Steinberg v. Luedtke Trucking, Inc. et al (RLJ2)
Filing
73
MEMORANDUM OPINION in support of the following Order ruling on 63 Motion for Summary Judgment. Signed by District Judge R. Leon Jordan on 5/31/18. (ADA)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
WINCHESTER DIVISION
RIVKA C. STEINBERG,
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
Plaintiff,
v.
LUEDTKE TRUCKING, INC.,
Defendant.
No.4:17-CV-9
MEMORANDUM OPINION
This matter is before the Court on Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment
[doc. 63], Defendant’s Brief [doc. 64], Defendant’s Statement of Undisputed Facts
[doc. 65], Plaintiff’s Response [doc. 69], and Defendant’s Reply [doc. 70]. For the
reasons herein, the Court will reserve ruling on Defendant’s motion in part and deny the
remainder of the motion.
I.
BACKGROUND
After attending the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee,
Plaintiff Rivka C. Steinberg traveled with her friends to a truck plaza alongside the
interstate. [Pl.’s Dep., doc. 69-1, at 17:2–13].1 They decided to camp out in a field behind
the truck plaza for the night. [Id. at 17:12–13]. Ms. Steinberg’s friends offered a bottle of
beer to her, and as she consumed it, she became dizzy, lost control over her body, and
blacked out. [Id. at 17:13–16; 18:13–19, 22–24].
1
Pincites to the record refer to the electronic page numbers.
During that same night, Mr. Randal Luedtke, a commercial truck driver, was en
route to Tennessee from Florida, and when he arrived in Tennessee, he pulled his tractortrailer into the truck plaza in Manchester—the same truck plaza where Ms. Steinberg was
present for the night. [Luedtke Dep., doc. 65-1, at 46:15–25; 47:1–8]. He slept for several
hours in his truck. [Id. at 48:24–25; 49:1–2]. When he woke at 3:00 a.m., he completed
paperwork, and around 6:00 a.m., he placed his truck in gear. [Id. at 51:3–18]. According
to his account, he backed up to reposition his truck into a “nice spot,” [id. at 51:23],2
planning to “go inside the truck stop and get some coffee, use the restroom, and do a pretrip inspection before hitting the road,” [Def.’s Undisputed Facts at 2].
The sound of the moving truck stirred Ms. Steinberg to consciousness—at which
point she realized that she was not in the field anymore but, somehow, was now lying
underneath the rear of Mr. Luedtke’s truck. [Pl.’s Dep. at 17:17–18; 20:11–15]. As the
truck’s rear tire approached her, she was unable to avoid it, and it ran over and mangled
her leg. [Id. at 17:17–21; 20:11–15, 17–18]. After hearing a noise, Mr. Luedtke looked in
his side-view mirror and, for the first time, saw Ms. Steinberg “sitting on the roadway
back there, which [he] didn’t know was a roadway.” [Luedtke Dep. at 52:2–4].3 He
phoned 911, and she was airlifted to a hospital, where she had emergency surgery on her
leg. [Id. at 52:19–24; 53:23; Pl.’s Dep. at 34:21–25; 35:1–9]. She was hospitalized for
more than a month. [Pl.’s Dep. at 35:22–25].
2
Mr. Luedtke testified that a more attractive parking space had become available in the
truck plaza, so he “was just going to move over.” [Luedtke Dep. at 24:10–12].
3
Mr. Luedtke testified that “trucks come around from the tire shop back there.” [Id. at
21:18–19].
2
Ms. Steinberg now believes that the beer she drank that night might have been
laced with a drug, possibly a “roofie.” [Id. at 18:1–5]. Between drinking the beer and
regaining consciousness underneath Mr. Luedtke’s truck, she has no memory of anything
that happened. [Id. at 18:22–24]. She has “no idea” how she went from being in the field
to lying under the truck. [Id. at 19:3–5]. And on the morning of the incident, she could
not locate her friends, who had apparently vanished. [Id. at 19:6–18].
