Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-1_07-cv-00388/USCOURTS-caed-1_07-cv-00388-74/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 893
Nature of Suit: Environmental Matters
Cause of Action: 33:1365 Environmental Matters

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

 

RAUL VALENCIA ABARCA, et al., 

 

 Plaintiffs, 

 

 v. 

 

MERCK & CO., INC., et al. 

 

 Defendant. 

1:07-CV-00388 OWW DLB 

 

MEMORANDUM DECISION RE BAC 

DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO 

DISMISS THE FIFTEENTH 

CLAIM FOR FRAUD AND TO 

DISMISS AND/OR STRIKE 

CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FRAUD 

ALLEGATIONS OF PLAINTIFFS’ 

SIXTEENTH CLAIM (DOC. 588) 

I. INTRODUCTION 

 Defendants Merck & Co., Inc., Amsted Industries, 

Inc., Baltimore Aircoil Company, Inc., and Track Four, 

Inc., (the “BAC” Defendants”), move to dismiss the 

fifteenth claim for “Fraud and Deceit” in Plaintiffs’ 

Seventh Amended Complaint (“7thAC”) on the ground that 

Plaintiffs have failed to allege fraud with particularity 

as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b). 

Doc. 588. BAC Defendants also move to dismiss and/or 

strike Plaintiff’s sixteenth claim for conspiracy to the 

extent that claim is based on Plaintiffs’ fraud 

Case 1:07-cv-00388-DOC-SAB Document 631 Filed 03/17/10 Page 1 of 17
 

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allegations. Id. Plaintiffs oppose dismissal. Doc. 

616. The BAC Defendants replied. Doc. 625. Oral 

argument was heard on March 15, 2010. 

II. STANDARDS OF DECISION 

 Rule 9(b) requires that, in all averments of fraud, 

the circumstances constituting fraud be stated with 

particularity. Rule 9(b) “demands that the circumstances 

constituting the alleged fraud be specific enough to give 

defendants notice of the particular misconduct ... so 

that they can defend against the charge and not just deny 

that they have done anything wrong.” Kearns v. Ford 

Motor Co., 567 F.3d 1120, 1124 (9th Cir. 2009) (internal 

citations and quotations omitted). “Averments of fraud 

must be accompanied by the who, what, when, where, and 

how of the misconduct charged.” Id. “A party alleging 

fraud must set forth more than the neutral facts 

necessary to identify the transaction.” Id. 

Rule 9(b) serves three purposes: (1) to provide 

defendants with adequate notice to allow them to 

defend the charge and deter plaintiffs from the filing of complaints “as a pretext for the 

discovery of unknown wrongs;” (2) to protect 

those whose reputation would be harmed as a 

result of being subject to fraud charges; and 

(3) to “prohibit [] plaintiff[s] from 

unilaterally imposing upon the court, the 

parties and society enormous social and economic 

costs absent some factual basis.” 

 

Id. at 1125. 

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III. DISCUSSION 

A. Motion to Dismiss Fifteenth Cause of Action. 

1. Previous Rulings. 

 This is the third time the BAC Defendants have moved 

to dismiss Plaintiffs’ fraud allegations for failure to 

comply with Rule 9(b). See Docs. 419 & 562. Although 

the district court did not adopt every argument raised by 

the BAC Defendants, both previous motions were granted 

with leave to amend. 

 In an October 16, 2009 Memorandum Decision, the 

district court addressed the fraud allegations in 

Plaintiffs’ Sixth Amended Complaint (“6thAC”), which 

focused on alleged “half-truths” contained in statements 

made by the BAC Defendants. Rejecting the BAC 

Defendants’ argument that “half-truths” cannot trigger 

fraud liability in the absence of a “special 

relationship” (e.g. parties to a real estate 

transaction), it was recognized that, under Randi W. v. 

Muroc Joint Unified Sch. Dist., 14 Cal. 4th 1066 (1997), 

no such special relationship is required. Doc. 562 at 6-

10. In addition, the district court found that 

Plaintiffs “sufficiently alleged that the BAC Defendants 

had a duty not to tell half-truths because the BAC 

Defendants allegedly spoke out about contamination and 

spoke misleadingly. Proof is not required at the 

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pleading stage.” Id. at 12. However, the fraud claim 

nevertheless failed to satisfy the requirements of Rule 

9(b) because it failed to “identify by name specific 

Plaintiffs who received the allegedly misleading 

information and relied upon it to their detriment.” Id. 

