Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/103/29/2469717/
Timestamp: 2019-10-13 23:15:30
Document Index: 505460908

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1332', '§ 5', '§ 1331', '§ 1334', '§ 6', '§ 2', '§ 1961']

Wajda v. RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co., 103 F. Supp. 2d 29 (D. Mass. 2000) :: Justia
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Wajda v. RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co., 103 F. Supp. 2d 29 (D. Mass. 2000)
US District Court for the District of Massachusetts - 103 F. Supp. 2d 29 (D. Mass. 2000)
103 F. Supp. 2d 29 (2000)
Phyllis R. WAJDA, Plaintiff
No. CIV.A.98-12152GAO.
*30 *31 Burton A. Waisbren, Jr., Burton A. Waisbren, Jr., M.D., J.D., Boston, MA, for Phyllis R. Wajda.
Thomas E. Peisch, Conn, Kavanaugh, Rosenthal, Peisch & Ford, Boston, MA, Donald J. Wood, Connarton, Wood & Callahan, Boston, MA, Harold K. Gordon, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, New York, NY, William P. Corbett, Jr., Conn, Kavanaugh, Rosenthal, Peisch & Ford, Boston, MA, Mark Robert Seiden, Barbara Spalten Levy, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, New York, NY, for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
Robert J. Muldoon, Jr., Sherin & Lodgen, Boston, MA, Thomas J. Griffin, Jr., John B. Daukas, Brenda R. Sharton, Robert M. Braceras, Goodwin, Procter & Hoar, Boston, MA, Kenneth D. Small, Sherin & Lodgen, Boston, MA, David A. Brown, Sherin & Lodgen LLP, Boston, MA, for Philip Morris Inc.
John H. Henn, David R. Geiger, Gregory T. Moffatt, Evan Georgopoulos, Foley, Hoag & Eliot, Robert J. Muldoon, Jr., Sherin & Lodgen, Boston, MA, Kenneth D. Small, Sherin & Lodgen, Boston, MA, Jeffrey S. Follett, Foley, Hoag & Eliot, Boston, MA, David A. Brown, Sherin & Lodgen LLP, Boston, MA, for Brown & Williamson Tobacco.
Franklin C. Huntington, IV, Hutchins, Wheeler & Dittmar, Boston, MA, for B.A.T. Industries, P.L.C.
Robert J. Muldoon, Jr., Sherin & Lodgen, Boston, MA, Richard M. Zielinski, Robert D. Ryan, Hill & Barlow, Boston, MA, Kenneth D. Small, Sherin & Lodgen, Boston, MA, David A. Brown, Sherin & Lodgen LLP, Boston, MA, for Lorillard Tobacco Co.
David H. Sempert, Kelly L. Wilkins, Cornell & Gollub, Boston, MA, for Liggett Group, Inc.
Robert J. Muldoon, Jr., Sherin & Lodgen, Boston, MA, Kenneth D. Small, Sherin & Lodgen, Boston, MA, David A. Brown, Sherin & Lodgen LLP, Boston, MA, Scott Gediman, Nelson Gediman, Gediman & Gediman, P.C., Boston, MA, for New England Wholesale Tobacco Co., Inc.
Robert J. Muldoon, Jr., Sherin & Lodgen, Boston, MA, Kenneth D. Small, Sherin & Lodgen, Boston, MA, David A. Brown, Sherin & Lodgen LLP, Boston, MA, Robert J. Gilbert, Edward J. Denn, Gilbert & Renton, Andover, MA, for Albert H. Notini & Sons, Inc.
Robert J. Muldoon, Jr., Sherin & Lodgen, Boston, MA, Thomas E. Peisch, Conn, Kavanaugh, Rosenthal, Peisch & Ford, Boston, MA, Kenneth D. Small, Sherin & Lodgen, Boston, MA, David A. Brown, Sherin & Lodgen LLP, Boston, MA, William P. Corbett, Jr., Conn Kavanaugh, Rosenthal, Peisch & Ford, Boston, MA, for Council for Tobacco Research-U.S.A., Inc.