Ms. Steinberg now brings suit in this Court against Defendant Luedtke Trucking,
Inc., claiming that through Mr. Luedtke, its employee and agent, it had a duty to ensure
that “there were no hazards presented to others” before he operated his truck on the
morning of the incident. [Am. Compl, doc. 43, ¶ 8]. Her claims against Luedtke Trucking
include one for negligence and one for negligence per se. [Id. at 3–4]. Luedtke Trucking
now moves for summary judgment.
II.
LEGAL STANDARD
Summary judgment is proper when the moving party shows, or “point[s] out to the
district court,” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 325 (1986), that the record—the
admissions, affidavits, answers to interrogatories, declarations, depositions, or other
materials—is without a genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law, Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a), (c). The moving party has
the initial burden of identifying the basis for summary judgment and the portions of the
record that lack genuine issues of material fact. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 323. The moving
party discharges that burden by showing “an absence of evidence to support the
3
nonmoving party’s” claim or defense, id. at 325, at which point the nonmoving party, to
survive summary judgment, must identify facts in the record that create a genuine issue
of material fact, id. at 324.
Not just any factual dispute will defeat a motion for summary judgment—the
requirement is “that there be no genuine issue of material fact.” Anderson v. Liberty
Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). A fact is “material” if it may affect the outcome of
the case under the applicable substantive law, id., and an issue is “genuine” if the
evidence is “such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.”
Id. In short, the inquiry is whether the record contains evidence that “presents a sufficient
disagreement to require submission to the jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party
must prevail as a matter of law.” Id. at 251–52. When ruling on a motion for summary
judgment, a court must view the facts and draw all reasonable inferences in the light most
favorable to the nonmoving party. Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 378 (2007). “[T]he
judge’s function is not himself to weigh the evidence and determine the truth of the
matter but to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial.” Anderson, 477 U.S. at
249. A court may also resolve pure questions of law on a motion for summary judgment.
See Hill v. Homeward Residential, Inc., 799 F.3d 544, 550 (6th Cir. 2015).
III. ANALYSIS
In requesting summary judgment, Luedtke Trucking argues that it did not owe a
legal duty of care to Ms. Steinberg as a matter of law and that the record shows it was not
the proximate cause of her injury. [Def.’s Br. at 9–21]. Luedtke Trucking also contends
4
that under the doctrine of comparative fault, no reasonable jury could conclude that it was
more than fifty percent at fault for Ms. Steinberg’s injury. [Id. at 21–24].
Before the Court begins its analysis, it will address a fervently contested issue
between the parties: whether the record shows, beyond a genuine issue of material fact,
that Mr. Luedtke inspected his truck or the area surrounding it before reversing it. The
parties’ dispute on this issue centers mostly around whether Mr. Luedtke performed a
pre-trip inspection, [Def.’s Br. at 20–21; Pl.’s Resp. at 6; Def.’s Reply at 4]—a type of
inspection he conducts before retaking the road, [Luedtke Dep. at 5:10–15, 29:2–5]. This
inspection includes, among other things, a walk-around of the truck, a checkup of the
tires to ensure they are free from obstructions, and an examination of the area underneath
the truck for leaks. [Id. at 6:25; 7:1–3; 30:10–22].
But Ms. Steinberg also appears to contend that Mr. Luedtke breached a legal duty
because he performed no inspection at all—pre-trip or otherwise—before moving the
truck: “Mr. Luedtke violated accepted industry standard . . . by failing to conduct any
inspection prior to moving the truck. [B]acking a 64 foot tractor trailer without visually
inspecting the area is a violation of due care.” [Pl.’s Resp. at 10 n.53 (emphasis added)
(quoting Philbrick Decl., doc. 69-6, ¶ 21)]. In this vein, Ms. Steinberg contends that the
record shows Mr. Luedtke did not exit the cab of his truck for any reason in the hours
leading up to the incident. [Def.’s Resp. at 6]. Mr. Luedtke, however, argues that “[t]here
is simply no evidence that the Defendant ever left the truck stop without doing a pre-trip
inspection.” [Def.’s Reply at 4].