 At oral argument, the information needed to satisfy 

Rule 9(b) was discussed, and it was determined that 

Plaintiffs must provide a list of “specific plaintiffs 

that [] received the information, relied upon the 

information and acted accordingly”: 

THE COURT: *** Let us turn to the motion which 

is to dismiss the 18th claim for fraud and to 

dismiss and strike the conspiracy to commit 

fraud allegations. 

 Based primarily on Rule 9(b) considerations, 

we have 

in effect been here before. And without going 

through, there are a number of cases that are 

discussed on both sides. We discussed this on 

earlier occasions. 

 And what concerns the Court is that where 

deceit type of fraud, as prescribed by the 

California Civil Code, even where there are 

omissions to disclose or where there are half 

truths, we have previously ruled that there is 

not a special relationship that would give rise 

to a special duty of disclosure. It is 

recognized that when anybody speaks, and they 

speak about a matter that has the potential to 

injure somebody, that they ought to speak 

accurately. 

 But the Court's concern is that I still 

believe that there has to be an allegation that 

one or more of the plaintiffs relied on anything 

that a defendant said. And we still don't have 

that in this complaint. 

 And so to get to the bottom of this quickly, 

I'm going to give one last opportunity to 

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amend....there has to be actual reliance, actual 

reliance means that you heard or saw or were a 

recipient of the communication and that you then 

acted to your detriment in some way. In other 

words, that you relied. That is what the law 

calls for. 

*** 

MR. MARDEROSIAN: This is Mick Marderosian on 

behalf of plaintiffs. Just a point of 

clarification. 

 

THE COURT: Yes. 

 

MR. MARDEROSIAN: In terms of our efforts to 

amend to satisfy legal requirements noted by the 

Court. 

THE COURT: Right. 

 

MR. MARDEROSIAN: Does the Court -- is the court 

indicating that in -- at this stage of the 

pleading stage, that you want us to identify by 

name specific plaintiffs that have received the 

information, relied upon the information and 

acted accordingly -- 

 

THE COURT: Yes. 

 

MR. MARDEROSIAN: -- to their damage? Specific 

names of plaintiffs. 

 

THE COURT: Yes. 

 

MR. MARDEROSIAN: We can do that. 

 

THE COURT: Okay. Well, if you can, that's what 

the law calls for and so that would be 

sufficient. 

 

MR. MARDEROSIAN: We'll do that. 

 

Doc. 558 at 5-9 (emphasis added). Defendants 

acknowledged that Plaintiffs would be providing a “list 

of the plaintiffs”: 

MR. GILHULY: Your Honor, I take it in 

identifying the plaintiffs that we're going to 

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have a list of the plaintiffs in the complaint. 

 

THE COURT: That's what was just stated. You'll 

have names. Identities. 

 

MR. GILHULY: The current complaint does not have 

a caption that includes all the plaintiffs. And 

I take it, then, that what Mr. Marderosian is 

proposing is that we will now have a caption 

that includes -- 

 

MR. MARDEROSIAN: Yes. We'll correct that. 

 

MR. GILHULY: Thank you, Your Honor. That's the 

only additional concern. And we'll submit. 

 

Id. at 9 (emphasis added). 

2. Allegations in the Seventh Amended Complaint’s 

Fifteenth Claim for Relief. 

The Fifteenth Claim for Relief in the 7thAC is 

brought on behalf of 291 named Plaintiffs listed in 

paragraph 212 who “received the misleading and deceptive 

information as more particularly described in Paragraphs 

213 - 216 ... and who relied upon such information to 

their detriment as more particularly described in 

Paragraph 221.” Paragraphs 213 through 216 describe the 

nature of the communications issued by the BAC 

Defendants: 

213. Commencing in or about 1991 and 

continuing thereafter, MERCK, AMSTED, BAC and 

TRACK FOUR (hereinafter the “MERCK DEFENDANTS”), 

by and through their managing agents, officers 

and directors, including but not limited to Joe 

Grillo - Merck; Ed Brosius - Amsted; Ned Speizer - Merck; Gail Driscoll - Merck; Beryl Kuder - 

Merck; Kenneth Shafer - BAC; Bob Jones - BAC; 

Will Foster - Merck; Donna Norbury - Merck; 

