GONDEK v. HILTON WORLDWIDE, INC. et al

Filing 14

MEMORANDUM and ORDER denying 10 Motion for Leave to File THIRD-PARTY COMPLAINT. Signed by Magistrate Judge Douglas E. Arpert on 8/24/2017. (km)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

JANEEN GONDEK,

: Civil Action No. 16-455 (MAS)
:
Plaintiff,
:
:
v.
:
MEMORANDUM OPINION
:
AND ORDER
HILTON WORLDWIDE, INC., et al.,
:
:
Defendants.
:
___________________________________ :

This matter comes before the Court on a motion by Defendants Hilton
Worldwide, Inc. and HLT Property Acquisition, L.L.C., improperly pled as Hilton Orlando Lake
Buena Vista, seeking leave to file a Third Party Complaint. See docket no. 10. Specifically,
Defendants seek the Court’s permission to file a Third Party Complaint against GF Health
Products, Inc. (“GF”) and Dalziel Supply World (“Dalziel”) which, Defendants contend, were the
manufacturer and supplies, respectively, of the handicapped shower bench which is the subject of
Plaintiff’s claims against Defendants. A copy of Defendants’ proposed Third Party Complaint is
included among Defendants’ moving papers. See docket no. 10-3. Defendants maintain that GF
was negligent in the “design, manufacture, assembly, testing, inspection, distribution, marketing
and/or sale of the subject Bench.” Id. at paragraph 10. Defendants also maintain that Dalziel
was negligent in the “assembly, testing, inspection, distribution, marketing and/or sale of the
subject Bench.” Id. at paragraph 19.

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Plaintiff has opposed Defendants’ motion arguing that bringing “a new party into
this action, without good cause, will unduly delay resolution of this matter and prejudice the
Plaintiff.” See docket no. 11. The Court agrees and, therefore, for the reasons set forth below,
Defendants’ motion is DENIED.
I. LEGAL STANDARD
A motion to leave to file a Third Party Complaint is treated in a similar manner as
a motion for leave to amend the original pleadings. See Crocker v. Kooltronic. Inc., 2011 WL
689623, *2 (D.N.J. Feb. 18, 2011). The determination of a motion to amend falls within the
sound discretion of the District Court, and leave should be freely given when justice so requires.
See Spencer v. Cannon Equip. Co.,2009 WL 1883929, at *2-3 (D.N.J. June 29, 2009); Fed. R.
Civ. P. 15(a)(2). Courts “have considered the following factors in exercising their discretion on
whether to permit impleader under Rule 14(a): (1) the timeliness of the motion; (2) the
probability of trial delay; (3) the potential for complication of issues at trial; and (4) prejudice to
the original plaintiff.” In this case, Spencer, 2009 WL 1883929 at *2-3.
II. ANALYSIS
In this case, Plaintiff alleges that she sustained serious personal injuries on
September 13, 2014 when the handicapped shower bench in the bathroom of her hotel room
collapsed. Plaintiff filed a Complaint in the Superior Court of New Jersey on September 14,
2015. The Second Count of Plaintiff’s Complaint alleges that the subject shower bench was
“defectively designed, manufactured, distributed produced, sold, assembled, inspected, supplied

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and/or failed to have adequate warning” by one or more fictitious defendants. See docket no. 12. Defendants removed the action to this Court on January 26, 2016. See docket no. 1.
On April 20, 2016, the Court conducted an initial scheduling conference pursuant
to Fed. R. Civ. P. 16. During the conference, the Court raised the question of adding parties
based on the allegations in Plaintiff’s Complaint and urged counsel to move expeditiously to
complete the investigation necessary to identify such parties. Following that conference a
Pretrial Scheduling Order was entered on April 25, 2016. See docket no. 4. Pursuant to that
Order any application for leave to amend the pleadings or join new parties was to be filed by
September 20, 2016. Thereafter, the Court conducted a series of status conferences (i.e. on July
12, 2016, November 4, 2016, January 18, 2017, February 1, 2017, March 2, 2017 and May 3,
2017). Revised Scheduling Orders were filed on November 4, 2016 [dkt. no. 6] and March 6,
2017 [dkt. no. 8]. Pursuant to the latest Scheduling Order, dated November 4, 2016, fact
discovery was to be complete by January 31, 2017. During the status conference on February 1,
2017, counsel reported that fact discovery was complete. During the status conference on May 3,
2017, defense counsel reported the results of Defendants’ expert’s verbal opinion concerning the
bench. Defendants’ motion was filed on May 24, 2017.
Defendants’ motion is not timely. Defendants never sought any extension of the
September 20, 2016 deadline to join additional parties. Defendants’ motion was filed nearly four
months after the close of fact discovery. The subject shower bench was under Defendants’
control since the date of its alleged failure in September 2014. Despite the Court’s early
admonition, the bench was not inspected by Defendants’ engineer until April 12, 2017. Only
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thereafter did Defendants conduct “an exhaustive investigation” to identify the manufacturer of
the bench. Docket no. 10-4 at page 4. Under the circumstances, the Court finds that Defendants’
delay in determining the identities of the manufacturer and supplier was neither justified or
reasonable.
If granted, Defendants’ application would undoubtedly delay the trial of this
action. Although no trial date has been set, discovery is complete and the Final Pretrial
Conference was set for September 11, 2017.1 Certainly if Defendants were permitted to join
additional parties they would have to be located, served, respond to the pleadings, and discovery
would have to be reopened in order for the proposed third party defendants to fairly defend
themselves. Consequently, the resolution of this action would be delayed significantly.
Permitting Defendants to prosecute the claims asserted in the Third Party
Complaint would complicate the issues at trial. Although Plaintiff’s Complaint included claims
of negligence against the (unidentified) manufacturer and supplier of the bench. Plaintiff’s
expert has opined that her injuries resulted from the negligent installation and/or maintenance of
the bench. Joining Defendants’ third party claims, based on their expert’s opinion that the bench
was defective (despite having been operational for 10 years) due to improper welding and nonuniform bead size, would undoubtedly expand and complicate the issues to be presented at trial.
Finally, notwithstanding Defendants’ argument to the contrary, Plaintiff will
certainly suffer prejudice if Defendants’ motion is granted. This action has been actively

1

The Final Pretrial Conference has been adjourned without date pending resolution of this

motion.
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litigated for nearly two years. Fact discovery, including depositions of the existing parties, is
complete. Expert reports have been exchanged and the case is ready for trial. Expanding the
scope of the litigation at this time would require, at minimum, reopening discovery to permit the
newly added parties to re-depose Plaintiff and Defendants’ witnesses, the re-examination of
Plaintiff by those parties’ medical experts, additional testing of the bench by their engineers, and
another exchange of expert reports. The additional time and expense to Plaintiff is sufficiently
prejudicial and antithetical to the stated objectives of Fed. R. Civ. P. 1 to warrant denial of
Defendants’ motion.
III. CONCLUSION AND ORDER
For the reasons stated above, and the Court finding that Defendants have failed to
establish good cause of the relief sought,
IT IS on this 24th day of August 2017,
ORDERED that Defendants’ motion for leave to file a Third Party Complaint is
DENIED.

s/ Douglas E. Arpert
DOUGLAS E. ARPERT
United States Magistrate Judge

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