5
Although the record is unclear as to whether Mr. Luedtke performed a pre-trip
inspection before leaving the truck plaza for good, it is clear that he performed no
inspection of any kind before reversing his truck onto Ms. Steinberg’s leg. Mr. Luedtke
testified that, except maybe to use the restroom, he did not recall exiting his cab between
the time he parked his truck in the evening and the time he repositioned it the following
morning. [Luedtke Dep. at 23:11–17]. He also admits that he did not perform a pre-trip
inspection between this timeframe and instead planned to do it after he repositioned his
truck. [Def.’s Undisputed Facts at 2]. The record therefore establishes, beyond a genuine
issue of material fact, that Mr. Luedtke did not inspect his truck or the area around it
before reversing it and injuring Ms. Steinberg.
A. Negligence: Legal Duty of Care
As a general rule, people have a duty to refrain from acts that would create an
unreasonable risk of harm to others. Satterfield v. Breeding Insulation, Co., 266 S.W.3d
347, 355 (Tenn. 2008).4 Negligence is conduct that violates a person’s duty to exercise
reasonable care to avoid acts that create an unreasonable risk of harm to others. Banks
v. Elks Club Pride of Tenn. 1102, 301 S.W.3d 214, 226 (Tenn. 2010). To establish a
negligence claim, a plaintiff has to show that (1) the defendant owed a legal duty of care
to him; (2) the defendant breached that duty of care by engaging in behavior that fell
below the applicable standard of care; (3) an injury or loss; (4) cause in fact; and (5)
proximate cause. Giggers v. Memphis Hous. Auth., 277 S.W.3d 359, 364 (Tenn. 2009).
This general rule “reflects society’s contemporary policies and social requirements
concerning the right of individuals and the general public to be protected from another’s act or
conduct.” Bradshaw v. Daniel, 854 S.W.2d 865, 870 (Tenn. 1993) (quotation omitted).
4
6
Luedtke Trucking argues it is entitled to summary judgment on Ms. Steinberg’s
negligence claim because Ms. Steinberg cannot establish the first element—that it owed
her a duty of care. [Def.’s Br. at 12]. According to Luedtke Trucking, Ms. Steinberg is
trying to establish a legal duty “that would require a person operating a vehicle to look
underneath it to see if there are any sleeping human beings,” and “no precedent could be
located under Tennessee law . . . establishing that such a duty exists.” [Id. at 15–16]. To
buttress this argument, Luedtke Trucking also points out that in Tennessee “[n]o law
prohibits a truck driver from repositioning his truck to properly conduct a pre-trip
inspection.” [Def.’s Reply at 4–5]. Ms. Steinberg responds by entreating the Court to
reject Luedtke Trucking’s argument, faulting Luedtke Trucking for casting the duty at
issue in this case in overly “narrow terms” and overlooking “the broad scope of duties
imposed on operators of commercial motor vehicles” in Tennessee. [Pl.’s Resp. at 9].
A “duty is the legal obligation owed by defendant to plaintiff to conform to a
reasonable person standard of care for the protection against unreasonable risks of
harm.” McCall v. Wilder, 913 S.W.2d 150, 153 (Tenn. 1995) (citations omitted). The
issue of whether a defendant, in a particular situation, owes a duty to a plaintiff is one of
law for the Court, which it “determine[s] by reference to the body of statutes, rules,
principles, and precedents which make up the law.” Jones v. Exxon Corp., 940 S.W.2d
69, 71 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1996) (quoting Bradshaw v. Daniel, 854 S.W.2d 865, 870 (Tenn.
1993)). In Tennessee, longstanding precedent places a duty on drivers “to keep a
reasonably careful lookout commensurate with the dangerous character of the vehicle and
7
the nature of the locality.” Hale v. Rayburn, 264 S.W.2d 230, 233 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1953)
(citations omitted).
This duty applies equally to commercial truck drivers like Mr. Luedtke—who
testified that he struck Ms. Steinberg as he reversed his truck onto “the roadway” behind
the truck plaza. [Luedtke Dep. at 52:2–4]; see Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-8-136 (“[E]very
driver of a vehicle shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian upon any
roadway[.]”); id. § 55-8-163 (“The driver of a vehicle shall not back the vehicle unless
that movement can be made with reasonable safety[.]”); see also id § 55-8-101 (defining
the term “vehicle” as “every device in, upon or by which any person or property is or
may be transported or drawn upon a highway” (emphasis added)); cf. Erosion Control
Corp. v. Evans, 426 S.W.2d 202, 207 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1967) (indicating that the duty that
the court previously identified in Hale applied to the facts of the case at hand, which
involved a driver of a three-ton flatbed truck).
