Baranyi v. Pacific Aquaculture & Coastal et al

Filing 76

ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT MARIA C. HAWS'S MOTION FOR PARTIAL DISMISSAL OF THIRD AMENDED COMPLAINT re 70 - Signed by CHIEF JUDGE SUSAN OKI MOLLWAY on 9/9/2014. (emt, )CERTIFICATE OF SERVICEParticipants registe red to receive electronic notifications received this document electronically at the e-mail address listed on the Notice of Electronic Filing (NEF). Sandor V. Baranyi served by first class mail at the address of record on September 9, 2014.

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF HAWAII
SANDOR V. BARANYI,

)
)
Plaintiff,
)
)
vs.
)
)
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII, et al., )
)
Defendants.
)
_____________________________ )

CIVIL NO. 13-00667 SOM/KSC
ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT MARIA
C. HAWS’S MOTION FOR PARTIAL
DISMISSAL OF THIRD AMENDED
COMPLAINT

ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT MARIA C. HAWS’S MOTION FOR PARTIAL
DISMISSAL OF THIRD AMENDED COMPLAINT
I.

INTRODUCTION.
On June 24, 2014, the court dismissed the Second

Amended Complaint filed by Plaintiff Sandor V. Baranyi with
respect to claims asserted against Defendant Research Corporation
of the University of Hawaii (“RCUH”).

The court gave Baranyi

leave to file a Third Amended Complaint that asserted viable
claims against RCUH.

See ECF No. 58.

On July 17, 2014, Baranyi filed a Third Amended
Complaint.

See ECF No. 62.
On August 7, 2014, Defendant Maria C. Haws filed a

motion to partially dismiss that complaint.

See ECF No. 70.

Haws argues that Baranyi failed to comply with the court’s order
of June 24, 2014, by including statements unrelated to claims
against RCUH.

Haws therefore requests that all such allegations,

statements, claims and/or remedies be stricken from the Third
Amended Complaint.

See ECF No. 58.

That motion is denied, as no

new claims are asserted against Haws and she is not prejudiced by
the new statements in the Third Amended Complaint.
II.

FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS.
The Third Amended Complaint was filed in response to

the court’s Order Granting Defendant Research Corporation of the
University of Hawaii’s Motion to Dismiss.

See Order Granting

Defendant Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii’s
Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 58.

The court dismissed Plaintiff’s

Second Amended Complaint with respect to the claims against RCUH,
ruling that the Second Amended Complaint lacked “factual
allegations as to why RCUH should be liable to Baranyi.”
PageID # 291.

Id.,

The court gave Baranyi leave to file a Third

Amended Complaint that asserted viable claims against RCUH.

Id.,

PageID # 291.
The Third Amended Complaint filed by Baranyi asserts
the same claims against Defendants Haws, Richard L. Short, and
the University of Hawaii that were asserted in the Second Amended
Complaint.

Compare Third Amended Complaint, ECF No. 62, with

Second Amended Complaint, ECF No. 46.

The Third Amended

Complaint asserts claims of retaliation, age discrimination,
defamation, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Specifically, it alleges that, on September 12, 2012, Haws, a
tenured professor at the University of Hawaii, retaliated against
Baranyi by filing a false accusation of disruptive behavior with

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the Dean of Student Affairs shortly after Baranyi had complained
to Haws about age discrimination and unfair hiring practices.
See Third Amended Complaint, ECF No. 62, PageID # 297.

Baranyi

also claims that Haws retaliated against him the following week
by filing two false claims with the Dean of Student Affairs and
by filing a workplace violence charge with campus security.
PageID #s 297-98.

Id.,

Baranyi claims Haws further retaliated against

him by seeking a temporary restraining order against him in state
court.

Id., PageID # 298.

Baranyi says Haws also retaliated

against him by lying to the EEOC investigator who was looking
into an administrative charge filed by Baranyi and by getting
Short to submit a false statement to that investigator.
PageID # 298.

Id.,

Baranyi claims that Haws and Short defamed him by

lying to the EEOC investigator.

Id., PageID #s 302-303.

Baranyi additionally claims that Haws discriminated
against him based on his age by lying to him about the
availability of “student assistant jobs.”

Id., PageID # 301.

also claims that Haws caused him emotional distress.

He

Id., PageID

#s 303-304.
Haws now complains about the Third Amended Complaint,
arguing that Baranyi failed to comply with the court’s order of
June 24, 2014, because the Third Amended Complaint includes “new
or additional allegations, statements, claims and/or remedies
unrelated to his claims against Defendant RCUH.”

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Defendant Maria

C. Haws’ Motion for Partial Dismissal of Third Amended Complaint,
ECF No. 70, PageID # 351.

Defendant argues that Baranyi only had

leave to amend with respect to the facts and claims against RCUH,
and that any additions relating to Haws should be stricken
pursuant to Rule 12(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Id., PageID #s 349-350.
III.

STANDARD OF REVIEW.
Under Rule 12(f), the “court may strike from a pleading

an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial,
impertinent, or scandalous matter,” on its own or upon a motion
made by a party.

Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f).

Redundant matter is an

allegation that includes a “needless repetition of other
averments or [is] foreign to the issue.”

Sligher v. Prospect

Mort., LLC, 789 F. Supp. 2d 1212, 1216 (E.D. Cal. 2011); see also
Walter-Cook v. Integrated Health Res., LLC, No. 12-00146, 2012 WL
4461159, at *1-2 (D. Haw. Aug. 10, 2012).

Immaterial matter has

“no essential or important relationship to the claim for relief
or the defenses being pleaded.”

