Cintron v. Title Financial Corporation et al
Filing
28
ORDER granting in part and denying in part 13 Motion to Strike Affirmative Defenses. Affirmative defense number 10 is stricken, but all other affirmative defenses remain. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendants shall file an amended answer in respon se to Plaintiffs Second Amended Complaint within 21 days of this Order. Defendants may amend their affirmative defense 14. However, because Plaintiff does not allege negligence in her Second Amended Complaint, Defendants shall refrain from asserting any affirmative defenses applicable to a negligence claim. Signed by Judge Dana L. Christensen on 2/1/2018. (ASG)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MONTANA
MISSOULA DIVISION
ROSALINDA CINTRON,
CV 17-108-M-DLC
Plaintiff,
ORDER
vs.
TITLE FINANCIAL CORPORATION,
INSURED TITLES, LLC, and JOHN
DOES 1-5,
Defendants.
Before the Court is Plaintiff Rosalinda Cintron's ("Cintron") Motion to
Strike Affirmative Defenses.
(Doc. 13.) For the reasons stated below, the Court
grants the motion in part and denies the motion in part.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Cintron initiated her Complaint on August 10, 201 7, and then filed an
Amended Complaint on September 8, 2017.
Cintron alleges that Defendants
discriminated against her at her workplace due to her disability.
working for Title Financial in 2005.
took leave from work.
Cintron began
She suffered a stroke in January 2014 and
When she returned, Cintron alleges that she was harassed
and fellow employees believed she was faking her stroke and her ability to perform
her job functions.
The harassment allegedly culminated with in-patient
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hospitalization for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Defendants answered the Complaint, asserting twenty-one affirmative
defenses.
(Doc. 8 at 11-12.)
Cintron filed the present motion, arguing that the
affirmative defenses should be stricken because they do not meet the Twombly and
Iqbal pleading requirement.
(Docs. 13; 14 at 5.)
Defendants oppose the motion,
urging the Court to adopt the "fair notice" pleading standard recognized by the
Ninth Circuit.
LEGAL STANDARD
I.
Pleading Sufficiency of Affirmative Defenses
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f), a "court may strike from a
pleading an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or
scandalous matter."
"[T]he function of a 12(f) motion to strike is to avoid the
expenditure of time and money that must arise from litigating spurious issues by
dispensing with those issues prior to trial. ..."
Co., 697 F.2d 880, 885 (9th Cir. 1983).
Sidney-Vinstein v. A.H Robins
While district courts possess
consideration discretion in disposing of Rule 12(f) motions to strike, such motions
are regarded with disfavor because they are often used as delaying tactics and
because of the limited importance of pleadings in federal practice.
SC Charles
Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane et al., Federal Practice and
ProcedureĀ§ 1392 (3d ed.); see also Benham v. Am. Servicing Co., No. C 09-01099
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JSW, 2009 WL 4456386, at *8 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 30, 2009).
Rule 8 requires a
response to a pleading to include defenses, admissions, and denials.
P. 8(b), (c).
Fed. R. Civ.
"[A] party must affirmatively state any avoidance or affirmative
defense" in order to avoid waiver.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(c).
The Ninth Circuit has directed courts to evaluate the pleading sufficiency of
affirmative defenses under the "fair notice" standard.
Simmons v. Navajo Cty.,
Ariz., 609 F .3d 1011, 1023 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting Wyshak v. City Nat 'l Bank, 607
F.2d 824, 827 (9th Cir.1979), also citing Jn re Gayle Sterten, 546 F.3d 278, 285
(3d Cir.2008) (noting that "the proper focus of our inquiry" is whether framing the
defense as a denial of an allegation "specifically deprived [the plaintiff] of an
opportunity to rebut that defense or to alter her litigation strategy accordingly")).
Therefore, an affirmative defense need only give the plaintiff fair notice of the
defense.
Wyshak, 607 F .2d at 827.
In her motion, Cintron contends that all twenty of Defendants' affirmative
defenses are pled insufficiently.
(Doc. 14 at 11-18.)
Cintron requests this Court
to apply the reinterpreted pleading standards under the Supreme Court's holdings
in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556
U.S. 662 (2009) to affirmative defenses.
(See id. at 8-11.)
Although the Ninth
Circuit has not yet adopted the Twombly/Iqbal pleading standard for affirmative
defenses, Cintron cites to several district courts that have done so.
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(Doc. 14 at 9-
10.)
Notably, however, no court in the District of Montana has adopted this
standard. 1
In response, Defendants direct the Court to many Ninth Circuit cases that
have reiterated the "fair notice" standard applies to affirmative defensesparticularly cases following the United States Supreme Court's decisions in
Twombly and Iqbal.
(Doc. 17 at 7 (citing Simmons, 609 F.3d at 1023 (2010 case
citing "fair notice" standard from Wyshak); Garner v. Pritzker, 609 F. App'x 433,
434 (9th Cir. 2015) (reciting "fair notice" standard); Patsystems (NA) Ltd. Liab.
Co. v. Trend Exch., Inc., 695 F. App'x 206 (9th Cir. 2017) (June 2, 2017 opinion
citing with approval the standard set forth in Simmons).)
In any case, it is clear
that this point is unresolved in the Ninth Circuit.
Absent further direction, this Court declines to extend the Twombly/Iqbal
pleading standards to affirmative defenses.
conclusion.
Several considerations inform this
Most significantly, the Ninth Circuit has continued to recognize the
"fair notice" standard of affirmative defense pleading even after Twombly and
See Simmons, 609 F.3d 1011; Schutte & Koerting, Inc. v. Swett &
Iqbal.
