Court Opinion

ID: 9964765
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-30 19:01:26.529463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:25:41.476801
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13806    Document: 25-1      Date Filed: 04/30/2024   Page: 1 of 9

                                                   [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                  In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-13806
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       MARILYN PATTON,
       a Citizen and Resident of Oklahoma,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       CARNIVAL CORPORATION,
       a Panamanian Corporation
       d.b.a. Carnival Cruise Lines,

                                                    Defendant-Appellee.

                          ____________________
USCA11 Case: 22-13806         Document: 25-1          Date Filed: 04/30/2024       Page: 2 of 9

       2                          Opinion of the Court                      22-13806

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Southern District of Florida
                      D.C. Docket No. 1:22-cv-21158-RNS
                            ____________________

       Before GRANT, LUCK, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Marilyn Patton appeals the district court’s dismissal of her
       complaint against Carnival Corporation for injuries sustained after
       she tripped and fell on one of Carnival’s cruise ships. We affirm.
                                                  1
                                             I.

              Ms. Patton went on a vacation on a Carnival cruise ship.
       The ship docked in Key West. At around 9:00 a.m., Ms. Patton was
       wearing sandals and walking in a highly trafficked hallway towards
       the ship’s elevators on her way to an offshore excursion. She
       tripped and fell, tearing her rotator cuff.

              Ms. Patton tripped on a “metal threshold” that extended
       across the hallway. The threshold had been “improperly affixed
       and not adequately secured to the floor,” causing it to protrude
       about a half inch too high and “leaving a gap that posed a tripping

       1
        Because this case comes to us on a motion to dismiss, we accept the com-
       plaint’s factual allegations as true and construe them in the light most favora-
       ble to Ms. Patton. See Holland v. Carnival Corp., 50 F.4th 1088, 1091 n.1 (11th
       Cir. 2022).
USCA11 Case: 22-13806        Document: 25-1       Date Filed: 04/30/2024        Page: 3 of 9

       22-13806                  Opinion of the Court                              3

       hazard.” Ms. Patton attached two photographs to her complaint
                                                                               2
       showing “the threshold as it existed at or shortly after” she fell:

             Ms. Patton sued Carnival for negligent failure to correct a
       known dangerous condition, negligent failure to warn, and negli-
       gent maintenance. The complaint alleged that Carnival “knew or
       should have known that the metal threshold on which [Ms. Patton]

       2
         “[D]ocuments attached to a complaint . . . can generally be considered by a
       federal court in ruling on a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).” Saunders
       v. Duke, 766 F.3d 1262, 1270 (11th Cir. 2014).
USCA11 Case: 22-13806       Document: 25-1      Date Filed: 04/30/2024      Page: 4 of 9

       4                       Opinion of the Court                   22-13806

       tripped posed a tripping hazard for passengers walking over it due
       to its condition and the length of time the protruding metal condi-
       tion had existed.” The attached photographs, the complaint con-
       tinued, “constitute[d] circumstantial evidence that the condition of
       the threshold had developed due to wear over a period of time”
       and should’ve been flagged by Carnival’s housekeeping crew, who
       cleaned the floors in that area every day. Ms. Patton also attached
       Carnival safety documents to her complaint, which showed that
       the company was aware thresholds posed trip and fall risks.
              Carnival moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state
       a claim, arguing that Ms. Patton had failed to allege it was on notice
       that the threshold posed any danger. The district court granted the
       motion for three reasons. First, because the photos showed the
       condition of the threshold “at or shortly after” the moment when
       she tripped, they did not plausibly show that Carnival had prior no-
       tice that the threshold was dangerous. Second, the complaint did
       not allege “how or why” the ship’s cleaning staff would’ve recog-
       nized the danger of a “metal threshold that was uneven with the
       floor by inches, if not less.” And third, the Carnival safety docu-
       ments didn’t put the company on notice because, although they
       “vaguely reference[d] potential dangers related to ‘thresholds,’”
       they didn’t specifically “reference any danger related to metal
       thresholds that were not flush to the ground.” Ms. Patton timely
       appealed.
                                        II.
              “We review de novo the district court’s grant of a Rule
       12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim . . . .” Holland,
USCA11 Case: 22-13806         Document: 25-1         Date Filed: 04/30/2024         Page: 5 of 9

