Ball v. SoulCycle Greenwich, LLC

Melinda BALL v. SOULCYCLE GREENWICH, LLC

No. FSTCV166030231S

Superior Court of Connecticut, Judicial District of Stamford-Norwalk, Stamford

March 13, 2019

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

POVODATOR, JTR

Nature of the Proceeding

This is a lawsuit arising from injuries plaintiff claims to have sustained while at the named defendant’s fitness facility. Under the guidance of an instructor, she engaged in various maneuvers using the defendants’ equipment, and was injured while engaging in an exercise program, allegedly attributable to the equipment and level of supervision. The claims directed to the SoulCycle defendants include negligence premises liability, and product liability. The SoulCycle defendants, in turn, impleaded the third-party defendant, 430 West Broadway, LLC, claiming that if the initial defendants were liable to the plaintiff, then the third-party defendant was liable to them, under multiple theories. In particular the third-party complaint asserts common-law indemnity contribution, indemnity based on contract, and a breach of contract premised on a failure to obtain required insurance.

The third-party defendant has moved to strike the second and fourth counts of the third-party complaint, asserting contribution and breach of contract premised on the failure to obtain insurance. Unsurprisingly, the third-party plaintiffs have filed an objection, claiming that the two challenged counts are legally sufficient.

Legal Standards

The standards for a motion to strike, as well as interpretation of pleadings in general, are well established:

We take the facts to be those alleged in the complaint and we construe the complaint in the manner most favorable to sustaining its legal sufficiency ... Thus, [i]f facts provable in the complaint would support a cause of action the motion to strike must be denied ... Moreover, we note that [w]hat is necessarily implied [in an allegation] need not be expressly alleged ... It is fundamental that in determining the sufficiency of a complaint challenged by a defendant’s motion to strike, all well-pleaded facts and those facts necessarily implied from the allegations are taken as admitted ... Indeed, pleadings must be construed broadly and realistically, rather than narrowly and technically." (Internal quotation marks and citation, omitted.) Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell, 295 Conn. 240, 252-53, 990 A.2d 206, 216-17 (2010).

Practice Book § 10-11 authorizes a defendant to seek to add as a third-party defendant a person or entity that "is or may be liable to such defendant for all or part of the plaintiff’s claim against him or her." General Statutes § 52-102a contains a similar authorization for adding a party who is or may be liable to the moving party for some or all of the plaintiff’s claim against him.

Second Count

The second count is characterized by the third-party plaintiffs as sounding in contribution. The third-party defendant, however, correctly notes that although paragraph 21— the final paragraph of the second count— asserts a claim of contribution, the preceding paragraphs, and especially those specific to the second count, focus on contractual obligations and performance. Thus, paragraphs 10-16 of the first count, incorporated into the second count, relate to the existence, terms and performance of an agreement between the third-party plaintiffs and the third-party defendant.

With respect to paragraphs specific to the second count, ¶ 18 asserts that the third-party plaintiffs fulfilled their obligations under the agreement. Paragraph 19 asserts that the third-party defendant breached the agreement, by failing to defend and indemnify the third-party plaintiffs with respect to the underlying lawsuit. Paragraph 20 asserts that the third-party plaintiffs have been harmed by the breach, at least with respect to attorneys fees relating to this litigation. Only in ¶ 21 is there any reference to contribution, and that is conclusory in nature: "If the Defendant/Third-Party Plaintiff is found liable to the Plaintiff, which liability is specifically denied, then SoulCycle will be entitled to contribution from Third-Party Defendant, Villency^[1] pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-572o."

