Scarelli v. United Parcel Serv. Inc.
| Decision Date | 05 October 2011 |
| Docket Number | CASE NUMBER IOC 8240 |
| Parties | CHARONDA SCARELLI v. UNITED PARCEL SERVICE, INC. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
William J. Hibbler
Sitting Judge if Other
than Assigned Judge
DOCKET ENTRY TEXT:
The Court DENIES Defendant's motion to dismiss [18]. Defendant has until October 20, 2011 to answer or otherwise plead. Status hearing set for November 10, 2011 at 9:30 a.m.
[x] [For further details see text below.]
Docketing to mail notice
Plaintiff Charonda Scarelli brings this lawsuit against United Parcel Service (UPS), claiming negligence under state tort law. The case is before the Court on the basis of its diversity jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. 1332. Illinois law governs the dispute. Scarelli claims that she slipped and fell in a UPS shipping facility and suffered damages as a result of the negligence of UPS. She alleges that she was a customer at the facility on May 13, 2010, that it was raining outside on that day, and that the floor inside the facility was wet as a result of water that customers tracked in with their shoes. In addition, she alleges that UPS "constructed, placed and/or maintained a floor of such materials and/or coatings so that the floor would become excessively slippery when rain water and/or snow would be tracked in from outside and accumulate unnaturally on said floor."
UPS now moves to dismiss this suit for failure to state a claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In ruling on such a motion, the Court treats well-pleaded allegations as true, and draws all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor. Disability Rights Wise, Inc. v. Walworth County Bd. of Supervisors, 522 F.3d 796, 799 (7th Cir. 2008). In order to survive such a motion, a plaintiff must "provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief by alleging "enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 1964-65, 167 L. Ed. 2d 929 (2007) (internal quotation marks, brackets, and citation omitted). Specific facts are not necessary. Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 93, 127 S. Ct. 2197, 2200, 167 L. Ed. 2d 1081 (2007).
UPS argues that Scarelli fails to state a claim under Illinois law because her suit is precluded by the "natural accumulation rule." UPS recognizes that "property owners and business operators have a general duty to provide a reasonably safe means of ingress to and egress from their business." See Reed v. Galaxy Holdings, Inc., 394 Ill. App. 3d 39, 42, 914 N.E.2d 632, 636 (Ill. App. Ct. 2009). However, under the rule
cited by UPS, "property owners and business operators do not have a duty to remove the tracks or residue left inside the building by customers who have walked through natural accumulations outside the building." Id. UPS believes that Scarelli's lawsuit falls squarely within this rule and that she cannot save her suit simply by mentioning an "unnatural" accumulation in her complaint.
UPS is correct that simply mentioning an unnatural accumulation is not sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss. Instead, under the federal notice pleading standard, Plaintiff must plead sufficient facts to plausibly suggest that UPS was responsible for such an unnatural accumulation. Id. In this case, Scarelli's allegations do not suggest that the accumulation at UPS's facility occurred unnaturally. Instead, she pleads that the accumulation was simply a result of water being tracked in by customers. This allegation alone clearly places Scarelli's case within the reach of the natural accumulation rule.
However, Scarelli's allegations go beyond the question of whether the method by which the water accumulated was natural or not. As noted above, she also pleads that the materials used for the floor and coatings at the UPS facility caused the floor to accumulate water unnaturally and to become excessively slippery when it was wet. Scarelli points out that similar facts have formed the basis for suits under Illinois law before. Buscaglia v. United States, 25 F.3d 530, 534-35 (7th Cir. 1994) (). Indeed, the Illinois Supreme Court has expressly distinguished such allegations from those that fail under the natural accumulation rule. Sommese v. Maling Bros., Inc., 36 Ill. 2d 263, 265-66, 222 N.E.2d 468, 469-70 (1966) ().
UPS argues that...
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