham, 846 F.3d 88, 92 (4th Cir. 2017); Goines v. Valley Cmty. Servs. Bd., 822 F.3d 159, 165-66 (4th Cir. 2016); McBurney v. Cuccinelli, 616 F.3d 393, 408 (4th Cir. 2010), aff'd sub nom., McBurney v. Young, 569 U.S. 221 (2013); Edwards v. City of Goldsboro, 178 F.3d 231, 243 (4th Cir. 1999). A Rule 12(b)(6) motion constitutes an assertion bya defendant that, even if the facts alleged by a plaintiff are true, the complaint fails as a matter of law "to state a claim upon which relief can be granted."
Whether a complaint states a claim for relief is assessed by reference to the pleading requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). That rule provides that a complaint must contain a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." The purpose of the rule is to provide the defendants with "fair notice" of the claims and the "grounds" for entitlement to relief. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555-56 (2007).
To survive a motion under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), a complaint must contain facts sufficient to "state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570; see Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 684 (2009) (citation omitted) ("Our decision in Twombly expounded the pleading standard for 'all civil actions' . . . ."); see also Paradise Wire & Cable Defined Benefit Pension Plan v. Weil, 918 F.3d 312, 317 (4th Cir. 2019); Willner v. Dimon, 849 F.3d 93, 112 (4th Cir. 2017). To be sure, a plaintiff need not include "detailed factual allegations" in order to satisfy Rule 8(a)(2). Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. Moreover, federal pleading rules "do not countenance dismissal of a complaint for imperfect statement of the legal theory supporting the claim asserted." Johnson v. City of Shelby, Miss., 574 U.S. 10, 10 (2014) (per curiam). But, mere "'naked assertions' of wrongdoing" are generally insufficient to state a claim for relief. Francis v. Giacomelli, 588 F.3d 186, 193 (4th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted).
In other words, the rule demands more than bald accusations or mere speculation. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555; see Painter's Mill Grille, LLC v. Brown, 716 F.3d 342, 350 (4th Cir. 2013). If a complaint provides no more than "labels and conclusions" or "a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action," it is insufficient. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. "[A]n unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation" does not state a plausible claim ofrelief. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. Rather, to satisfy the minimal requirements of Rule 8(a)(2), the complaint must set forth "enough factual matter (taken as true) to suggest" a cognizable cause of action, "even if . . . [the] actual proof of those facts is improbable and . . . recovery is very remote and unlikely." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556 (internal quotation marks omitted).
In reviewing a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a court "must accept as true all of the factual allegations contained in the complaint" and must "draw all reasonable inferences [from those facts] in favor of the plaintiff." E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Kolon Indus., Inc., 637 F.3d 435, 440 (4th Cir. 2011) (citations omitted); see Semenova v. Md. Transit Admin., 845 F.3d 564, 567 (4th Cir. 2017); Houck v. Substitute Tr. Servs., Inc., 791 F.3d 473, 484 (4th Cir. 2015); Kendall v. Balcerzak, 650 F.3d 515, 522 (4th Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 565 U.S. 943 (2011). But, a court is not required to accept legal conclusions drawn from the facts. See Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986); Glassman v. Arlington Cty., 628 F.3d 140, 146 (4th Cir. 2010). "A court decides whether [the pleading] standard is met by separating the legal conclusions from the factual allegations, assuming the truth of only the factual allegations, and then determining whether those allegations allow the court to reasonably infer" that the plaintiff is entitled to the legal remedy sought. A Society Without a Name v. Virginia, 655 F.3d 342, 346 (4th. Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 566 U.S. 937 (2012).
Courts ordinarily do not "'resolve contests surrounding the facts, the merits of a claim, or the applicability of defenses'" through a Rule 12(b)(6) motion. Edwards, 178 F.3d at 243 (quoting Republican Party v. Martin, 980 F.2d 943, 952 (4th Cir. 1992)). However, "in the relatively rare circumstances where facts sufficient to rule on an affirmative defense are alleged in the complaint, the defense may be reached by a motion to dismiss filed under Rule 12(b)(6)." Goodman v. Praxair, Inc., 494 F.3d 458, 464 (4th Cir. 2007) (en banc); accord Pressley v. Tupperware LongTerm Disability Plan, 553 F.3d 334, 336 (4th Cir. 2009). Because Rule 12(b)(6) "is intended [only] to test the legal adequacy of the complaint," Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac R.R. Co. v. Forst, 4 F.3d 244, 250 (4th Cir. 1993), "[t]his principle only applies . . . if all facts necessary to the affirmative defense 'clearly appear[] on the face of the complaint.'" Goodman, 494 F.3d at 464 (quoting Forst, 4 F.3d at 250) (emphasis added in Goodman).
The parties assume, without discussion, that Maryland law applies to this diversity case. When a federal court sits in diversity, it must "apply the forum state's substantive laws, including its choice of law rules." Small v. WellDyne, Inc., 927 F.3d 169, 173 n.3 (4th Cir. 2019); Francis v. Allstate Ins. Co., 709 F.3d 362, 369 (4th Cir. 2013); CACI Int'l, Inc. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 566 F.3d 150, 154 (4th Cir. 2009); Colgan Air, Inc. v. Raytheon Aircraft Co., 507 F.3d 270, 275 (4th Cir. 2007).
Maryland is, of course, the forum state. Under Maryland's choice-of-law principles for tort claims, Maryland applies the doctrine of lex loci delecti, i.e., the law of the jurisdiction where the alleged wrong...
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