So although Luedtke Trucking is correct in its assertion that in Tennessee “[n]o
law prohibits a truck driver from repositioning his truck to properly conduct a pre-trip
inspection,” [Def.’s Reply at 4–5], Mr. Luedtke was nevertheless under a duty, when he
did reposition his truck, “to keep a reasonably careful lookout commensurate with [1]
the dangerous character of the vehicle and [2] the nature of the locality,” Hale, 264
S.W.2d at 233 (citations omitted). Whether he breached this duty by not keeping a
reasonably careful lookout through his actions—i.e., through [1] his decision to back his
truck before inspecting it or the area around it, [2] while in a semi-dark public place in
the twilight hours—is not an issue that Luedtke Trucking addresses with any specificity
8
in its motion.5 The Court will therefore reserve it for the jury’s consideration. See Rains
v. Bend of the River, 124 S.W.3d 580, 588 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2003) (providing that the
breach of a duty is an issue that a jury must ordinarily consider unless the evidence is
uncontroverted and allows for “only one conclusion” (citations omitted)).6
B. Negligence: Proximate Cause
Luedtke Trucking next argues that it is entitled to summary judgment because the
record lacks a genuine issue of material fact as to the last element of Ms. Steinberg’s
negligence claim—proximate cause. [Def.’s Br. at 11–17]. The term “proximate cause”
is something of a misnomer in tort law because, in a negligence case, proximate cause
has more to do with the scope of a defendant’s liability than with the actual cause of a
plaintiff’s injury. See generally King v. Anderson County, 419 S.W.3d 232, 246 (Tenn.
2013) (“Proximate cause focuses upon ‘whether the policy of the law will extend
responsibility for that negligent conduct to the consequences that have occurred.’”
(quotation omitted)); Kenneth S. Abraham, The Forms and Functions of Tort Law 125
(3d ed. 2007) (commenting that use of the term “proximate cause” is “unfortunate and
misleading” and describing proximate cause as “‘a scope of liability’ issue”). At its nub,
it is simply a question of whether a plaintiff’s injury is the reasonably foreseeable
likelihood of a defendant’s alleged negligent conduct. Moody v. Gulf Ref. Co., 218
Mr. Luedtke merely contends that “[b]ecause the Plaintiff cannot establish a duty owed,
the Plaintiff cannot establish a breach of duty,” without mustering any additional argument on
the issue of breach. [Def.’s Br. at 17]. The Court rejects this barebones contention, having
determined that Mr. Luedtke did indeed owe a duty to Ms. Steinberg.
6
Incidentally, Ms. Steinberg’s evidence shows that Mr. Luedtke, when he reversed his
truck without first inspecting the area around it, had a “blind spot . . . in his field of vision using
his mirrors alone.” [Philbrick Decl. ¶ 21 (footnote omitted)].
5
9
S.W. 817, 819 (Tenn. 1919); Tedder v. Raskin, 728 S.W.2d 343, 348–49 (Tenn. Ct. App.
1987).
Under Tennessee law, proximate cause—which is “a jury question unless the
uncontroverted facts and inferences to be drawn from them make it so clear that all
reasonable persons must agree on the proper outcome,” McClenahan v. Cooley, 806
S.W.2d 767, 775 (Tenn. 1991) (citations omitted)—consists of three elements:
(1) the tortfeasor’s conduct must have been a “substantial factor” in
bringing about the harm complained of; (2) there is no rule or policy that
should relieve the wrongdoer from liability because of the manner in which
the negligence has resulted in harm; and (3) the harm giving rise to the
action could have reasonably been foreseen or anticipated by a person of
ordinary intelligence and prudence.
Id. (citations omitted). Luedtke Trucking contests the third prong, foreseeability, arguing
that a reasonable truck driver could not have anticipated Ms. Steinberg’s injury. [Def.’s
Reply at 5].
