Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-06-02574/USCOURTS-ca8-06-02574-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Don Cone
Appellant
Kansas City Laser
Appellant
MCI
Appellee
MCI Telecommunications Corporation
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 06-2574

___________

Kansas City Laser, Inc.; *

Don Cone, *

*

*

Plaintiff–Appellants, * Appeal from the United States

* District Court for the

v. * Western District of Missouri. 

*

MCI Telecommunications * [UNPUBLISHED]

Corporation; MCI WorldCom *

Communications, Inc., *

*

*

Defendants–Appellees *

___________

Submitted: September 28, 2007

Filed: October 19, 2007 

___________

Before MURPHY, MELLOY, and SMITH, Circuit Judges. 

___________

PER CURIAM.

Kansas City Laser, Inc. (“KC Laser”) is a small business that repairs,

refurbishes, and sells small business machines. Don Cone is the principal owner of

KC Laser’s stock and KC Laser’s managing officer and primary salesman. KC Laser

and Cone sued MCI Telecommunications Corporation and MCI WorldCom

Communications, Inc. (collectively “MCI”) alleging several causes of action under

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The Honorable Dean Whipple, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Missouri. 

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Missouri law. The district court1 dismissed the claims under Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 12(b)(6). We affirm.

I. Background

KC Laser and Cone filed their original petition for negligent failure to

supervise, intentional failure to supervise, negligence, negligent infliction of

emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress in Missouri state

court. MCI removed the case to federal court, which has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.

§ 1332(a)(1). MCI then filed a Motion to Dismiss the petition for failure to state a

claim under Rule 12(b)(6), which the district court granted. 

According to the facts in the petition, which we accept as true, Brown v.

Simmons, 478 F.3d 922, 923 (8th Cir. 2007), KC Laser received telephone service

from MCI through another company, MaxCom, who leased lines from MCI and resold

the service to KC Laser. MCI began calling and demanding KC Laser pay MCI

$39,000 and repeatedly threatened to discontinue KC Laser’s telephone service unless

KC Laser made the payment. KC Laser’s monthly telephone bill to MaxCom was

$237; the company did not owe MCI $39,000, which according to the complaint MCI

ultimately acknowledged. 

Discontinuing KC Laser’s telephone service would have caused the small

company to go out of business. The potential devastating impact and disruption on

KC Laser’s business was communicated to MCI. MCI persisted in these threats even

after learning that KC Laser did not owe $39,000 and that the money was instead

owed by MaxCom. As a result of MCI’s threats, KC Laser was forced to cancel

scheduled billboard advertising and to take other measures to ensure it would not lose

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its customers. MCI ultimately discontinued the telephone service on September 3,

2003, and restored it a day later when Cone threatened to file suit. As a result of

MCI’s conduct, Cone became severely upset and “experienced severe emotional

suffering and began passing and expectorating blood for which he was required to

seek treatment from medical providers.” Based on these facts, Cone and KC Laser

filed claims against MCI alleging negligent and intentional failure to supervise,

negligence, and negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

II. Discussion

We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of the claims under Rule

12(b)(6). Brown, 478 F.3d at 923. For KC Laser and Cone to survive the motion to

dismiss, they must have pleaded each element of their claims in the state-court

petition. See id. We “grant every reasonable inference in favor of the nonmovant.”

Id. “However, the [petition] must contain sufficient facts, as opposed to mere

conclusions, to satisfy the legal requirements of the claim to avoid dismissal.” Quinn

v. Ocwen Fed. Bank FSB, 470 F.3d 1240, 1244 (8th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation

omitted). 

