Branyon v. Carnival Corp.

1

ANGELA BRANYON, Plaintiff, v. CARNIVAL CORPORATION, Defendant.

No. 24-cv-20576

United States District Court, S.D. Florida

June 24, 2024

Sanchez, Judge

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO DISMISS

ROY K ALTMAN UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

The Defendant, Carnival Corporation, has moved to dismiss Counts I, III, and IV of the Plaintiff's Complaint. See Defendant's Motion to Dismiss the Complaint (the “Motion to Dismiss”) [ECF No. 10]. For the reasons we outline below, the Motion to Dismiss is DENIED.^[1]

The Facts^[2]

Our Plaintiff, Angela Branyon, has sued the Defendant, Carnival asserting four negligence claims: “Negligent Maintenance (Direct Liability)” (Count I); “Negligent Failure to Warn (Direct Liability)” (Count II); “Negligent Maintenance (Vicarious Liability)” (Count III); and “Negligent Failure to Warn (Vicarious Liability)” (Count IV). See Complaint [ECF No. 1] at 4-14. Branyon alleges that, on December 16, 2022, while she was a fare-paying passenger aboard the cruise ship Freedom, and as she was “walking through the Habana Bar area” of the ship, “she tripped when her foot became caught by cables underneath an uneven and/or raised cable strip, which was situated in a manner that was not flush with the surrounding floor, causing [her] to fall and sustain significant injuries, including . . . to her right foot.” Id. ¶ 13. According to the Plaintiff, the “exposed gap underneath the raised cord strip was not visible to reasonable passengers walking through the area, . . . and hence was not known or obvious to Plaintiff at the time that she fell.” Ibid. Branyon adds that, “[a]s a direct and proximate result of [this] fall[,] . . . [she] was injured in and about her body and extremities, sustaining injuries including but not limited to an anterior calcaneal process fracture, suffered pain therefrom, and sustained mental anguish, disfigurement, disability and the inability to lead a normal life, and aggravation or activation of preexisting conditions.” Id. ¶ 15. Branyon thus “demands judgment against [the] Defendant, Carnival, for compensatory damages, interest and the costs of this action[.]” Id. ¶ 51.

Carnival now moves to dismiss Counts I, III, and IV of the Complaint under Rules 8(a), 10(b), and 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See Motion to Dismiss at 1. We'll address-and reject-each of the Defendant's arguments in turn.

The Law

To survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). To meet this “plausibility standard,” a plaintiff must “plead[ ] factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). The standard “does not require ‘detailed factual allegations,' but it demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555). “[T]he standard ‘simply calls for enough fact to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence' of the required element.” Rivell v. Private Health Care Sys., Inc., 520 F.3d 1308, 1309-10 (11th Cir. 2008) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 545). “The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,' but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. On a motion to dismiss, “the court must accept all factual allegations in a complaint as true and take them in the light most favorable to plaintiff.” Dusek v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., 832 F.3d 1243, 1246 (11th Cir. 2016). “The motion is granted only when the movant demonstrates that the complaint has failed to include ‘enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.''' Dusek v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., 832 F.3d 1243, 1246 (11th Cir. 2016) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).

“Claims arising from torts committed aboard ships on navigable waters are governed by general maritime law.” Breaux v. NCL (Bahamas) Ltd., 2022 WL 2304254, at *6 (S.D. Fla. June 24, 2022) (Altman, J.); see also Keefe v. Bahama Cruise Line, Inc., 867 F.2d 1318, 1320 (11th Cir. 1989) (“[W]e note that the substantive law applicable to this action, which involves an alleged tort committed aboard a ship sailing in navigable waters, is the general maritime law[.]”).