The plaintiff, Phyllis R. Wajda, brought this action against several tobacco companies *32 and distributors in Massachusetts Superior Court, and the defendants then removed the case to this Court, which has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332. The plaintiff claims that the defendants, conspiring with other members of the tobacco industry, deceived the public about the health risks of smoking and placed an unreasonably dangerous product into commerce. The defendants have moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b) (6).
Even in cases removed from state court, the adequacy of pleadings is measured by the federal rules. See Hanna v. Plumer, 380 U.S. 460, 85 S. Ct. 1136, 14 L. Ed. 2d 8 (1965); Hayduk v. Lanna, 775 F.2d 441, 443 (1st Cir.1985). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) (2) governs most pleadings and requires that a complaint contain "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." It must allege facts that sufficiently support, either directly or by inference, every material element necessary to sustain recovery. See Pujol v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 877 F.2d 132, 138 (1st Cir.1989); Gooley v. Mobil Oil Corp., 851 F.2d 513, 514-15 (1st Cir.1988).
The complaint describes, in a most summary fashion, a vast and lengthy conspiracy involving the defendants and other tobacco companies which was intended to "mislead, deceive and confuse" the plaintiff and the public about the risks of smoking. The complaint provides no details as to whether, or how, the plaintiff came to rely detrimentally on material misstatements or omissions that were the fruit of this conspiracy.
Because these allegations sound in fraud, they must meet a standard higher than the basic pleading requirements found in Rule 8. Pleadings which portray a conspiracy to defraud or conceal may not be painted in broad strokes; they must state the factual foundations of that claim *33 with particularity. Fed.R.Civ.P. 9(b). See also Hayduk, 775 F.2d at 443. That means the plaintiff must at least tell who said (or failed to say) what, when, and where. See Doyle, 103 F.3d at 194; DiLeo v. Ernst & Young, 901 F.2d 624, 627 (7th Cir.1990). In addition to reporting the statements with particularity, she must also say, at the very least, how any such statements materially affected the plaintiff's decision to smoke. See Doyle, 103 F.3d at 193.
On the other hand, a failure to warn the plaintiff of the reasonably known dangers associated with ordinary use of the product is actionable under Massachusetts law. See Vassallo v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 428 Mass. 1, 696 N.E.2d 909, 922-24 (1998). Even so, the pleadings must do more than vaguely assert that the defendants generally failed to warn people, including the plaintiff, of the dangers of smoking. Some facts must be pleaded. Here again, this complaint simply cobbles together a few bald and conclusory assertions without any factual context. It is impossible to consider whether the facts pleaded entitle the plaintiff to relief when there are no facts pleaded.
Indeed, the generality of the complaint language makes it impossible to determine the merits of one of the defendants' principal legal objections to the plaintiff's "failure to warn" theory. The defendants argue that the state law claim has been preempted by § 5(b) of the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 ("Smoking Act"), Pub.L. 91-222, 84 Stat. 87, codified as amended, 15 U.S.C. *34 §§ 1331-1340. That provision prohibits states from imposing legal requirements or prohibitions based on smoking and health with respect to the advertising and promotion of cigarettes that are packaged and sold in conformance with the Act. See 15 U.S.C. § 1334. Accordingly, no liability may be imposed under state law for any post-1969 failure by the defendants to warn consumers through their promotion and advertising about the potentially harmful health effects associated with smoking. See Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U.S. 504, 524-25, 112 S. Ct. 2608, 120 L. Ed. 2d 407 (1992) (plurality); id. at 552-54, 112 S. Ct. 2608 (Scalia, J., joined by Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). However, the statute does not preclude liability for any failure to warn that happened before the Act was passed, see id. at 524-25, 112 S. Ct. 2608 (plurality); id. at 534, 112 S. Ct. 2608 (Blackmun, J., joined by Kennedy and Souter, JJ., concurring in part and dissenting in part), and state-law duties that have no bearing on advertising or promotion of cigarettes would also be unaffected by the Smoking Act, see id. at 524-25, 528, 112 S. Ct. 2608; see generally Laurence H. Tribe, American Constitutional Law Vol. 1, § 6-29, at 1190-95 (3d ed.2000).