A. Negligent and Intentional Failure to Supervise

KC Laser and Cone allege MCI is liable for negligent failure to supervise

MCI’s employees, who threatened to terminate and terminated KC Laser’s telephone

service without reasonable cause. KC Laser alleges MCI is liable for intentional

failure to supervise MCI’s employees, knowing that harm was substantially certain to

result from their actions, but disregarding that risk. To plead claims for negligent and

intentional failure to supervise under Missouri law, KC Laser must have alleged MCI

was “under a duty to exercise reasonable care so as to control his servant while acting

outside the scope of his employment as to prevent him from intentionally harming

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The full definition of negligent supervision states:

A master is under a duty to exercise reasonable care so to control his

servant while acting outside the scope of his employment as to prevent

him from intentionally harming others or from so conducting himself as

to create an unreasonable risk of harm to them, if 

(a) the servant 

(i) is upon the premises in possession of the master or upon

which the servant is privileged to enter only as his servant,

or 

(ii) is using a chattel of the master, and

(b) the master

(i) knows or has reason to know that he has the ability to 

control his servant, and

(ii) knows or should know of the necessity and opportunity

for exercising such control.

Truck Ins. Exhange, 162 S.W.3d at 82 (quoting Restatement (Second) of

Torts § 317 (1965)).

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others.”2 Truck Ins. Exch. v. Prairie Framing, LLC, 162 S.W.3d 64, 82 (Mo. Ct. App.

2005) (internal quotation omitted). KC Laser and Cone failed to plead this element

in their state-court petition—and, in fact, pleaded the opposite, that MCI’s employees

were “acting within the course and scope of their duties and responsibilities as

defendant’s employees.” Thus, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of KC Laser’s

and Cone’s claims for negligent and intentional failure to supervise.

B. Negligence

KC Laser alleges MCI was negligent because it had a duty not to interfere with

its telephone service without lawful reason and MCI violated that duty. “[I]n any

action for negligence, the plaintiff must establish that the defendant had a duty to

protect the plaintiff from injury, the defendant failed to perform that duty, and the

defendant’s failure proximately caused injury to the plaintiff.” L.A.C. v. Ward

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This section deals with the provision of telephone service by a telephone

company to its customers. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 392.200; see also United Tele. Co. of Mo.

v. Horn, 610 S.W.2d 701, 704 (Mo. Ct. App. 1980) (indicating that a telephone

company that suspends service could be in violation of § 392.200(3), which prevents

discrimination in the provision of telephone services).

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Parkway Shopping Ctr. Co., 75 S.W.3d 247, 257 (Mo. 2002) (en banc) (internal

quotation and brackets omitted). KC Laser and Cone alleged that MCI “had a duty

not to interfere with plaintiff KC Laser’s telephone service without lawful reason,” but

this is a “mere conclusion[]” unsupported by “sufficient facts” to establish MCI owed

a duty to refrain from interfering with KC Laser’s telephone service. See Quinn, 470

F.3d at 1244 (internal quotation omitted). We express no opinion on whether MCI

may have had a duty to KC Laser arising from a statute, such as Missouri Revised

Statute § 392.200,3

 as KC Laser has not alleged this. Thus, we affirm the district

court’s dismissal of KC Laser’s claim for general negligence. 

C. Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress

Cone also asserts a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress, alleging

MCI should have realized that its conduct involved an unreasonable risk he would

suffer severe emotional distress, and that he was required to seek medical treatment

for physical injuries resulting from his emotional distress. In Bosch v. St. Louis

Healthcare Network, 41 S.W.3d 462 (Mo. 2001) (en banc), the Missouri Supreme

Court identified the elements of a claim a plaintiff must establish for negligent

infliction of emotional distress:

(1) . . . [t]he defendant should have realized that his conduct involved an

unreasonable risk to the plaintiff, (2) . . . plaintiff was present at the

scene of an injury producing, sudden event, and (3) . . . plaintiff was in

the zone of danger, i.e., placed in reasonable fear of physical injury to

her or his own person. 

