The Mountain Club Owner's Association v. Graybar Electric Company, Inc.

Filing 37

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER RE 27 MOTION TO DISMISS FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT signed by Senior Judge William B. Shubb on 3/25/2014: IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that defendant's motion to dismiss is GRANTED with respect to plaintiff's negligence claim and DENIED with respect to plaintiff's strict products liability claim. Plaintiff has twenty days from the date this Order is signed to file an amended complaint, if it can do so consistent with this Order. (Kirksey Smith, K)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

9

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

10
----oo0oo----

11
12
13

THE MOUNTAIN CLUB OWNER’S
ASSOCIATION,
Plaintiff,

14
v.

15
16

CIV. NO. 2:13-1835 WBS KJN
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER RE: MOTION
TO DISMISS FIRST AMENDED
COMPLAINT

GRAYBAR ELECTRIC COMPANY,
INC., and DOES 1-50,

17

Defendants.

18
----oo0oo----

19

Plaintiff The Mountain Club Owner’s Association brought

20
21

this action against defendant Graybar Electric Company, Inc.,

22

arising out of an electrical fire at plaintiff’s property located

23

in Kirkwood, California.

24

plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint (“FAC”) pursuant to Federal

25

Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim

26

upon which relief can be granted.

27

I.

28

Defendant now moves to dismiss

Factual & Procedural History
Plaintiff is a homeowners’ association and the owner of
1

1

property located at 1399 Kirkwood Meadows Drive in Kirkwood,

2

California (“the property”).

3

Defendant allegedly supplied electric cable to a subcontractor

4

who installed it during the construction of the property.

5

8-10.)

6

an electric arc. (Id. ¶ 12.)

7

insulation, the electric arc allegedly came into contact with the

8

wood frame of the property and set it ablaze.

9

allegedly caused over six million dollars in damage to the

10

(FAC ¶ 1 (Docket No. 26).)

(Id. ¶

On May 23, 2011, wires within the cable allegedly formed
Due to a lack of sufficient

(Id.)

This fire

property. (Id. ¶ 13.)

11

On September 5, 2013, plaintiff brought this action

12

against defendant and asserted claims under California law for

13

strict products liability and negligence.

14

court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss on January 14, 2014,

15

(Docket No. 23), and plaintiff timely amended its Complaint,

16

(Docket No. 26). Defendant now moves to dismiss the FAC pursuant

17

to Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief

18

can be granted.

19

II.

20

(Docket No. 2.)

The

(Docket No. 28.)

Discussion
On a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), the court

21

must accept the allegations in the complaint as true and draw all

22

reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff.

23

Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974), overruled on other grounds by

24

Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183 (1984); Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S.

25

319, 322 (1972).

26

must plead “only enough facts to state a claim to relief that is

27

plausible on its face.”

28

544, 570 (2007).

Scheuer v.

To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff

Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S.

This “plausibility standard,” however, “asks
2

1

for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted

2

unlawfully,” and where a complaint pleads facts that are “merely

3

consistent with a defendant’s liability,” it “stops short of the

4

line between possibility and plausibility.”

5

556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557).

6

Ashcroft v. Iqbal,

“While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion

7

to dismiss does not need detailed factual allegations, a

8

plaintiff’s obligation to provide the ‘grounds’ of his

9

entitle[ment] to relief’ requires more than labels and

10

conclusions . . . .”

11

original) (citations omitted).

12

elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory

13

statements, do not suffice.”

14

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679 (“While legal conclusions can provide the

15

framework of a complaint, they must be supported by factual

16

allegations.”).

17

A.

18

Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (alteration in
“Threadbare recitals of the

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678; see also

Strict Products Liability
Plaintiff’s strict products liability claim is

19

predicated on the allegation that “[t]he subject cable was

20

defectively manufactured and unreasonably dangerous.”

21

18.)

22

must “identify [and] explain how the [product] either deviated

23

from [the manufacturer’s] intended result [or] design or how the

24

[product] deviated from other seemingly identical . . . models.”

25

Lucas v. City of Visalia, 726 F. Supp. 2d 1149, 1155 (E.D. Cal.

26

2010) (Ishii, J.) (citing Barker v. Lull Eng’g Co., 20 Cal. 3d

27

413, 429 (1978)).

28

(FAC ¶

In order to state a manufacturing defect claim, a plaintiff

In its previous Order, the court granted defendant’s
3

1

motion to dismiss because plaintiff’s original Complaint failed

2

to “identify the particular type of cable or the alleged defect,

3

let alone explain how the cable was defective or how that defect

4

resulted in a fire on plaintiff’s property.”

5

3-4.)

6

that the cable was defective and unreasonably dangerous because

7

it “lacked sufficient insulation on the electrical wiring.”

8

¶ 18.)

9

(Docket No. 23 at

Plaintiff subsequently amended its complaint to allege

(FAC

Despite defendant’s insistence to the contrary, neither

10

the court’s previous Order nor the cases defendant cites require

11

plaintiff to identify the cable’s “brand name, trade name,

12

manufacturer’s name, model number, manufacturing date, function,

13

appearance, [or] color.”

14

Two of the cases cited by defendant involved manufacturing defect

15

claims alleging injuries based on an unidentified component part.

16

See Markel Am. Ins. Co. v. Pac. Asian Enters., Civ. No. 07-5749

17

SC, 2008 WL 2951277, at *6 (N.D. Cal. July 28, 2008) (dismissing

18

a products liability complaint alleging only that “the Vessel and

19

certain components thereof were defective, deficient, and/or

20

otherwise not fit for the purpose intended”); Fontalvo v.