The plaintiff alleges that the defendants' cigarettes were unreasonably dangerous. Massachusetts ascribes liability for manufacturing and selling unreasonably dangerous products, through a cause of action either for negligence or breach of warranty. See doCanto v. Ametek, Inc., 367 Mass. 776, 328 N.E.2d 873, 878 (1975) (describing duties to safely design and provide adequate warning); Back v. Wickes Corp., 375 Mass. 633, 378 N.E.2d 964, 970 (1978) (same duties and standard applied under breach of warranty theory).[2] To survive the motion to dismiss on this claim, the plaintiff must allege sufficient facts to demonstrate that the defendants manufactured or sold the product, the product was unreasonably dangerous or unsuited for ordinary use at the time it left the defendants' hands because of a defect, the plaintiff was using the product in an intended or reasonably foreseeable manner when she was injured, and the product's defect was a legal cause of the plaintiff's injury. See Lally v. Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, 45 Mass.App.Ct. 317, 698 N.E.2d 28, 43, review denied, 428 Mass. 1106, 705 N.E.2d 277 (1998). "A product may be unreasonably dangerous because of a defect in design." Commonwealth v. Johnson Insulation, 425 Mass. 650, 682 N.E.2d 1323, 1330 (1997). Evaluating the product's design involves weighing "the gravity of the danger posed by the challenged design, the likelihood that such danger would occur, the mechanical feasibility of a safer alternative design, the financial cost of an improved design, and the adverse consequences to the product and to the consumer that would result from an alternative design." Back v. Wickes Corp., 378 N.E.2d at 970 (quoting Barker v. Lull Eng'g Co., 20 Cal. 3d 413, 143 Cal. Rptr. 225, 573 P.2d 443, 455 (1978)).
The plaintiff does not allege that there were specific defects in the design of defendants' cigarettes. Although the plaintiff states, in the sort of conclusory fashion that is insufficient, see Doyle, 103 F.3d at *35 194, that safer alternative designs for cigarettes were available, there is not the slightest description of what those designs were or why they would have avoided causing harm to the plaintiff if adopted.
The failure to allege specifies may be no accident. One has the sense in reading the complaint that the plaintiff's claim is that all cigarettes are unreasonably dangerous, not that the defendants' cigarettes were, because of some unique feature of design, more dangerous than others. This is not so much a defective design claim as it is a claim of strict liability. It is true that Massachusetts law recognizes that those who engage in abnormally dangerous activities may be held strictly liable for resulting harms. See Clark-Aiken Co. v. Cromwell-Wright Co., 367 Mass. 70, 323 N.E.2d 876 (1975) (collecting cases). In Massachusetts, this form of tort has been applied to manmade flooding, explosive blasting, and escaped wild animals, but it has not been applied in the domain of products liability. See Vassallo, 696 N.E.2d at 922-23 (overturning previous cases that established strict liability for failure to warn in products liability cases); Kyte v. Philip Morris Inc., 408 Mass. 162, 556 N.E.2d 1025, 1030 (1990) (allowing product liability claim to go forward because it alleged that defendant's cigarettes were particularly carcinogenic and addictive without alleging that all cigarettes were inherently defective).
The plaintiff says that the defendants expressly warranted that their cigarettes were fit and safe for consumption, and that they violated those warranties. Express warranties are defined by Massachusetts statute to include affirmations of fact or promises made by sellers relating to their goods, as well as descriptions or samples of the goods. See Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 106, § 2-313.