Given the pervasive nature of the allegations relating to contractual matters, both incorporated paragraphs and explicitly-recited paragraphs, it is not terribly surprising that the third-party defendant perceives the second count to sound primarily in some variation of breach of contract. Conversely and more to the point, however, the court questions whether the second count asserts a proper claim of contribution, even if all of the allegations relating to contractual obligations and performance were to be disregarded. What would be left is a claim that the third-party defendant manufactured, designed, etc., the product and was a seller of the product within the meaning of the product liability act (¶ 17), coupled with a potential determination that the third-party plaintiff was responsible for the plaintiff’s injuries, claimed to lead to contribution liability. Thus, the second count does not contain an explicit allegation of negligence or direct culpability (for example, ¶ 18, alleging active negligence on the part of the third-party defendant, is not incorporated into the second count), or otherwise explain how there is some basis for liability.

The parties seem to be in agreement that the issue of contribution in a product-liability context is governed by Barry v. Quality Steel Products, Inc., 280 Conn. 1 (2006). Neither the text of the statute nor the extensive discussion in Barry supports such an approach. An appropriate starting point is the opening sentence of a paragraph at page 13 of the Barry decision: "the first sentence of subsection (e) of § 52-572o ... addresses the question of contribution among the defendants following a judgment rendered by the court pursuant to subsection (d)" (emphasis added). The remainder of that paragraph identifies contribution as a right of reimbursement in the event that a defendant pays more than its "proportionate share of the common obligation" (emphasis in original). Thus, preconditions to any contribution liability would appear to include a finding that the third-party defendant is liable to the plaintiff (in order for there to be a "common obligation"), coupled with a disproportionate payment by the third-party plaintiffs.

Notwithstanding the statutory language and the foregoing practical considerations, in Malerba v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 210 Conn. 189, 554 A.2d 287 (1989), the Supreme Court held that it was proper to assert a claim for contribution in a third-party complaint in connection with a product liability claim. The court did not address the required allegations for a legally-sufficient contribution claim, no small issue given the multiple levels of conditions required to establish a contribution obligation— the plaintiff must prevail against the third-party plaintiff and the third-party defendant (again, so that there is a common liability) and the third-party plaintiff must pay more than its proportionate share of the judgment. Does a legally sufficient claim require such predictions, including an assertion that the moving party is likely to pay more than its proportionate share of liability requires, or is there no need to include such a speculative allegation? See, e.g., Mikucka v. St. Lucian’s Residence, Inc., 183 Conn.App. 147, 166 (2018) (court generally lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate a hypothetical claim). Does Malerba create an exception, excusing the need for factual assertions in this regard?

The court is limited to considering only the issues raised in the motion to strike; Meredith v. Police Commission, 182 Conn. 138, 140, 438 A.2d 27 (1980); and while the third-party defendant properly has noted that surplus/unnecessary allegations predominate in the second count, it has not identified the allegations that would be necessary to assert a proper (legally-sufficient) contribution claim. Thus, while the third-party defendant has focused (somewhat understandably) on the allegations irrelevant to a claim of contribution, it has not identified (and relied upon) the absence of essential allegations, and how/why those missing allegations are consistent with Malerba and its authorization of what otherwise might appear to be premature claims of contribution. (Again, does Malerba implicitly require an explicit prediction that the moving party will pay more than its share of damages, or does it contemplate that given the timing of such a motion and procedure, it is sufficient to assert some form of potential liability to the plaintiff, allowing future events to run their course?)

Notwithstanding the justifiable confusion as to the intent of most of the allegations of the second count, the third-party defendant has not established the legal insufficiency of the relevant allegations in the second count, particularly in the context of the holding in Malerba . Accordingly, the motion to strike must be denied with respect to the second count.

Fourth Count

The fourth count asserts that the third-party defendant is liable to the third-party plaintiffs because it did not obtain contractually-required insurance to protect the third-party plaintiffs from claims such as asserted by the plaintiff. The motion to strike challenges the propriety of having such a claim asserted in connection with an impleaded party. The premise for impleading a party, of course, is that the third-party defendant might be liable to the third-party plaintiff for the damages that might be awarded against the third-party plaintiff in favor of the plaintiff, and the argument is that the availability of required insurance...