Watts v. Starbucks Corp.
| Decision Date | 12 March 2018 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 2:17-cv-00272-DCN |
| Parties | DANNY WATTS, Plaintiff, v. STARBUCKS CORPORATION and DOES I-V, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Idaho |
The Court has before it two interrelated Motions. First, Defendant Starbucks Corporation has filed a Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and Idaho Code section 6-1604. Dkt. 17. Second, Plaintiff Danny Watts has filed a Motion for Leave to File a Second Amended Complaint. Dkt. 18.
Watts asserts that an employee at a Starbucks in Ponderay, Idaho, served him Urnex, a cleaning chemical, in his coffee cup on or about July 4, 2015. Watts ingested the chemical, believing it was the coffee he had ordered. Watts alleges that his ingestion of the chemical caused him to suffer severe physical injury and pain that lasted for months.
Based on these events, Watts filed the current suit on June 27, 2017. On August 10, 2017, Watts filed an Amended Complaint in which he asserted five causes of action: (1) negligence; (2) negligent supervision; (3) negligent training; (4) respondent superior; and (5) violation of the Idaho Food Code. Dkt. 7. Among other things, Watt requested general and special damages exceeding $500,000. Id. at 13. Watt also "reserved" his right to amend his Amended Complaint to seek punitive damages and "reserved" his right to "seek leave of the court to lift the cap on non-economic damages." Id. at 10-12.
On October 20, 2017, Starbucks filed the pending Motion to Dismiss. Dkt. 17. In this Motion, Starbucks asks the Court to dismiss with prejudice Watt's fourth and fifth causes of action and to strike any reference to punitive damages in the Complaint. Along with his response, Watts filed a Motion for Leave to File an Amended Complaint. Dkt. 18. In this Motion, Watts seeks to fix some of the problems Starbucks identified in his original Complaint. After these motions were fully briefed, one of the parties filed a request for reassignment to a district judge. Accordingly, the Court reassigned this case to the undersigned on February 27, 2018. Dkt. 29.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) permits a court to dismiss a claim if the plaintiff has "fail[ed] to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." "A Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal may be based on either a 'lack of a cognizable legal theory' or 'the absence of sufficient facts alleged under a cognizable legal theory.'" Johnson v. Riverside Healthcare Sys., LP, 534 F.3d 1116, 1121 (9th Cir. 2008) (citation omitted). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires a complaint to contain "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief," in order to "give the defendantfair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests." See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 554 (2007). "This is not an onerous burden." Johnson, 534 F.3d at 1121. A complaint "does not need detailed factual allegations," but it must set forth "more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. The complaint must also contain sufficient factual matter to "state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Id. at 570. In considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the Court must view the "complaint in the light most favorable to" the claimant and "accept[] all well-pleaded factual allegations as true, as well as any reasonable inference drawn from them." Johnson, 534 F.3d at 1122.
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a), a party may amend its pleading once "as a matter of course" before a responsive pleading is served. After that, a plaintiff may amend the complaint only with the written consent of the opposing party or with leave of the court. Id.; see also DCD Programs, Ltd. v. Leighton, 833 F.2d 183, 185 (9th Cir. 1987). However, Rule 15 also instructs the court to grant leave to amend "when justice so requires." Nevertheless, "[a] district court . . . may . . . deny leave to amend due to undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed, undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment, and futility of amendment." Zucco Partners, LLC v. Digimarc Corp., 552 F.3d 981, 1007 (9th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).
"An amendment is futile when 'no set of facts can be proved under the amendment to the pleadings that would constitute a valid and sufficient claim or defense.'" Missouri ex rel. Koster v. Harris, 847 F.3d 646, 656 (9th Cir. 2017) (quoting Miller v. Rykoff-Sexton, Inc., 845 F.2d 209, 214 (9th Cir. 1988)). "When a motion to amend is opposed on the grounds that amendment would be futile, the standard of review in considering the motion is akin to that undertaken by a court in determining the sufficiency of a complaint which is challenged for failure to state a claim under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 12(b)(6)." Arbon Valley Solar LLC v. Thomas & Betts Corp., No. 4:16-cv-00070-DCN, 2017 WL 5613009 (D. Idaho Nov. 21, 2017) (quoting Doe v. Nevada, 356 F. Supp. 2d 1123, 1125 (D. Nev. 2004)).