1. Foreseeable Harm
The risk of an injury “is foreseeable if a reasonable person could foresee the
probability of its occurrence or if the person was on notice that the likelihood of danger
to the party to whom is owed a duty is probable.” King, 419 S.W.3d at 248 (quotation
omitted). Although courts must assess foreseeability from the perspective or “vantage
point” of a reasonable person, Cadorette v. Sumner Cty. Bd. of Educ., No. 01A01-9510CV-00441, 1996 WL 187586, at *3 (Tenn. Ct. App. Apr. 19, 1996) (quotation omitted)—
that is, from the perspective of a person possessing ordinary intelligence and prudence—
it has nothing to do with intent or state of mind, Johnson v. Smith County, No. M200510
02738-COA-R3-CV, 2006 WL 3044156, at *2 (Tenn. Ct. App. Oct. 26, 2006). Rather, it
is an objective test, concerning whether an injury was probable to a reasonably prudent
person in the defendant’s shoes, or in other words, at the time of the alleged negligent
behavior. See King, 419 S.W.3d at 248 (“Foreseeability must be determined as of the
time of the acts or omissions claimed to be negligent.” (citation omitted)).
In contesting the element of foreseeability, Luedtke Trucking primarily concerns
itself with the circumstances leading up to Ms. Steinberg’s injury—namely her
mysterious, unexplained migration from the field to the rear of the truck—referring to
them as improbable. [Def.’s Reply at 5]. According to Luedtke Trucking, “[a]n event as
unequivocally unprecedented as is the one at issue in this case clearly could not have
been anticipated by an ordinary [truck driver].” [Id.]. And more specifically, it maintains
that “[i]t is simply not foreseeable that [Ms. Steinberg] would become intoxicated and
travel some 100 yards from a field that she was sleeping in to pass out under a semitruck.” [Def.’s Br. at 16]. In response, Ms. Steinberg argues that the fact that she “is
unable to fully account for how she ended up beneath Defendant’s tractor trailer does not
render her injury unpredictable or unforeseeable.” [Pl.’s Resp. at 14–15].
While the circumstances may indeed be unusual, “[t]he fact that an accident may
be freakish does not per se make it unpredictable or unforeseen.” McClenahan, 806
S.W.2d at 775 (quotation omitted). “The foreseeability requirement is not so strict as to
require the tortfeasor to foresee the exact manner in which the injury takes place,”
requiring him to anticipate only “the general manner.” Id. (citation omitted); see Shell
Oil Co. v. Blanks, 330 S.W.2d 569, 546–47 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1959) (recognizing that so
11
long as a defendant can anticipate “harm in the abstract,” as opposed to “the precise
manner in which an injury ultimately results,” foreseeability exists (internal quotation
marks and quotation omitted)). In this particular case, Luedtke Trucking’s depiction of
the facts as “unequivocally unprecedented” would at least appear to suggest that the
issue of foreseeability is not “so clear that all reasonable [jurors] must agree on the
proper outcome.” McClenahan, 806 S.W.2d at 775 (citations omitted).
In this vein, jurors “decide negligence cases ‘in light of their knowledge of how
reasonable persons act in the same or similar circumstances.’” Cadorette, 1996 WL
187586 at *3 (quotation omitted); see King, 419 S.W.3d at 248. Mr. Luedtke testified
that the time of the incident, 6:00 a.m., was one of bustle in the truck plaza because “at
that time, everybody’s moving.” [Luedtke Dep. at 24:16–77]. He also testified that he
instructs Luedtke Trucking’s drivers about the importance of walk-arounds and checking
tires because “[y]ou never know what you find.” [Id. at 7:24]. Along similar lines, he
recognized that pedestrians might frequent the parking lots of truck plazas. Specifically,
he testified that “lot lizards,” a “trucker term of a prostitute,” have been known to linger
in the parking lots of truck plazas, though their presence is less common now than in the
past. [Id. at 32:12–21; 33:22–25; 34:1–9]. All of this evidence, directly or indirectly,
lays groundwork for the jury’s deliberation of foreseeability because it establishes their
knowledge of the circumstances under which Mr. Luedtke acted, and their knowledge of
how a reasonable truck driver might have acted under similar circumstances. Cadorette,