Crawford, 298 F. App'x 613, 615 (9th Cir. 2008).
1
Moreover, the Supreme
The Court acknowledges that the judges in this district take varying approaches to
striking affirmative defenses during the initial Rule 16 scheduling conference, which is a matter
of personal preference and well within the discretion of the judge to effectively manage his or
her caseload.
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Court's analysis in Twombly and Iqbal is limited to pleadings under Federal Rule
of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2).
550 U.S. at 555, 556 U.S. at 677-678.
Federal Rule
of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires that the party stating a claim for relief provide
"a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to
relief."
Rule 8(c), on the other hand, only requires a responding party to
"affirmatively state" its affirmative defenses.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(c).
Therefore,
applying the plausibility standard to affirmative defenses, without clear controlling
authority from the Ninth Circuit, would broaden the scope of specific federal
pleading standards.
For these reasons, this Court will review the sufficiency of Defendants'
affirmative defenses under the "fair notice" pleading standard.
DISCUSSION
Cintron urges the court to strike all twenty of Defendant's affirmative
defenses as insufficiently pled.
However, under the fair notice pleading standard,
Cintron's position is not well-taken.
With one exception (discussed below), all of
the affirmative defenses are pled with sufficient particularity to give Cintron fair
notice of their grounds.
The majority of Defendant's affirmative defenses relate to the elements of
the claims found within the Amended Complaint.
Affirmative defenses 1and2
explain that the Defendants do not believe the separation of employment qualifies
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as a "discharge," and further contend it was not wrongful.
puts Cintron on fair notice of these defenses.
(Doc. 8 at 11.)
This
Affirmative defenses 3, 4, and 5
relate to the potential amount of damages that can be awarded in an employment
discrimination case.
(Id.)
These put Cintron on notice that Defendants will
dispute damages in regards to mitigation, deductions, and limitations pursuant to
the Montana Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act ("WDEA").
Next,
Defendants plead affirmative defenses regarding the doctrine of unclean hands,
offsets due to collateral sources, preemption by the WDEA, and proportionate
reduction of damages due to Cintron's own acts and omissions.
(Id.
at~~
6-9.)
Again, the Court finds that this puts Cintron on fair notice of these defenses.
While Cintron takes particular issue with affirmative defenses 8 and 9 (Doc.
26), the Court finds these defenses appropriate under the circumstances.
Preemption is proper as an affirmative defense due to risk of waiver.
Further,
Cintron argues that affirmative defense 9 is impertinent because she has not
alleged a negligence claim.
However, in her preliminary pretrial statement,
Cintron flushes out Count V and notifies Defendants that it is grounded in
negligence.
Thus, Defendants contend that this defense is applicable to a
negligence claim.
The Court agrees. 2
2
In Defendants' Supplemental Brief in Opposition to Plaintiffs Motion to Strike
Affirmative Defenses they argue that they "have sought to amend their Answer to add additional
affirmative defenses related to this negligence claim, including defenses related to causation and
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Affirmative defenses 11 through 20 also give Cintron notice that Defendants
will contest any award of punitive damages, that she may be barred by failing to
exhaust administrative remedies or by the applicable statute of limitations, that her
Complaint alleges claims against entities other than her employer, that she is not
entitled to double recovery, that she is not a qualified individual and refused to
engage in the interactive process necessary to establish a discrimination claim, that
she was not subject to any adverse employment action, and that she did not
properly serve her Amended Complaint because no exhibits were attached.
12, ,-r,-r 11-20.)
(Id. at
The Court finds all of these defenses sufficiently put Cintron on
notice and are warranted under the circumstances. 3
The only affirmative defense that the Court finds does not put Cintron on
fair notice is paragraph 10, which states that "Plaintiff has not acted in good faith."
(Id. at 11, ,-r 10.)
The Court is unclear what this defense relates to, which, in tum,
does not sufficiently put Cintron on fair notice of a particular defense.
"Good
faith" pertains to a particular mental state, and none of the claims alleged in the
damages." (Doc. 25 at 6.) Since then, Plaintiff has filed a Second Amended Complaint, which
only includes Counts I, II, and III, but did not reallege Counts IV and V. (Doc. 27.) Therefore,
this affirmative defense is moot.
3
In Defendants' supplemental brief, they also move to revise their affirmative defense 14
to include "that an alleged wrongful discharge claim brought in August 2017 for an event
occurring in August 2015 is likely barred by the one-year statute oflimitations for wrongful
discharge actions." (Doc. 25 at 7.) Because Cintron alleges for the first time in her preliminary
pretrial statement that her constructive discharge claim is based on conduct occurring in 2015,
the Court finds this amendment reasonable. Thus, Defendants may amend their affirmative
defense 14 to include this language.
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Amended Complaint (or Second Amended Complaint) require a showing that
Cintron acted in good faith.
Therefore, this affirmative defense is stricken.
CONCLUSION
Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs Motion to Strike Affirmative
Defenses (Doc. 13) is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. Affirmative
defense number 10 is stricken, but all other affirmative defenses remain.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendants shall file an amended answer
in response to Plaintiffs Second Amended Complaint within 21 days of this Order.
Defendants may amend their affirmative defense 14, as indicated above.
However, because Plaintiff does not allege negligence in her Second Amended
Complaint, Defendants shall refrain from asserting any affirmative defenses
applicable to a negligence claim.
DATED this
lst;" day of February, 2018.
Dana L. Christensen, Chief Judge
United States District Court
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