Garrison et al v. Foster Poultry Farms Incorporated
Filing
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ORDER granting in part Plaintiffs' 26 Motion to Strike Affirmative Defenses One, Seven and Eight. Defendant's first affirmative defense is stricken from its answer. (See Order for details.) Signed by Judge Douglas L Rayes on 7/14/2016. (MMO)
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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
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FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA
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Chadron Garrison, et al.,
No. CV-16-00280-PHX-DLR
Plaintiffs,
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v.
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ORDER
Foster Poultry Farms Incorporated,
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Defendant.
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Before the Court is Plaintiffs Chadron and Pamela Garrison’s Motion to Strike
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Affirmative Defenses One, Seven and Eight. (Doc. 26.) The motion is fully briefed.1
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For the reasons stated below, the motion is granted in part.
BACKGROUND
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On January 29, 2016, Plaintiffs brought suit against Defendant Foster Poultry
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Farms Inc. alleging that their minor child, B.G., became seriously ill after ingesting
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chicken contaminated with Salmonella traceable to Defendant’s operation. (Doc. 1.) In
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April 2016, Defendant answered the complaint and pled eight affirmative defenses.
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(Doc. 23 at 13-15.) Plaintiffs now move to strike three of Defendant’s affirmative
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defenses: (1) defense one—failure to state a claim, (2) defense seven—spoliation, and
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(3) defense eight—preemption. (Doc. 26.)
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Plaintiffs’ request for oral argument is denied. The issues are fully briefed, and
the Court finds oral argument will not aid in the resolution of this matter. See Fed. R.
Civ. P. 78(b); LRCiv. 7.2(f).
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LEGAL STANDARD
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Rule 12(f) authorizes the court to “strike from a pleading an insufficient defense or
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any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter.” The purpose of a motion
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to strike “is to avoid the expenditure of time and money that must arise from litigating
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spurious issues by dispensing with those issues prior to trial[.]” Sidney-Vinstein v. A.H.
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Robins Co., 697 F.2d 880, 885 (9th Cir. 1983).
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disfavored, Ordahl v. U.S., 646 F. Supp. 4, 6 (D. Mont. 1985), and
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Motions to strike generally are
should be granted only where (1) it appears to a certainty that the plaintiff
will succeed regardless of what facts could be proved in support of the
defense; (2) the affirmative defense sought to be struck does not present
disputed and substantial questions of law that could be resolved in such a
way as to support the defense; and (3) the plaintiff shows it will be
prejudiced by the inclusion of the affirmative defense.
Tompkins v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 92 F. Supp. 2d 70, 80 (N.D.N.Y. 2000).
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ANALYSIS
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Plaintiffs argue that the defenses are vague, conclusory, and lack supporting facts,
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and thus they fail to meet the pleading requirements of Rule 8. (Doc. 26 at 6.) They also
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assert that the first affirmative defense—failure to state a claim—is not an appropriate
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affirmative defense.
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complaints set forth in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) and Ashcroft
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v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009) do not apply to affirmative defenses, and thus the defenses
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are adequately pled. It also asserts that its first defense—failure to state a claim—is
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appropriate under the circumstances. (Doc. 27 at 15-16.)
Defendant argues that the heightened pleading standards for
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The Court recently addressed these issues in a nearly identical case. See Craten v.
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Foster Poultry Farms, No. CV-15-02587-PHX-DLR, 2016 WL 3457899 (D. Ariz. June
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24, 2016).
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affirmative defenses, and the same arguments as to why the Court should strike three of
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the defenses. Ultimately, the Court concluded that Twombly and Iqbal do not govern
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pleading affirmative defenses.
Craten involved similar claims alleged against Defendant, the same
Id. at *3.
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It further found that Defendant’s first
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affirmative defense—failure to state a claim—was not a proper defense, but defenses
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seven and eight—spoliation and preemption—were sufficiently pled. Id. at *4. Given
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that Craten and the case at hand are substantially similar, the Court sees no reason to
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deviate from its previous decision. Accordingly, the Court strikes Defendant’s first
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affirmative defense and declines to strike defenses seven and eight.
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IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ motion to strike, (Doc. 26), is GRANTED IN
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PART. Defendant’s first affirmative defense is stricken from its answer. In addition,
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Defendant’s request for judicial notice, (Doc. 28), and Plaintiffs’ request for judicial
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notice, (Doc. 36-1), are DENIED because the Court did not rely on the materials in
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reaching its decision.
Dated this 14th day of July, 2016.
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Douglas L. Rayes
United States District Judge
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