Id. at 465 (internal quotation omitted). In Bosch, the husband of a medical-center

employee who contracted hepatitis C sued the medical center alleging loss of

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consortium and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Id. at 464. The Missouri

Supreme Court noted that while having a spouse with a contagious disease might

result in physical and emotional injury, this “is not the type of injury-producing

sudden event contemplated by the claim recognized as the negligent infliction of

emotional distress.” Id. at 465. Thus, the court dismissed the claim as the plaintiff did

not plead facts sufficient to establish a claim for negligent infliction of emotional

distress. Id. at 463. Similarly, Cone failed to identify in the petition an “injuryproducing sudden event” warranting relief. See id. at 465. As a result, we affirm the

district court’s dismissal of Cone’s claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress.

D. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress

Cone bases his intentional infliction of emotional distress claim on MCI’s

threats to terminate and termination of KC Laser’s telephone service. For this claim,

Cone must have pled facts sufficient to establish that MCI’s “conduct was extreme

and outrageous,” that MCI “acted intentionally or recklessly,” and that MCI’s conduct

caused Cone “extreme emotional distress resulting in bodily harm.” Cent. Mo. Elec.

Coop. v. Balke, 119 S.W.3d 627, 636 (Mo. Ct. App. 2003). The alleged emotional

distress must be “medically diagnosable and medically significant.” Hendrix v.

Wainwright Indus., 755 S.W.2d 411, 412 (Mo. Ct. App. 1998) (internal quotation

omitted). Additionally, Cone must also have pled facts sufficient to establish that

MCI’s “sole intent in acting was to cause emotional distress.” Cent. Mo. Elec. Coop.,

119 S.W.3d at 636. Conduct is extreme and outrageous when it is “so outrageous in

character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency”

and is “atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” May v. Greater

Kan. City Dental Soc’y, 863 S.W.2d 941, 948 (Mo. Ct. App. 1993) (internal quotation

omitted). 

As a federal district court in Missouri noted, “Missouri case law reveals very

few factual scenarios sufficient to support a claim for” intentional infliction of

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emotional distress. Dunham v. City of O’Fallon, Mo., 945 F.Supp. 1256, 1262 (E.D.

Mo. 1996). Rarely is a defendant’s conduct sufficiently extreme and outrageous to

warrant recovery. See Gibson v. Hummel, 688 S.W.2d 4, 7–8 (Mo. Ct. Ap. 1985)

(listing cases where Missouri courts have not found conduct alleged to inflict

emotional distress to be extreme and outrageous). In Smith v. Standard Oil, 567

S.W.2d 412 (Mo. Ct. App. 1978), the Missouri Court of Appeals reversed a grant of

denial of relief to a plaintiff who received a series of letters and phone calls from a

creditor and a collection agency, noting that only one of the phone calls could be

considered abusive and that this conduct was not sufficiently outrageous to warrant

relief. Id. at 416. 

Cone relies on cases where Missouri courts allowed plaintiffs to recover

because of defendants’ outrageous debt-collection tactics. In Warrem v. Parrish, 436

S.W.2d 670 (Mo. 1969), the defendant, in an attempt to collect a bill plaintiffs did not

owe, “sequestered [plaintiffs’] auto for some three hours, during which time he

publicly berated and threatened [them], knowing [one of the plaintiffs] was not well

and was recuperating from an extended illness.” Id. at 673. In contrast, MCI’s debtcollection tactics in the case at hand did not involve sequestering Cone or public

berating and threatening. In Liberty Loan Corp. of Antioch v. Brown, 493 S.W.2d

664 (Mo. Ct. App. 1973), the court found the defendant’s debt-collection tactics,

which included repeatedly calling the plaintiff degrading names and threatening to

harm her daughter, may have been extreme and outrageous; however, these tactics

were far more egregious than those MCI employed in the present case. Id. at 667.

The district court correctly decided that MCI’s conduct case did not rise to the level

of being so extreme and outrageous so as to support a claim for intentional infliction

of emotional distress.

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III. Conclusion

We affirm the district court’s dismissal of KC Laser’s and Cone’s claims for

negligent failure to supervise, intentional failure to supervise, negligence, negligent

infliction of emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. 

______________________________

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