21

Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Civ. No. 13-331 GPS KSC, 2013 WL 440137,

22

at *3-4 (S.D. Cal. Aug. 15, 2013) (dismissing a strict product

23

liability claim where plaintiff failed to identify which

24

component part allegedly caused a helicopter to crash).

25

case, Smith v. Adobe Systems, Inc., is also inapposite; the

26

plaintiff in that case alleged a design defect, rather than a

27

manufacturing defect, and failed to identify which of Adobe’s

28

many software programs resulted in her computer being hacked.

(Def.’s Mem. at 7 (Docket No. 28).)

4

A third

1

See Civ. No. 11-1480, 2011 WL 4404152, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 21,

2

2011).

3

Here, by contrast, plaintiff has identified the

4

location and function of the cable, the subcontractor who

5

installed it, and the particular defect in the construction of

6

the cable that allegedly caused the electrical fire.

7

12.)

8

manufacturer of the cable or specific defects in the

9

manufacturing process.

(See FAC ¶

It is immaterial that plaintiff has not identified the

Currier v. Stryker Co., Civ. No. 2:11 JAM

10

EFB, 2012 WL 1037940 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 27, 2012), is illustrative.

11

There, the plaintiff alleged that he received a prosthetic femur

12

manufactured by the defendant, and that the prosthesis he

13

received was defective because it contained a weak spot at the

14

site where it broke.

15

plaintiff had stated a manufacturing defect claim because he

16

identified a “manufacturing flaw that caused [the prosthesis] to

17

have a weak spot and suddenly break.”

18

specifically rejected the suggestion that the plaintiff must

19

“offer an extensive explanation of the manufacturing process” or

20

how that process resulted in a defective prosthesis; as the court

21

noted, that “level of detail is not necessary at this stage of

22

the pleadings.”

23

See id. at *1.

The court held that the

Id. at *3.

The court

Id.

As in Currier, plaintiff has identified a specific

24

defect in the manufacture of the electric cable--insufficient

25

insulation--and alleged that this defect exposed the copper

26

wiring, resulted in an electric arc, and set a nearby wood frame

27

ablaze.

28

presumably design those cables so that they do not ignite nearby

(FAC ¶¶ 12, 18.)

Manufacturers of electric cables

5

1

wooden structures.

2

plausibly claim that the cable deviated from its intended

3

design,” (Def.’s Mem. at 7), is absurd, especially given that the

4

parties have not yet had the opportunity to conduct discovery.

5

Cf. Currier, 2012 WL 1037940 at *3.

6

The suggestion that plaintiff “cannot

In short, plaintiff has identified the alleged defect

7

in the cable with a sufficient degree of specificity to allege

8

that the cable deviated from the manufacturer’s intended result.

9

See Lucas, 726 F. Supp. 2d at 1155.

10
11

Accordingly, the court must

deny defendant’s motion to dismiss this claim.
B.

12

Negligence
A plaintiff injured by an allegedly defective product

13

may also seek to recover in negligence.

14

Inc., 26 Cal. 4th 465, 479 (2001).

15

negligence under California law, a plaintiff must establish four

16

required elements: (1) duty; (2) breach; (3) causation; and (4)

17

damages.”

18

2003) (citing Martinez v. Pac. Bell, 225 Cal. App. 3d 1557 (1st

19

Dist. 1990)).

20

See Merrill v. Navegar,

“In order to establish

Illeto v. Glock, Inc., 349 F.3d 1191, 1203 9th (Cir.

At oral argument, plaintiff clarified that its

21

negligence claim was premised solely on a theory of negligent

22

failure to warn.1

23
24
25
26
27
28

1

Under California law, distributors of a

Even if the court determined that plaintiff also
attempted to allege a negligent distribution theory, plaintiff
has not stated a claim under that theory. Under a negligent
distribution theory, a distributor owes a duty of care to its
customers only if it “knows or has reason to know that the
product might be dangerous.” In re Mattel, Inc., 588 F. Supp. 2d
111, 1118 (C.D. Cal. 2008); see also Restatement of Torts (2d) §
402 (“A seller of a chattel manufactured by a third person, who
neither knows nor has reason to know that it is likely to be,
6

1

product do not have an absolute duty to warn of defects in that

2

product; rather, they have a duty to warn only of risks that a

3

reasonably prudent distributor knew or should have known about.

4

Carlin v. Superior Court, 13 Cal. 4th 1104, 1113 (1996).

5

Here, while plaintiff has sufficiently alleged that the

6

cable defendant distributed was defective, it has not alleged

7

that defendant knew or should have known that the cable lacked

8

sufficient insulation or was otherwise defective and has not

9

alleged any facts that permit such an inference.

Even if

10

plaintiff’s failure to allege defendant’s knowledge of the

11

alleged defect is immaterial under a strict liability theory,

12

that failure is fatal to its claim for negligence.

13

1112 (holding that absent allegations that a reasonable

14

distributor would know of the alleged defect, a distributor will

15

“escape liability under negligence principles”).

16

the court must grant defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s

17

negligence claim.

18

See id. at

Accordingly,

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that defendant’s motion to

19

dismiss is GRANTED with respect to plaintiff’s negligence claim

20

and DENIED with respect to plaintiff’s strict products liability

21

claim.

22

Plaintiff has twenty days from the date this Order is

23

signed to file an amended complaint, if it can do so consistent

24

with this Order.

25

dangerous, is not liable in . . . negligence . . . because of his
failure to discover the danger by an inspection or test of the
chattel before distributing it.” Because plaintiff has not
alleged any facts suggesting that defendant knew or should have
known of the allegedly deficient insulation, it has not stated a
claim for negligent distribution.
7

26
27
28

1

Dated:

March 25, 2014

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
8