Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_11-cv-00455/USCOURTS-azd-2_11-cv-00455-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 28:1441 Petition for Removal- Tort/Non-Motor Vehicle

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Henry Carter Metcalf, a single person, 

Plaintiff, 

vs.

Southwest Gas Corporation, 

Defendant. 

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No. CV 11-0455-PHX-JAT

ORDER

Pending before the Court is Southwest Gas Corporation’s Motion to Dismiss First

Amended Complaint (Doc. 24). Plaintiff has filed his Response to the Motion to Dismiss

(Doc. 27) and Defendant has filed its Reply in Support of its Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 28).

For the reasons that follow, Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss is denied. 

I. BACKGROUND

In his Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that, on October 21, 2008, Southwest Gas

Corporation blocked off his house and would not let him enter because of the danger of a gas

leak. (Doc. 18 at ¶ 5). Plaintiff alleges that, for several months preceding the discovery of

the gas leak, he had been suffering health problems, including uncontrollable coughing

spasms, floaters broken loose in his eyes, numbness in his ring and pinky fingers on both

hands, involuntary nervous ticks in both index fingers, pain in the left side of his neck and

then his right side, very little sleep every night secondary to coughing persistently throughout

the night, the mucus membranes in his nose and sinuses becoming swollen and dry, nasal and

Case 2:11-cv-00455-JAT Document 36 Filed 11/18/11 Page 1 of 4
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 In response, Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s strict liability claim fails because, as

a matter of law, the transmission of natural gas is not an abnormally dangerous activity. (Id.

at 5-6). During oral argument on Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss, Plaintiff withdrew his

strict liability claim and, accordingly, the Court dismissed Plaintiff’s strict liability claim

without prejudice. Accordingly, the Court will not address Defendant’s strict liability

argument. 

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eye drainage, and poor appetite and weight loss. (Id. at ¶¶ 10 & 16). Plaintiff alleges that,

for several months preceding the discovery of the gas leak, the vegetation surrounding his

home died and that when Plaintiff replaced this vegetation, it again died. (Id. at ¶ 9).

Plaintiff alleges that the gas leak was the source of harm that caused his injuries and caused

his vegetation to die. (Id. at ¶¶ 8, 10, 11, 16). Plaintiff further alleges that Defendant was

engaged in an abnormally dangerous activity that caused his injuries. (Id. at 14).1 

Defendant argues that Plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be

granted as required by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and 8(a) because Plaintiff

has failed to allege sufficient facts to support a causal connection between the alleged gas

leak and Plaintiff’s alleged injuries. (Doc. 24 at 4-5).

II. LEGAL STANDARD

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure embrace a notice-pleading standard. All that

is required to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion is “a short and plain statement of the claim

showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), in order to “‘give the

defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.’” Bell Atl.

Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47

(1957)). In pleading the grounds of the claim, the plaintiff need not provide “detailed factual

allegations,” id.; however, the plaintiff must plead enough facts “to raise a right to relief

above the speculative level.” Id. at 1965. This does “not impose a probability requirement

at the pleading stage.” Id. at 556. 

“[W]hen a complaint adequately states a claim, it may not be dismissed based on a

district court’s assessment that the plaintiff will fail to find evidentiary support for his

allegations or prove his claim to the satisfaction of the factfinder.” Id. at 563. Further, when

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analyzing a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the court must construe the

complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, accept its factual allegations as true, and

draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. See Assoc. for Los Angeles Deputy

Sheriffs v. County of Los Angeles, 648 F.3d 986 (9th Cir. 2011).

III. ANALYSIS

Defendant argues that Plaintiff has failed to sufficiently allege a causal connection

between the gas leak and Plaintiff’s injuries. Defendant claims that Plaintiff failed to “allege

that natural gas can cause the types of injuries Plaintiff claims to have suffered or that it did

cause those alleged injuries in this case. (Doc. 28 at 4) (emphasis in original). Defendant

further claims that Plaintiff never alleged “how the natural gas, or a constituent of natural

gas, came into contact with the Plaintiff himself, how that contact was sufficient or capable

of causing any personal health problems generally, and how such caused those problems

specifically in the Plaintiff.” (Id.). Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s failure to make these

allegations requires speculation, rendering the allegations insufficient to satisfy Federal Rules

of Civil Procedure 8(a). 

In his Complaint, Plaintiff alleged that Defendant’s negligence caused a gas leak, that

the gas leak caused Defendant to block off Plaintiff’s house for a period of time due to

“danger of gas within the dwelling,” and that Plaintiff sustained specific injuries from his

exposure to the gas leak. Assuming these facts are true, Plaintiff has adequately stated a

claim upon which relief can be granted. Defendant’s argument suggests that it believes

Plaintiff is required to prove causation in his Complaint. However, Federal Rules of Civil

Procedure 8(a) does not require Plaintiff to prove his claim in the Complaint, nor does it

impose “a probability requirement at the pleading stage; it simply calls for [plaintiff to allege]

enough fact[s] to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence to support

the allegations.” Starr v. Baca, 652 F.3d 1202, 1217 (9th Cir. 2011) (quoting Twombly, 550

U.S. at 556). In his Complaint, Plaintiff does allege facts that could be proved by evidence

obtained through the discovery process, i.e. that Defendant’s negligence caused a gas leak

and that, as a result, Plaintiff was exposed to and sustained injuries related to the leak. 

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Defendant argues that it is “illogical and unwarranted” to link Plaintiff’s injuries to

the gas leak because there are other “commonly-known possible causes of Plaintiff’s alleged

harm.” For instance, Defendant posits that Plaintiff’s coughing spasms could be caused by

“allergies, the inhalation of an irritant . . . or diseases such as influenza and respiratory

infection.” (Doc. 28 at 5). Defendant’s alternative explanations do not make Plaintiff’s

theory of the case any less plausible. 

If there are two alternative explanations, one advanced by defendant and the

other advanced by plaintiff, both of which are plausible, plaintiff’s complaint

survives a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). Plaintiff’s complaint may

be dismissed only when defendant’s plausible alternative explanation is so

convincing that plaintiff’s explanation is implausible. The standard at this

stage of the litigation is not that plaintiff’s explanation must be true or even

probable. The factual allegations of the complaint need only ‘plausibly

suggest an entitlement to relief.’

Starr, 652 F.3d at 1217 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556) (emphasis in original).

Accordingly, the Court finds that Plaintiff has adequately pled causation as required by

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a). 

Based on the foregoing,

IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff’s strict liability claim is dismissed without prejudice.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, in all other respects, Southwest Gas

Corporation’s Motion to Dismiss First Amended Complaint (Doc. 24) is denied. 

DATED this 18th day of November, 2011.

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