Byron Speice - BAC; Bruce Manchon - IT 

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Corporation on behalf of Merck, Amsted and BAC; 

Monte Hamamoto - US Filter/Metcalf and Eddy on 

behalf of Merck, Amsted and BAC, engaged in a 

deliberate and intentional effort to deceive and 

mislead the residents of Beachwood, including 

plaintiffs identified above regarding the 

significant nature and extent of the 

contamination emanating from the former BAC 

facility, both on and offsite; mislead these 

plaintiffs regarding the potential exposure 

pathways that existed which could have exposed 

plaintiffs to the contaminants; mislead these 

plaintiffs regarding the potential health 

affects from exposure to the contaminants; and 

mislead these plaintiffs as to the likelihood 

that plaintiffs had in fact been previously or 

could currently be exposed to the contaminants 

emanating from the former BAC facility. 

 

214. The efforts by the MERCK DEFENDANTS, by 

and through their managing agents, officers and 

directors as previously identified, included a 

series of direct communications with plaintiffs 

identified above, generally discussing 

construction activities related to remediation 

at the BAC facility and in some instances asking 

permission to access plaintiffs’ property; 

containing general information related to 

contamination on the facility site itself; 

containing information related to general 

remediation activities including the removal of 

onsite contaminated soil; identifying the 

contamination at the site as “non-hazardous”; 

stating that the MERCK DEFENDANTS were 

“voluntarily” cleaning up the site, including 

the cleanup of the contaminated storm water pond 

located at the facility; and representing that 

the MERCK DEFENDANTS were being “good neighbors” 

by cleaning up the environment in the 

neighborhood and “assuring” the public that 

treatment for the contamination was underway. 

This communication included but was not limited 

to, personal one-on-one conversations with 

residents by the BAC Plant Manager Ken Shafer, 

Ned Speizer - Merck’s lead engineering 

representative on the BAC remediation, Ed 

Brosius of Amsted and Gail Driscoll of Merck; 

the initiation of press releases (dated July 7, 

1992) and newspaper articles (including two May 

1991 articles in The Merced Sun-Star); direct 

mailings (including but not limited to “Dear 

Neighbor” notifications dated June 17, 1993, and 

August 24, 1994), and various correspondences 

directed at plaintiffs identified above. 

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215. In a newspaper article published in a 

local Merced paper (Merced Sun-Star) May 10, 

1991, the MERCK DEFENDANTS, by and through Ken 

Shafer - plant manager for the BAC facility - 

who was specifically authorized by the MERCK 

DEFENDANTS to speak on their behalf related to 

the contamination, stated among other things 

that the chemicals utilized at the plant were 

“not hazardous” and that they were not required 

to take the contaminated soil excavated from the 

facility to the Kettleman Hills toxic waste 

site, but they were doing so because it was the 

“best thing for the environment.” In the same 

article, Will Foster of Merck, authorized to 

speak about the contamination on behalf of the 

MERCK DEFENDANTS, stated that the cleanup 

stemmed from a “good corporate citizen policy” 

and was “not under any order.” The article 

further referenced BAC officials as stating that 

BAC-Pritchard was the one who first involved the 

Water Board and Health Department between 1986 

and 1987. 

 

216. Each of the above referenced 

communications directly from the MERCK 

DEFENDANTS to the Beachwood neighborhood 

including the plaintiffs identified herein, 

while discussing certain aspects of the 

contamination and remediation at the former BAC 

facility, failed to include material information 

concerning the contamination which rendered the 

information contained within these 

communications as half-truths calculated to 

deceive plaintiffs. [Specific examples of 

allegedly material information excluded from the 

communications omitted.] 

 

(Emphasis added.) 

Paragraph 221 alleges generally that the listed 

Plaintiffs reasonably relied on Defendants’ 

representations to their detriment: 

