Morris v. Mingo Logan Coal LLC

1

BILLY M. MORRIS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. MINGO LOGAN COAL LLC, et al, Defendants.

Civil Action No. 2:23-cv-00316

United States District Court, S.D. West Virginia, Charleston Division

November 29, 2023

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Pending before the Court is Defendant Arch Resources Inc.'s^[1](“Arch”) Motion to Dismiss the plaintiffs' Amended Complaint. (ECF No. 8.) For the reasons discussed herein, the motion is GRANTED.

I. BACKGROUND

This action arises out of an alleged work-related injury Plaintiff Billy M. Morris suffered while operating a roof bolting machine at the Mountaineer II Mine (“Mountaineer II Mine”). (ECF No. 1-1 at 2, ¶ 8.) According to the Amended Complaint, Mr. Morris was employed by Defendant Mingo Logan Coal LLC (“Mingo Logan”) at Mountaineer II Mine on January 13, 2021. (Id. at 2, ¶ 7.) Mingo Logan is a subsidiary of Arch, the alleged controller of Mountaineer II Mine. (Id. at 5, ¶ 21.) Plaintiffs allege that on January 13, 2021, Mr. Morris was directed to operate a roof bolting machine at Mountaineer II Mine. (Id. at 2, ¶ 7.) The Amended Complaint asserts that while Mr. Morris was operating a roof bolting machine, a rib roll occurred, striking Mr. Morris, and causing him to be pinned against the roof bolting machine until other miners freed him. (Id. at 2, ¶ 8.)

On January 6, 2023, Mr. Morris and his wife, Wanda Morris (collectively “Plaintiffs”), filed this suit in the Circuit Court of Logan County, West Virginia. Plaintiffs thereafter filed an Amended Complaint on March 14, 2023. (ECF No. 1 at 1, ¶ 1.) Then, on April 7, 2023, the defendants removed this matter to this Court, invoking diversity jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332. (ECF No. 1.)

The Amended Complaint asserts three causes of action. Count One is a claim for deliberate intent, asserted against Mingo Logan. (ECF No. 1-1 at 3-5.) Count Two is a claim for common law negligence asserted against Arch. (Id. at 5-7.) Then, Count Three is a claim for loss of consortium for Mrs. Morris and is asserted against Mingo Logan and Arch (collectively “Defendants”). (Id. at 7.)

Arch filed the pending motion to dismiss on April 14, 2023. (ECF No. 8.) Plaintiffs filed their response on April 28, 2023, (ECF No. 11), and Arch filed their reply on May 5, 2023. (ECF No. 12.) As such, this motion is fully briefed and ripe for adjudication.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted tests the legal sufficiency of a civil complaint. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). A plaintiff must allege sufficient facts, which, if proven, would entitle him to relief under a cognizable legal claim. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 554-55 (2007). A case should be dismissed if, viewing the well-2 pleaded factual allegations in the complaint as true and in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the complaint does not contain “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Id. at 570. In applying this standard, a court must utilize a two-pronged approach. First, it must separate the legal conclusions in the complaint from the factual allegations. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Second, assuming the truth of only the factual allegations, the court must determine whether the plaintiff's complaint permits a reasonable inference that “the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. Well-pleaded factual allegations are required; labels, conclusions, and a “formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555; see also King v. Rubenstein, 825 F.3d 206, 214 (4th Cir. 2016) (“Bare legal conclusions ‘are not entitled to the assumption of truth' and are insufficient to state a claim.” (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679)). A plaintiff's “[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level,” thereby “nudg[ing] [the] claims across the line from conceivable to plausible.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 570.

III. DISCUSSION

As stated above, the only causes of action Plaintiffs assert against Arch are for negligence and loss of consortium. (ECF No. 1-1 at 5-7.) Each Count is addressed in turn.

A. Count II - Negligence

To succeed on a negligence claim in West Virginia, a plaintiff must establish, by a preponderance of the evidence, that first, the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty; second, the defendant negligently breached that duty; and third, the defendant's breach proximately caused the plaintiff's injuries. Wheeling Park Comm'n v. Dattoli, 787 S.E.2d 546, 551 (W.Va. 2016) (quoting Webb v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co., 2 S.E.2d 898, 899 (W.Va. 1939)). The issue here is clear: whether Plaintiffs' Amended Complaint alleges sufficient facts to establish that 3 “Arch breached a duty to Mr. Morris to provide him with a reasonably safe work environment.” (ECF No. 8, at 1, ¶ 1.) As the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia has made clear, duty “‘is not absolute; but is always relative to some circumstances of time, place, manner, or person.'” Wheeling Park Comm'n, 787 S.E.2d at 551 (quoting Syl. pt. 1, Dicken v. Liverpool Salt & Coal Co., 23 S.E. 582 (W.Va. 1895)).