1996 WL 187586 at *3; see King, 419 S.W.3d at 248.
12
When viewing this evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in the light
most favorable to Ms. Steinberg, the Court believes a reasonable jury could decide that
the injury in this case—one stemming from a collision between a truck and a person—is
the general type of harm that a reasonable truck driver could have foreseen by reversing
his truck without inspecting the immediate area. The Court, however, stresses that its
reasoning does not extend beyond the facts of this case. Several facts specific to this case
have been integral in shaping the Court’s opinion, including (1) the increased activity at
the truck plaza at 6:00 a.m.; (2) the fact that the vehicle involved in the incident was a
multi-ton—and potentially unwieldy—tractor trailer;7 (3) Mr. Luedtke’s emphasis on the
need for truck drivers to perform walk-arounds; (4) the fact that Mr. Luedtke created a
blind spot by moving his truck in reverse rather than moving it forward; (5) the fact that
he was reversing his truck in a public place, from a parking lot to a roadway; (6) the fact
that he was operating in the semi-darkness of the twilight hours, when visibility was
likely poor; and (7) of course, his failure to inspect the area around his truck despite all
these circumstances. Again, a reasonable jury could find that a reasonable truck driver in
the same or similar circumstances could have foreseen the type of harm that occurred—
not necessarily in the “exact manner,” McClenahan, 806 S.W.2d at 775 (citation
omitted), but at least “in the abstract,” Blanks, 330 S.W.2d at 546–47 (internal quotation
mark and quotation omitted).
7
On the day of the incident, the trailer was not empty but was carrying freight, or as Mr.
Luedtke put it, he “was underneath a load.” [Luedtke Dep. at 20:25].
13
2. Intervening Cause
Luedtke Trucking fails to persuade the Court of its position partly because it
inexactly frames foreseeability in terms of “intervening cause.” [Def.’s Br. at 12]. “The
intervening cause doctrine is a common-law liability shifting device. It provides that a
negligent actor will be relieved from liability when a new, independent and unforseen
cause intervenes to produce a result that could not have been foreseen.” Godbee v.
Dimick, 213 S.W.3d 865, 883 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2006) (quotation omitted). In relying on
this doctrine, Luedtke Trucking maintains that the events that led to Ms. Steinberg’s
injury—her sojourn in the field, her possible ingestion of a roofie, and her displacement
to a location roughly a hundred yards away at the truck’s rear—were intervening causes
that “broke[] the chain of proximate cause by establishing that the Plaintiff’s injuries
were not foreseeable.” [Def.’s Br. at 12; see id. at 16–17].
Although an intervening cause—whether an act by a third party or a force of
nature—can splinter “the idea of continuity” that is necessary to bridge a defendant’s
negligent conduct to a plaintiff’s injury, Pierce v. United States, 679 F.2d 617, 622 (6th
Cir. 1982) (quotation omitted), an act is not an intervening cause unless it occurs after
negligent conduct, see McClenahan, 806 S.W.2d at 775 (noting that an intervening cause
is “created” by a negligent act (citation omitted)); cf. Anderson v. Mehaidli, No. 94-2127,
1996 WL 196219, at *4 (6th Cir. Apr. 22, 1996) (providing that “[a]n intervening cause
is one which comes into active operation in producing harm to another after the
negligence of the defendant” (emphasis added) (quotation omitted)). Because the events
14
that Luedtke Trucking describes as intervening causes occurred not subsequent to but
before Mr. Luedtke’s alleged negligent conduct, they are not intervening causes.
The Court ends its analysis by evoking a felicitous analogy. A famed scholar, the
late Karl Llewellyn once likened legal rules to a golfer’s chipping game, which can help
to get a golfer’s ball onto the green. Karl N. Llewellyn, The Bramble Bush 52 (Quid Pro
Books 2012) (1930). But putting the ball into the hole requires more—an application of
the law to the facts. Id. In this case, the legal standard governing summary judgment, as
it applies to the record, is enough to get Ms. Steinberg’s ball onto the green. From here,
the Court’s task is done. A jury must do the putting by applying the law of negligence to
the facts as they see them, as is often true in negligence cases. See Moody, 218 S.W. at
819 (“The general rule is that what is the proximate cause of an injury is a question for
the jury; the court instructing them as to what the law requires to constitute it, and the
jury applying the law to the facts.”).