Starbuck's Motion to Dismiss is easily resolved as the parties largely agree. First, Watts agrees with Starbucks that "Count IV of the Amended Complaint should be dismissed with prejudice because respondeat superior is not a separate cause of action in itself." Dkt. 19, at 3 (citing Bonner v. Alderson, No. CV02-248-S-LMB, 2005 WL 2333829, at *19 (D. Idaho Sept. 22, 2005) (). Because the parties agree, further analysis is unnecessary and the Court will dismiss this claim with prejudice.
Second, Watts also appears to agree with Starbucks that "Count V of the Amended Complaint should be dismissed with prejudice because the Idaho Food Code does not provide a private cause of action." Id. at 4. Instead, Watts seeks to amend his Amended Complaint to reformulate this claim as a negligence per se claim in which the Idaho Food Code created the applicable standard of care. Because of Watts' apparent agreement that the Idaho Food Code, standing alone, does not create a private cause of action and his expressed desire to transform this claim into a negligence per se claim, the Court will dismiss this claim with prejudice. Whether Watts can assert a negligence per se claim based on the Idaho Food Code is a separate issue that the Court will address in the next section.
Finally, Starbucks asks this Court to dismiss without prejudice "Watt's claim for punitive damages" and strike "the punitive damages allegations contained in the Amended Complaint . . . because Watts has failed to comply with Idaho Code § 6-1604." Dkt. 17-1, at 8.
Because this case is before the court based on diversity jurisdiction, Idaho Code section 6-1604(2) applies. See Windsor v. Guarantee Trust Life Ins. Co., 684 F. Supp. 630, 633 (D. Idaho 1988) (). "Under Section 6-1604(2), a party cannot make a claim for punitive damages in its prayer for relief; rather, the claim must be made by a pretrial motion to amend." Doe v. Cutter Biological, a Div. of Miles Inc., 844 F. Supp. 602, 610 (D. Idaho 1994). Specifically, Section 6-1604(2) provides as follows:
[A] party may, pursuant to a pretrial motion and after hearing before the court, amend the pleadings to include a prayer for relief seeking punitive damages. The court shall allow the motion to amend the pleadings if the moving party establishes at such hearing a reasonable likelihood of proving facts at trial sufficient to support an award of punitive damages.
The Court disagrees with Starbucks' characterization of Watts' reservation of his right to seek punitive damages later in this case. First, this reservation is not a "claim for punitive damages." Second, the Court does not see how Watts has failed to comply with Idaho Code. His Amended Complaint does not "contain[] a prayer for relief seeking punitive damages." See id. Even though Watts did not need to reserve his right to seek punitive damages later, the fact that he did so was not improper. Watts is "the master of his complaint," Hunter v. Philip Morris USA, 582 F.3d 1039, 1042 (9th Cir. 2009), and, accordingly, he will be permitted to include statements which are not prohibited, even if they are unnecessary. The Court will therefore deny the Motion to Dismiss as it relates to Watts' reservation of the right to seek punitive damages.
Starbucks argues the Court should not permit Watts to amend his Amended Complaint to assert his negligence per se claim because this claim would not survive a motion to dismiss for two reasons: (1) "negligence per se is not properly pleaded as a separate cause of action" and (2) the duty a Starbucks employee allegedly breached "does not directly correspond with the duty set forth in Idaho Code." The Court addresses each of these arguments in turn.
Starbucks argues that the Court should dismiss Watts' negligence per se claim because "he should not be permitted to recover twice for a single underlying tort." Dkt. 23, at 6. The Court acknowledges that "[n]egligence per se is simply one manner of proving a common law negligence claim." Steed v. Grand Teton Council of the Boy Scouts of Am., Inc., 172 P.3d 1123, 1128 (Idaho 2007). However, this fact does not prevent Watts from pleading a negligence claim and a...
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