Williams v. Monarch Mach. Tool Co., 26 F.3d 228 (1st Cir.1994), cited by the defendants, does not hold otherwise. In that case, the plaintiff brought a diversity suit in the federal district court for claims based on Massachusetts law. He then requested a jury instruction that had no support in extant Massachusetts law. The district court refused to allow it, and the Circuit affirmed on the ground that a litigant who seeks the federal forum in diversity may not expect that court to blaze new trails in state law. See id. at 232. Here, the plaintiff did not seek the federal forum. She has been forced to litigate here after the case was properly removed. It would be imprudent simply to disregard a novel *36 theory of relief when the plaintiff intended to litigate before a state tribunal open to the consideration of novel claims.
The plaintiff's battery theory is a bit hard to follow. It appears to be something like this: The defendants successfully lulled the plaintiff into believing that smoking cigarettes would not be harmful. Had the plaintiff known the health risks of smoking, she never would have put a cigarette to her lips. The defendants' concealment of the truth about smoking, therefore, resulted in an intentional and harmful touching for which they should bear responsibility.
But it is clear that an essential part of the plaintiff's battery theory is that she was misled by the defendants. In other words, crucial to this theory of battery is fraud; indeed, the battery claim is little more than an added gloss on the fraud claim. What was true for the explicit claim of fraud is true here as well: the fraudulent component of the plaintiff's theory of battery must be pled with the particularity required by Rule 9(b). It is not, and thus must fail.
*37 Violation of 93A
Massachusetts recognizes the tort of conspiracy in two forms. The first form, often denoted as "true conspiracy," occurs when the conspirators, acting in unison, exercise a "peculiar power of coercion" over the plaintiff that they would not have had if they had acted alone. See Fleming v. Dane, 304 Mass. 46, 22 N.E.2d 609, 611 (1939). The "peculiar power" conspiracy is rarely proven, see id., and here it is inadequately pleaded. The plaintiff avers that each defendant, acting alone, would have been unable to mislead the public about the dangers of smoking, and that together they managed to prevent material information about the health risks of smoking from reaching the public or the plaintiff. Even if the allegations of fraudulent concealment passed muster under Rule 9(b), which they do not, the pleadings fail to explain how this conspiracy had a "coercive" effect upon plaintiff. This is unlike the situation in Aetna Casualty Surety Co. v. P & B Autobody, 43 F.3d 1546, 1563-64 (1st Cir.1994), where pleadings of concerted fraud by several auto repair shops and insurance adjusters were sufficient to state a claim for "peculiar power" conspiracy. There, the insurer was obligated to pay claims presented to it by the adjusters and the shops; their joint agreement to deceive the insurer circumvented the insurer's safeguards against fraud and triggered the insurer's contractual obligation to pay claims. In this sense, the joint fraud may be said to have coerced the insurer to pay claims it would otherwise not have had to. Here, nothing in the complaint asserts that the plaintiff was coerced into heeding the enticements, such as they may have been, of the tobacco companies. The only element of coercion in the pleadings is the assertion that the defendants inflicted an addiction upon the plaintiff. But that aspect of coercion, assuming that it did exist, is not a peculiar power attributable to the conspiracy. Any tobacco company acting alone could have accomplished it, once the plaintiff had smoked their cigarettes laced with addictive nicotine. That coercive effect, and whatever damages may have flowed from it, is properly addressed by the claim of battery.
The other form of conspiracy recognized in Massachusetts, and the one more congenial to the plaintiff's purpose, ascribes liability to those who substantially assist or encourage others to commit torts. See Kyte v. Philip Morris Inc., 408 Mass. 162, 556 N.E.2d 1025, 1027 (1990). The plaintiff here alleges that the defendants conspired to retard the development of safer alternative cigarette designs. Because the pleadings of available alternative design fail to pass muster under the forgiving pleading requirements of Rule 8, this claim must fail also.
The plaintiff also says that the aforementioned conspiracy among cigarette *38 manufacturers was a violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations ("RICO") Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1961 et seq., and that the plaintiff consequently suffered adverse economic harm.