221. In light of the MERCK DEFENDANTS’ 

perceived superior knowledge regarding these 

issues, the plaintiffs identified herein 

reasonably relied upon the representations and 

implications that were made by the MERCK 

DEFENDANTS minimizing the extent of 

contamination and any health threats from the 

BAC facility and reasonably relied upon this 

information in failing to take appropriate 

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measures to protect themselves and their 

families as well as their real property from 

exposure to contamination and in failing to seek 

redress from the MERCK DEFENDANTS for their 

injuries. Specifically, had plaintiffs 

identified herein been provided with accurate 

and complete information and disclosure related 

to the above, plaintiffs identified herein would 

have: 1) sought early diagnostic testing with 

regard to the potential health affects of any 

contaminant exposure; 2) sought and/or received 

medical intervention, diagnosis and treatment 

for injuries otherwise unknown to have resulted 

from contaminant exposure; 3) moved from the 

area thereby preventing and/or mitigating the 

personal injuries now sustained as a result of 

exposure to the contaminants; 4) refrained from 

activities on or near their properties, 

including maintaining and eating from home 

gardens or fruit trees, fishing and/or swimming 

in the El Capitan Canal, so as to minimize risks 

associated with exposure to the contaminants; 5) 

would have sought to undertake their own inquiry 

or request further investigation of the extent 

of contamination or health risks associated with 

the contamination; 6) would have refused the 

MERCK DEFENDANTS’ requests for access to their 

property or allowing the MERCK DEFENDANTS to 

engage in activities on their property which 

resulted in exposure to contaminants and/or 

which significantly impacted the value of 

plaintiffs’ property. 

3. Analysis. 

 The BAC Defendants now argue that the list of names 

provided in the 7thAC, along with the allegations of 

receipt of the misleading information and reliance upon 

it, is still not specific enough. The BAC Defendants 

maintain that the current allegations could be consistent 

with a number of scenarios. For example, it could be 

that all of the listed Plaintiffs received all of the 

allegedly misleading communications and relied on those 

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documents in all of the ways alleged. Alternatively, it 

could be that certain of the listed Plaintiffs received 

some, but not all, of the allegedly misleading 

communications, and, in turn, relied upon those 

communications in some, but not all, of the manners of 

reliance alleged in the 7thAC. The BAC Defendants seek 

detailed allegations, explaining which Plaintiff received 

which misleading document, and the nature of each 

Plaintiff’s reliance to his or her detriment. 

 In support of their contention that Rule 9(b) 

requires this level of detail at the pleading stage, the 

BAC Defendants cite Akerman v. Northwestern Mutual Life, 

172 F.3d 467 (7th Cir. 1999), in which “several hundred” 

insurance policy holders claimed defendants participated 

in a scheme to convince plaintiffs to use the cash value 

of their existing policies to pay premiums for new, more 

costly policies. Id. at 468-69. As the Seventh Circuit 

explained: 

In order to make a complaint with hundreds of 

plaintiffs manageable, the plaintiffs' lawyers 

grouped their clients according to the 

particular insurance agent with whom each dealt. 

The complaint does not, however, give the dates 

on which any of the fraudulent representations 

or omissions were made, although it does 

indicate that they were made around the time 

that the policies were issued to the specified 

plaintiffs. Neither does the complaint reveal 

what exactly each agent said to each plaintiff; 

it merely gives the gist of the agents’ spiel in 

approximately the terms in which we have 

summarized the alleged scheme. The lawyers admit 

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that they did not talk to all their clients 

before drafting the complaint. 

 

Id. at 469. This approach to pleading a fraud claim was 

deemed insufficient in light of the purpose of Rule 9(b): 

The purpose of requiring that fraud be pleaded 

with particularity is not, as it might seem and 

the cases still sometimes say, [citations], to 

give the defendant in such a case enough 

information to prepare his defense. A charge of 

fraud is no more opaque than any other charge. 

The defendant can get all the information he 

needs to meet it by filing a contention 

interrogatory. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 33(c) 

[citations]. The purpose (the defensible 

purpose, anyway) of the heightened pleading 

requirement in fraud cases is to force the 

plaintiff to do more than the usual 

investigation before filing his complaint. 

 

Greater precomplaint investigation is warranted 

in fraud cases because public charges of fraud 

can do great harm to the reputation of a 

business firm or other enterprise (or 

individual); because fraud is frequently charged 

irresponsibly by people who have suffered a loss 

and want to find someone to blame for it; and 

because charges of fraud (and also mistake, the 

other charge that Rule 9(b) requires be pleaded 

with particularity) frequently ask courts in 

effect to rewrite the parties' contract or 

otherwise disrupt established relationships. By 

requiring the plaintiff to allege the who, what, 

where, and when of the alleged fraud, the rule 

requires the plaintiff to conduct a precomplaint 

investigation in sufficient depth to assure that 

the charge of fraud is responsible and 

supported, rather than defamatory and 

extortionate. Similar reasons explain why fraud 

plaintiffs are frequently required to prove 

their case by clear and convincing evidence 

rather than the usual mere preponderance, but it 

is important to note that the heightened 

pleading and heightened proof requirements do 

not move in lockstep with each other. Rule 9(b) 

requires heightened pleading of fraud claims in 

all civil cases brought in the federal courts, 

whether or not the applicable state or federal 

law requires a higher standard of proving fraud, 

which sometimes it does and sometimes it does 

not. 