       22-13806                   Opinion of the Court                                5

       50 F.4th at 1093 (quotation omitted). To survive a motion to dis-
       miss, a complaint must allege “enough facts to state a claim to re-
       lief that is plausible,” not speculative. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550
       U.S. 544, 555, 570 (2007). “Factual allegations that are ‘merely con-
       sistent with a defendant’s liability’ fall short of being facially plau-
       sible.” Chaparro v. Carnival Corp., 693 F.3d 1333, 1337 (11th Cir.
       2012) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). And we
       “may infer from the factual allegations in the complaint obvious
       alternative explanations, which suggest lawful conduct rather than
       the unlawful conduct the plaintiﬀ would ask the court to infer.”
       Doe v. Samford Univ., 29 F.4th 675, 686 (11th Cir. 2022) (quotation
       omitted). While we accept the complaint’s factual allegations as
       true, we’re “not required to credit conclusory allegations, unwar-
       ranted deductions of facts or legal conclusions masquerading as
       facts.” Warren Tech., Inc. v. UL LLC, 962 F.3d 1324, 1328 (11th Cir.
       2020) (quotation omitted).
                                                 III.
                                                             3
              To state a maritime negligence claim, a plaintiff must first
       allege that “the defendant had a duty to protect the plaintiff from a
       particular injury.” Holland, 50 F.4th at 1094 (quotation omitted).

       3
         Maritime law governs this case, even though the Carnival ship was docked
       in Key West when Ms. Patton was injured. See Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale
       Transatlantique, 358 U.S. 625, 626–28 (1959) (holding that maritime law applied
       to a trip and fall that occurred on a boat “berthed at a pier”); Doe v. Celebrity
       Cruises, Inc., 394 F.3d 891, 901–02 (11th Cir. 2004) (holding that maritime law
       governed a sexual assault claim, even though the assault occurred while the
       ship was docked).
USCA11 Case: 22-13806         Document: 25-1         Date Filed: 04/30/2024          Page: 6 of 9

       6                           Opinion of the Court                       22-13806

       For that duty to attach, the shipowner must “have had actual or
       constructive notice of a risk-creating condition.” Id. (cleaned up).
       A shipowner has constructive notice when it “ought to have
       known” of the dangerous condition. Id. at 1095. Generally, the
       plaintiff can allege constructive notice in one of two ways: (1) that
       the “defective condition existed for a sufficient period of time to
       invite corrective measures”; or (2) that “substantially similar inci-
       dents” had been caused by substantially similar conditions. Id.
       (cleaned up).
               Ms. Patton focuses her appeal on the first way of alleging
                               4
       constructive notice, arguing that the metal threshold was raised
       from the floor for a “sufficient period of time to invite corrective
       measures.” Holland, 50 F.4th at 1094 (quotation omitted). Her ar-
       gument falls short for the same reason it did in Holland.
               There, the plaintiff was walking down a glass staircase on a
       Carnival cruise ship “when he slipped on a wet or slippery transient
       foreign substance.” Id. at 1091 (quotation omitted). We affirmed
       the district court’s dismissal because the plaintiff hadn’t plausibly
       alleged that Carnival should’ve known that the substance had been
       on the stairs. Id. at 1095–97. We explained that the plaintiff’s com-
       plaint lacked “any allegation as to how long the [substance] existed
       on the glass staircase” and didn’t otherwise “describe th[e]