To plead negligence in a maritime-tort case, “a plaintiff must allege that (1) the defendant had a duty to protect the plaintiff from a particular injury; (2) the defendant breached that duty; (3) the breach actually and proximately caused the plaintiff's injury; and (4) the plaintiff suffered actual harm.” Chaparro v. Carnival Corp., 693 F.3d 1333, 1336 (11th Cir. 2012). “With respect to the duty element in a maritime context, ‘a shipowner owes the duty of exercising reasonable care towards those lawfully aboard the vessel who are not members of the crew.'” Guevara v. NCL (Bahamas) Ltd., 920 F.3d 710, 720 (11th Cir. 2019) (quoting Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 358 U.S. 625, 630 (1959)). This reasonable-care standard “requires, as a prerequisite to imposing liability, that the carrier have had actual or constructive notice of the risk-creating condition, at least where . . . the menace is one commonly encountered on land and not clearly linked to nautical adventure.” Keefe, 867 F.2d at 1322. “Actual notice exists when the defendant knows of the risk-creating condition,” Gorczyca v. MSC Cruises, S.A., 715 Fed.Appx. 919, 921 (11th Cir. 2017), while constructive notice exists when the defendant “should have known of the dangerous condition,” Woodley v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., 472 F.Supp.3d 1194, 1204 (S.D. Fla. 2020) (Moore, C.J.).

Analysis

I. Shotgun Pleading

Carnival first asks us to dismiss Count I of the Complaint as a shotgun pleading “because it incorporates multiple claims for relief.” Motion to Dismiss at 3. Specifically, Carnival avers that Count I “nestles a negligent training claim within a general negligence claim[.]” Id. at 4. “In Count I of the Complaint,” Carnival says, the “Plaintiff alleges various negligent acts or omissions, including among them the allegation that Carnival ‘[f]ail[ed] to adequately train its crewmembers to maintain the floor surface in the area where Plaintiff tripped, and adjacent areas, free of tripping hazards[.]' .... Where [a claim for negligent training] is incorporated within a general negligence count, as it is here, that count is properly dismissed as a shotgun pleading.” Ibid. (quoting Complaint ¶ 23).

To comply with federal pleading standards, a complaint “must contain . . . a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” FED. R. CIV. P. 8(a)(2). The Federal Rules also require plaintiffs to “state [their] claims . . . in numbered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set of circumstances.” FED. R. CIV. P. 10(b). As the Eleventh Circuit has explained, a complaint is an impermissible “shotgun” pleading if it:

(1) contains multiple counts where each count adopts the allegations of all preceding counts; (2) is replete with conclusory, vague, and immaterial facts not obviously connected to any particular cause of action; (3) fails to separate into a different count each cause of action; or (4) asserts multiple claims against multiple defendants without specifying which defendant is responsible for which act.

Embree v. Wyndham Worldwide Corp., 779 Fed.Appx. 658, 662 (11th Cir. 2019). Here, Carnival contends that Count I of the Complaint “falls within the third category [of shotgun pleadings] because it nestles a negligent training claim within a general negligence claim, a practice which has been repeatedly condemned by courts in this district.” Motion to Dismiss at 4.

We're not persuaded. As an initial matter, Count I is not a “general negligence claim,” see ibid., but rather a claim for negligent maintenance,^[3] see Complaint at 4, suggesting (though we can't be sure) that this portion of the Motion to Dismiss may have been copied and pasted from another case.

In any event, we don't think the Plaintiff's single reference in Count I to Carnival's failure to adequately train its employees transforms the count into a shotgun pleading. Count I, recall, alleges that Carnival breached its “duty to maintain its vessel, including the floor surface in the area where Plaintiff tripped and fell, in a reasonably safe condition.” Complaint ¶ 17; see also id. ¶ 22 (“Notwithstanding Defendant's actual and/or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition[,] the Defendant failed before the time of the Plaintiff's fall to take reasonable measures to maintain the area in a reasonably safe manner. Defendant thereby failed to exercise reasonable care for the safety of its passengers, including the Plaintiff, and was thereby negligent.”). The Plaintiff goes on to enumerate the “Defendant's specific negligent acts and/or omissions,” including Carnival's “[f]ail[ure] to adequately train its crewmembers to maintain the floor surface in the area where Plaintiff tripped[.]” Id. ¶ 23 (emphasis added). We interpret this sentence as a description of one of the ways in which (the Plaintiff says) the Defendant failed to maintain its premises-not as an attempt to sneak a failure-to-train claim inside a claim for negligent maintenance. In other words, we agree with the Plaintiff that “the isolated reference to training” in Count I “indicates that [Carnival] did not effectively train its workers [on] how to properly maintain a safe floor surface where Plaintiff...