Fantasy, Inc. v. Fogerty, 984

F.2d 1524, 1527 (9th Cir. 1993), rev’d on other grounds by
Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U.S. 517 (1994).

Impertinent

matter “consists of statements that do not pertain, and are not
necessary, to the issues in question.”

Id.

Scandalous matter

“improperly casts a derogatory light on someone, most typically
on a party to the action.”

Germaine Music v. Universal Songs of

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Polygram, 275 F. Supp. 3d 1288, 1300 (D. Nev. 2003).
The purpose of a Rule 12(f) motion is to “avoid the
expenditure of time and money that must arise from litigating
spurious issues by dispensing with those issues prior to trial.”
Sidney-Vinstein v. A.H. Robins Co., 697 F.2d 880, 885 (9th Cir.
1983).

A Rule 12(f) motion to strike is a “severe measure and is

generally viewed with disfavor.”

United States v. 729.773 Acres

of Land, 531 F. Supp. 967, 971 (D. Haw. 1982); see also Sky-Med,
Inc. v. Skydiving Sch., Inc., No. 13-00193, 2014 WL 198801, at
*1-2 (D. Haw. Jan. 16, 2014).

Because of this, a motion to

strike is “not normally granted unless prejudice would result to
the movant from the denial of the motion.”

Id.

In considering a

motion to strike, the court “views the challenged pleadings in
the light most favorable to the plaintiffs.”

Wailua Assocs. v.

Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 183 F.R.D. 550, 554 (D. Haw. 1998); see
also Hoeft v. Tucson Unified Sch. Dist., 967 F.2d 1298, 1301 (9th
Cir. 1992).
IV.

ANALYSIS.
Haws brings the present motion pursuant to Rule 12(f)

of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which allows a court to
strike from a pleading any matter that is redundant, immaterial,
impertinent, or scandalous.

It is unclear from Haws’s motion

which of these Rule 12(f) categories she is relying on in seeking
an order striking the new material in the Third Amended

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Complaint.

Haws simply moves to strike on the grounds that

portions of the Third Amended Complaint do not comply with the
court’s order of June 24, 2014.
The court may dismiss a complaint or a claim therein
based on a failure to comply with an order pursuant to its
inherent power or to Rule 41(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure.

See Fendler v. Westgate-Cal. Corp., 527 F.2d 1168,

1170 (9th Cir. 1975).

In Fendler, the court order gave a

plaintiff leave to file a third amended complaint, but expressly
limited the complaint to certain claims.

Id. at 1169.

The

plaintiff filed a third amended complaint that did not meet these
specifications, and the court dismissed the complaint with
prejudice.

Id. at 1169-70.
At issue in Baranyi’s Third Amended Complaint are the

“new or additional claims and/or remedies against Haws or any
other defendants in this case.”

Defendant Maria C. Haws’ Motion

for Partial Dismissal of Third Amended Complaint, ECF No. 70,
PageID # 351.

Haws’s interpretation of the court’s order is that

Baranyi could only assert new facts and/or claims against RCUH,
and that any additional allegations, statements, claims, or
remedies against other Defendants would violate the court’s
order.

Id., ECF No. 70, PageID # 351.
Haws’s interpretation of the order is too narrow.

Although the order granted Baranyi leave to file a Third Amended

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Complaint to assert facts and claims against RCUH, the order did
not expressly limit new allegations to RCUH.

See Order Granting

Defendant Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii’s
Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 58.

Unlike the order in Fendler,

which limited the complaint to “certain expressly stated claims,”
Fendler, 527 F.2d at 1169, this court’s order of June 24, 2014,
did not expressly limit new claims in Baranyi’s Third Amended
Complaint to claims against RCUH.
The court notes that Baranyi’s Second and Third Amended
Complaints are substantially the same.

The Third Amended

Complaint does add additional facts to the claims asserted
against Haws, Short, and the University of Hawaii.
Amended Complaint, ECF No. 62, PageID #s 297-303.

See Third
These

additional factual assertions only flesh out existing claims.
Id., PageID #s 297-303.

Haws has not demonstrated any prejudice

resulting from the additional detail in the Third Amended
Complaint.
Because a Rule 12(f) motion to strike is a “severe
measure” that should be viewed “in the light most favorable to
the plaintiffs,” and because Haws relies on her own narrow
reading of this court’s order without pointing to any express
language in the order prohibiting new material, this court sees
no justification for striking the new portions of the Third
Amended Complaint.

See 729.773 Acres of Land, 531 F. Supp. at

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971; Wailua Assocs., 183 F.R.D. at 554.

This court does not

consider the additional factual detail contained in the Third
Amended Complaint to be violative of the court’s order of June
24, 2014.

While the Third Amended Complaint seeks new remedies,

including the ending of the allegedly “non-competitive” hiring
policy as well as a position with Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal
Resources Center, the addition of these remedies at this early
stage of the litigation does not prejudice Haws.
V.

CONCLUSION.
The new material in Baranyi’s Third Amended Complaint

is neither redundant, immaterial, impertinent, nor scandalous.
The court denies Haws’s Motion for Partial Dismissal pursuant to
Rule 12(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

The court

denies the motion without a hearing pursuant to Local Rule
7.2(d).

IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: Honolulu, Hawaii, September 9, 2014.

/s/ Susan Oki Mollway
Susan Oki Mollway
Chief United States District Judge
Baranyi v. Univ. of Hawaii, et al., Civ. No. 13-00667 SOM-KSC; ORDER DENYING
DEFENDANT MARIA C. HAWS’S MOTION FOR PARTIAL DISMISSAL OF THIRD AMENDED
COMPLAINT.

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