       4
         Ms. Patton raises the second way to allege constructive notice for the first
       time in her reply brief, but “arguments raised for the first time in a reply brief
       are not properly before a reviewing court.” Raheem v. GDCP Warden, 995 F.3d
       895, 919 n.6 (11th Cir. 2021) (quotation omitted).
USCA11 Case: 22-13806       Document: 25-1       Date Filed: 04/30/2024      Page: 7 of 9

       22-13806                 Opinion of the Court                           7

       substance in a way that would suggest it existed on the staircase for
       a sufficient period of time such that Carnival should have been
       aware of it.” Id. at 1096 (quotation omitted); see also Newbauer v.
       Carnival Corp., 26 F.4th 931, 935 (11th Cir. 2022) (“[W]hile [the
       plaintiff] alleged in her complaint that the substance ‘had existed
       for a sufficient period of time before [her] fall’ . . . she failed to al-
       lege any facts in support of th[at] conclusory allegation.”).
              Here, too, Ms. Patton hasn’t plausibly alleged that the dan-
       gerous condition existed for a “sufficient length of time” to impute
       notice to Carnival because the complaint lacks any plausible “alle-
       gation as to how long” the dangerous condition existed. See Hol-
       land, 50 F.4th at 1096. Likewise, she hasn’t plausibly described the
       dangerous condition “in a way that would suggest” it had been
       there “for a sufficient period of time.” See id. The photographs
       don’t help her because, as the district court explained, Ms. Patton
       “does not even attempt to plead that the photographs . . . represent
       the state of the metal threshold before the time of the incident.”
              Ms. Patton raises two counterarguments. First, she con-
       tends that, although the photos attached to the complaint were
       taken “at or shortly after” she fell, the “reasonable inference[]” to
       draw is that “the dangerous condition of the threshold was due to
       wear and developed over a considerable time, much more than just
       a few minutes, hours or even days.” But there’s not enough in the
       complaint or the attachments for us to conclude that this inference
       is reasonable and not an unwarranted deduction. See Sinaltrainal v.
       Coca-Cola Co., 578 F.3d 1252, 1260 (11th Cir. 2009) (“In evaluating
USCA11 Case: 22-13806     Document: 25-1      Date Filed: 04/30/2024    Page: 8 of 9

       8                      Opinion of the Court                22-13806

       the sufficiency of a plaintiff’s pleadings, we make reasonable infer-
       ences in [p]laintiff’s favor, but we are not required to draw plain-
       tiff’s inference. Similarly, unwarranted deductions of fact in a com-
       plaint are not admitted as true for the purpose of testing the suffi-
       ciency of plaintiff’s allegations.” (cleaned up)). Ms. Patton never
       explains (and it’s not self-evident) what in the photos or complaint
       shows that it’s a reasonable inference that the gap beneath the
       metal threshold emerged gradually over the course of days due to
       wear and tear.
              Second, Ms. Patton argues that her complaint should sur-
       vive Carnival’s dismissal motion because the relevant evidence is
       “wholly under the control of the cruise line,” and, at the pleading
       stage, all she “can reasonably know about the cause” of her injury
       is whatever observations she could make “at or shortly after” it
       happened. But Ms. Patton misunderstands her pleading burden.
       She is not required, at the pleading stage, to know that Carnival had
       constructive knowledge of the threshold’s dangerous condition.
       She only needed to allege plausible facts that Carnival had construc-
       tive notice of the dangerous condition. So long as she had a good-
       faith basis, she could’ve made these allegations even though she did
       not have access yet to evidence supporting them. See Fed. R. Civ.
       P. 11(b)(3) (allowing pleaders to make factual allegations that they
       believe “will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable op-
       portunity for further investigation or discovery”). But, because the
       complaint doesn’t allege plausible facts that Carnival had construc-
       tive notice of the raised threshold, we must affirm the dismissal of
       her complaint.
USCA11 Case: 22-13806   Document: 25-1   Date Filed: 04/30/2024   Page: 9 of 9

       22-13806            Opinion of the Court                    9

             AFFIRMED.