“The law presumes that two separately incorporated businesses are separate entities and that corporations are separate from their shareholders.” S. Elec. Supply Co. v. Raleigh Cty. Nat'l Bank, 320 S.E.2d 515, 516 (W.Va. 1984). This principle has been extended to limited liability companies. See Kubican v. The Tavern, LLC, 752 S.E.2d 299 (W.Va. 2013). The mere existence of a parent-subsidiary relationship does not establish the parent company has a responsibility “for the working conditions of its subsidiary's employees.” Muniz v. Nat'l Can Corp., 737 F.2d 145, 148 (1st Cir. 1984) (citing Love v. Flour Mills of America, 647 F.2d 1058, 1063 (10th Cir. 1981)). Nevertheless, a parent company may be directly liable to its subsidiary's employees if the parent company “‘be[comes] directly involved' as a participant in particular actions - either alone or in concert with the subsidiary - that raise cognizable tort claims.”^[2]Sommerville v. Union Carbide Corp., No. 2:19-cv-00878, 2021 WL 3384967, at *1 (S.D. W.Va. Aug. 3, 2021) (emphasis added) (quoting United States v. Bestfoods, 524 U.S. 51, 72 (1998)). For instance, activities such as the parent company's “‘monitoring of the subsidiary's performance . . . and articulation of general policies and procedures, should not give rise to direct liability.'” Hooper v. 1543 Country Club Rd. Manor Operations, LLC, No. 16-1226, 2018 WL 472952, at *3 (W.Va. Jan. 19, 2018) (quoting Bestfoods, 524 U.S., at 72). Rather, the inquiry, “as it applies to direct liability of a parent corporation, ‘is whether, in degree and detail, actions directed to the facility by an agent of the parent alone are eccentric under accepted norms of parental oversight of a subsidiary's facility.'” Id.

As indicated above, when evaluating a complaint in the motion to dismiss stage, the first step is to separate the legal conclusions in the complaint from factual allegations. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. In this case, Plaintiffs' mention of Arch in the Amended Complaint is both intermittent and superficial. Plaintiffs conclude Arch had a “duty to provide [Mr. Morris] with a reasonably safe working environment.” (ECF No. 1-1 at 5, ¶ 22.) Yet, Plaintiffs cannot articulate where that duty stems from, nor do they provide any factual allegations that would be enough to “draw the reasonable inference that [Arch] is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.

First, Plaintiffs claim Arch is the “controller of the Mountaineer II Mine”; however, Plaintiffs fail to provide any facts as to how Arch controls Mountaineer II Mine or what aspects of the mine Arch controls. (ECF No. 1-1 at 5, ¶ 21.) See Hooper, 2018 WL 472952, at * 4 (holding that for the parent company to be found negligent, the plaintiff had to show the parent exercised “actual control over the operations of the [subsidiary],” including evidence that the parent was “directly involved in the day-to-day operations of the facility.”); Johnson v. Pinnacle Mining Co., LLC, 5:17-cv-03536, 2018 WL 2207128, at *5 (S.D. W.Va. May 14, 2018) (holding a complaint that alleged the defendant “controlled, operated and managed the activities at [the Pinnacle plant] including the . . . design, construction, maintenance, and care of the plant, the premises and the machinery therein . . . and the safety and training for the personnel” sufficed to state a claim).

Unlike in Johnson, Plaintiffs here do not assert Arch had control over the safety of Mountaineer II Mine. In fact Plaintiffs do not assert that Arch had control over anything in particular at Mountaineer II Mine, but rather, just the mine, generally. (ECF No. 1-1 at 5, ¶ 21.) All Plaintiffs provide is their basis of knowledge for Arch being the controller. (ECF No. 1-1 at 5, ¶ 21) (stating the information is “reported to the U.S. Department of Labor, Mine Safety and Health Administration.) Although “a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss does not need detailed factual allegations, . . . a plaintiff's obligation to provide the ‘grounds' of his ‘entitle[ment] to relief' requires more than labels and conclusions.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (citing Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986)). Since Arch being the “controller of the Mountaineer II Mine” is a legal conclusion not supported by any factual allegations, the conclusion is not entitled to the assumption of truth. (ECF No. 1-1 at 5, ¶ 21.); Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678-79 (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). Without anything more, that conclusion alone is insufficient to state a claim. King v. Rubenstein, 825 F.3d 206, 214 (4th Cir. 2016) (quoting ...