 

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Almost two years into this suit, when the 

district judge threw out the fraud claim on 9(b) 

grounds, the plaintiffs' lawyers still had not 

completed the required investigation. They 

hadn't even talked to all their clients. It 

cannot be assumed that the agents' spiel was 

fraudulent in every instance in which it was 

given. The use of cash values to finance a new 

policy is not on its face a fraudulent 

practice.... More than a description of such an 

offer is necessary to show that it is 

fraudulent, but that is all the complaint 

contains. Had the plaintiffs' lawyers 

interviewed all their clients, they could have 

obtained not only a description of the 

representations or omissions that worked a fraud 

on the particular client but also the 

approximate date of the fraud, since the date 

the policy was issued to the particular client 

would appear on the copy of the policy in the 

client's possession. On the importance to 

compliance with Rule 9(b) of the “when.” 

 

Of course with hundreds of clients, compliance 

with Rule 9(b) is burdensome. But you cannot get 

around the requirements of the rule just by 

joining a lot of separate cases into one. You 

may be able to do so by filing a class suit, 

which the plaintiffs' lawyers failed to do. Now 

that it is acknowledged that tort claims can be 

litigated as class suits, even though there are 

bound to be differences (if only in damages) 

among the claimants, a tension has arisen 

between Rule 9(b) and Rule 23, in class suits 

that charge fraud. If Rule 9(b) is applied to 

every member of a class of fraud victims, the 

practical effect is to turn the class suit into 

the sort of unwieldy multiple-plaintiff suit 

that we have here. But if, in recognition of 

this problem, Rule 9(b) is applied only to the 

named plaintiff or plaintiffs, the defendant 

will be faced with fraud charges the bulk of 

which have not received the kind of searching 

precomplaint investigation that the rule 

requires. The dilemma is resolved in securities 

cases in favor of the class action, but these 

tend to be cases in which the alleged 

misrepresentation or omission is uniform across 

all members of the class. Where, as in this 

case, the fraud involves different statements to 

different customers with whom the defendant's 

agents dealt individually, the class action 

device is more questionable. But we need not 

decide whether this suit could have been brought 

as a class suit. It was not, and this means that 

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Rule 9(b) applied in full force; and it was not 

complied with. 

 

Id. at 469-71 (internal citations omitted). 

 A similar result was reached in Rodriuguez v. It’s 

Just Lunch International, 2009 WL 399728 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 

17, 2009), where seven plaintiffs who alleged they were 

fraudulently induced to enter into contracts for 

matchmaking services by misrepresentations regarding the 

quality of the services. Their complaint was dismissed 

on Rule 9(b) grounds because it failed “to identify 

precisely which defendant made the representation, what 

was said and to which plaintiff the statement(s) was 

made.” Id. at *4. Specifically, plaintiffs’ asserted 

“in generalized terms, [that] ‘lies’ were spoken, but 

they fail to identify ... who heard the lies; ... how the 

‘lies’ deceived a particular plaintiff(s); or how the 

‘lies’ caused injury to a particular plaintiff(s).” Id. 

at *5. See also Raymond v. Merrill Lynch, 1991 WL 520500 

(C.D. Cal. Aug. 5, 1991) (complaint brought by nine 

investors dismissed pursuant to Rule 9(b) because it 

failed to identify “to which plaintiff” various alleged 

misrepresentations were made); Garcia v. Santa Maria 

Resort, Inc., 528 F. Supp. 2d 1283 (S.D. Fla. 2007) 

(complaint alleging that misrepresentations were made to 

“one or more” of six condominium purchasers by a 

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developer and real estate agent lacked sufficient 

specificity under Rule 9(b) because it permitted “a more 

than reasonable inference that certain plaintiffs never 

heard the misrepresentations”). 