C. Negligence Per Se
Luedtke Trucking also requests summary judgment on Ms. Steinberg’s claim for
negligence per se—a doctrine under which a defendant can be negligent as a matter of
law, or per se, for violating a statute or regulation that promotes safety. See Whaley
v. Perkins, 197 S.W.3d 665, 672–73 (Tenn. 2006). A claim for negligence per se has
three elements: (1) the violation of a statutory or regulatory duty of care; (2) a showing
that the statute or regulation was meant to benefit and protect the injured party; and (3)
proximate cause. Chase, Jr. v. Physiotherapy Assocs., Inc., No. 02A01-9607-CV-00171,
15
1997 WL 572935, at *5 (Tenn. Ct. App. Sept. 5, 1997); see Whaley, 197 S.W.3d at 672–
73 (recognizing that “violations of ordinances a[re] a possible ground for application of
the negligence per se doctrine” (citations omitted)).
The Court, however, declines to address Luedtke Trucking’s argument—and more
broadly, Ms. Steinberg’s claim for negligence per se as a whole—for lack of subject
matter jurisdiction. Subject-matter jurisdiction, which refers to a federal court’s “power
to hear a case,” Union Pac. R.R. Co. v. Bhd. of Locomotive Eng’rs & Trainmen, 558 U.S.
67, 81 (2009) (internal quotation marks and quotation omitted), is “a prerequisite to suit
in federal court,” Pugh v. Norman, No. 3:16-cv-02075, 2017 WL 712751, at *2 (M.D.
Tenn. Feb. 23, 2007) (citing id.). A federal court has “limited” power to hear a case,
because this power originates from only the Constitution and federal statutes. Kokkonen
v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994) (citations omitted).
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1331, a federal court has subject matter jurisdiction over cases
in which “federal law creates the cause of action asserted,” Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner
& Smith Inc. v. Manning, 136 S. Ct. 1562, 1569 (2016), or in other words, cases in which
the claims arise under the United States Constitution, federal laws, or United States
treaties, 28 U.S.C. § 1311. In certain circumstances, a federal court can exercise subject
matter jurisdiction over claims not arising under a federal law, or in other words, statelaw claims. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, subject matter jurisdiction exists over a statelaw claim when the adverse parties are not citizens of the same state and the amount
in controversy exceeds $75,000, exclusive of interest and costs.
16
In the Amended Complaint, Ms. Steinberg invokes § 1332 as the lone basis for
the Court’s subject matter jurisdiction over this case, styling her claims as state claims,
not federal claims. [Am. Compl. ¶ 3]. Despite asserting that her claims arise under state
law, she injects a federal issue into her claim for negligence per se because she alleges
that Luedtke Trucking breached a duty within the Code of Federal Regulations—rather
than within a Tennessee statute or regulation. [Id. ¶¶ 17–20]. In this situation, when a
plaintiff sows a federal matter into a state-law claim, she is attempting to foot a “slim”
pathway into federal court. Gunn v. Minton, 568 U.S. 251, 258 (2013). Through this
narrow pathway, “federal jurisdiction over a state law claim will lie if a federal issue is:
(1) necessarily raised, (2) actually disputed, (3) substantial, and (4) capable of resolution
in federal court without disrupting the federal-state balance approved by Congress.” Id.
Before permitting Ms. Steinberg to continue with her claim, the Court will require
her to assuage its concerns about subject matter jurisdiction and show cause by satisfying
these four elements. See Patsy v. Bd. of Regents, 457 U.S. 496, 525 n.10 (1982) (Powell,
J., dissenting) (“[I]t would not simply be wrong but indeed would be an unconstitutional
invasion of the powers reserved to the states if the federal courts were to entertain cases
not within their jurisdiction[.]” (quotation omitted)); In re Lewis, 398 F.3d 735, 739 (6th
Cir. 2005) (“The existence of subject matter jurisdiction may be raised . . . sua sponte by
the court itself.” (citation omitted)); Dillon v. Medtronic, Inc., 992 F. Supp. 2d 751, 756
(E.D. Ky. 2014) (“The paradigmatic example of a state claim with an embedded (though
not necessarily significant) federal issue is a common-law claim for negligence per se
17
based on the violation of a federal duty.” (citing Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v.