 Here, although this case is arguably distinguishable 

from Ackerman because there is no suggestion that counsel 

for Plaintiffs failed to conduct adequate investigation, 

the end result is the same. The complaint does not 

specifically articulate either the nature of the 

communications received by each Plaintiff or the actions 

each Plaintiff undertook in reliance on those 

communications. The complaint as currently articulated 

would only be satisfactory if all 291 named plaintiffs 

received all of the allegedly misleading communications 

and relied on them to their detriment in all of the ways 

listed in the complaint. If this is the case, Plaintiffs 

may so indicate in an amended complaint. Otherwise, 

Plaintiffs must specifically articulate which Plaintiffs 

received which allegedly misleading, half-truth 

communications and how each Plaintiff relied upon those 

communications to their detriment.1 The BAC Defendants’ 

motion to dismiss the Fifteenth Cause of Action is 

 1 That the district court did not specifically articulate 

this requirement during oral argument on the previous 

motion to dismiss is of no moment. The specific issue 

presented here was not before the court at that time. 

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GRANTED WITH LEAVE TO AMEND, because Plaintiffs have 

arguably come close to complying with Rule 9(b). 

a. BAC Defendants’ Rule 11 Argument. 

 The BAC Defendants’ argument that Plaintiffs cannot 

allege their present fraud claim in compliance with Rule 

11 need not be addressed, as it appears that Plaintiffs 

can and will add the required specificity. 

b. BAC Defendants’ Renewed Arguments Re: Randi 

W. 

 The BAC Defendants also attempt to revisit the 

district court’s previous ruling regarding the 

application of Randi W. v. Muroc Joint Unified Sch. 

Dist., 14 Cal. 4th 1066 (1997). The October 16, 2009 

Memorandum Decision concluded that Randi W. stood for the 

proposition that one may be liable for telling halftruths even in the absence of a “special relationship” 

between the speaker and listener, where there is a 

“substantial, foreseeable risk of physical injury” to the 

listener or third persons. See Doc. 562 at 10-11. 

 The BAC Defendants now argue that, although the Randi 

W. court did permit a fraud claim where there was 

arguably no transactional or special relationship between 

the plaintiff and the defendant, it did so only because 

the defendant “made statements that were unarguably 

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false.” Doc. 589 at 15. Specifically, the Randi W. 

concerned a letter of recommendation for a vice principal 

that implied he was fit to interact with female students, 

despite the fact that he had been charged with relevant 

sexual improprieties. 14 Cal. 4th 1066. But, contrary 

to the BAC Defendants’ assertions, this case is 

indistinguishable from Randi W. Here, Plaintiffs contend 

that the statements made by the BAC Defendants implied 

that Plaintiffs were safe to live in their homes, drink 

their water, eat home-grown fruits and vegetables, etc. 

Assuming the truth of Plaintiffs’ allegations, any such 

implication was “unarguably false” in light of the real 

facts known to Defendants. Randi W. is directly on 

point. The BAC Defendants’ motion to dismiss on this 

ground is DENIED. 

 

B. Motion to Strike Civil Conspiracy Allegations in 

Sixteenth Claim for Relief. 

 Plaintiffs concede that their conspiracy allegations 

in the Sixteenth Claim for Relief “necessarily rise and 

fall based upon the adequacy of the fraud claim....” 

Doc. 616 at 8. Accordingly, because the fraud claim is 

dismissed with leave to amend, the civil conspiracy 

allegations are STRICKEN WITH LEAVE TO AMEND. 

 

 

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IV. CONCLUSION 

 For the reasons set forth above: 

 (1) The BAC Defendants’ motion to dismiss the 

Fifteenth Claim for Relief for failure to specifically 

allege (a) which Plaintiffs received which allegedly 

fraudulent communications and (b) how each Plaintiff 

relied upon those communications to their detriment is 

GRANTED WITH LEAVE TO AMEND; 

 (2) The BAC Defendants’ motion to dismiss based on 

their renewed attempt to distinguish Randi W. is DENIED; 

 (3) The BAC Defendants’ motion to strike the 

allegations in the Sixteenth Claim for Relief based on 

civil conspiracy grounded in fraud is GRANTED WITH LEAVE 

TO AMEND. 

 Plaintiffs shall have ten (10) days following 

electronic service of this decision to file an amended 

complaint. 

 

SO ORDERED 

Dated: March 16, 2010 

 

 /s/ Oliver W. Wanger 

 Oliver W. Wanger 

 United States District Judge 

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