Thompson, 478 U.S. 804, 814 (1986))).
Although the Court will keep Ms. Steinberg’s claim intact at least until she has
had the opportunity to respond to its misgivings about its ability to exercise subject
matter jurisdiction, see Apple v. Glenn, 183 F.3d 477, 479 (6th Cir. 1999) (recognizing
that “a plaintiff generally should be given notice and an opportunity to respond prior to
the district court’s sua sponte dismissal of the complaint” (quotation omitted)), her task is
likely to be a redoubtable one if she accepts it, see Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 478
U.S. at 814 (“[T]he presence of the federal issue as an element of the state tort is not
the kind of adjudication for which jurisdiction would serve congressional purposes and
the federal system.”); see also Moore v. Chesapeake & O. Ry. Co., 291 U.S. 205, 216–17
(1934) (“The action fell within the familiar category of cases involving the duty of a
master to his servant. This duty is defined by the common law, except as it may be
modified by legislation. The Federal statute, in the present case, touched the duty of the
master at a single point, and, save as provided in the statute, the right of the plaintiff to
recover was left to be determined by the law of the state.” (quotation omitted)).
D. Comparative Fault
Lastly, Luedtke Trucking moves for summary judgment under the doctrine of
comparative fault, which it alleges as an affirmative defense. [Def.’s Br. at 21; see
Answer, doc. 45, ¶ 23 (pleading comparative fault as a defense)]. Under Tennessee’s
modified comparative fault system, a defendant, even when negligent in causing an injury
18
to a plaintiff, is not liable for damages unless he is more than fifty percent at fault for the
injury. McIntyre v. Balentine, 833 S.W.2d 52, 57 (Tenn. 1992). Luedtke Trucking claims
that “reasonable minds could only conclude that plaintiff was at fault,” [Def.’s Br. at 23],
but the Court has already determined that the record contains evidence from which a
reasonable jury could find that Luedtke Trucking was at fault.
The Court is not willing to weigh this evidence and divine from it whether one
party must shoulder equal or greater fault than the other—an act that would usher it
precariously close to the jury’s province. See Anderson, 477 U.S. at 249 (recognizing that
the “judge’s function is not himself to weigh the evidence and determine the truth of the
matter but to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial”); Green v. Roberts, 398
S.W.3d 172, 178 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2012) (stating that the issue of comparative fault is for
the jury unless the jury could “only conclude” that the plaintiff’s fault equals or exceeds
the defendant’s fault). The Court therefore declines to jettison Ms. Steinberg’s claims
based on Luedtke Trucking’s defense of comparative fault.
IV. CONCLUSION
As the movant for summary judgment, Luedtke Trucking does not satisfy its
burden, failing to establish that the record is without genuine issues of material fact as
to Ms. Steinberg’s negligence claim or as to its defense of comparative fault. The Court
therefore orders as follows:
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1. To the extent that Luedtke Trucking requests summary judgment on Ms.
Steinberg’s negligence claim, its Motion for Summary Judgment
[doc. 63] is DENIED.
2. To the extent that Luedtke Trucking requests summary judgment on its
defense of comparative fault, its Motion for Summary Judgment
[doc. 63] is DENIED.
3. To the extent that Luedtke Trucking requests summary judgment on Ms.
Steinberg’s claim for negligence per se, the Court, on jurisdictional
grounds, reserves ruling on this request.
4. Within twenty-one days from the date of this Order, Ms. Steinberg may,
if she chooses, show cause as to the Court’s ability to exercise subject
matter jurisdiction over this claim. Otherwise the Court will dismiss this
claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
The Court will enter an order consistent with this opinion.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
ENTER:
s/ Leon Jordan
United States District Judge
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