Summary
In Ramirez v. Dietrich, 2017 WL 1194288 *3 (Conn.Super. 2017) (Roraback, J.), Judge Roraback held the supervisors’ knowledge of extreme weather conditions and hazardous road conditions were sufficient facts relating to foreseeability of injury to state a claim for negligent supervision of a tractor trailer operator whose truck jack-knifed causing plaintiff’s injury.
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CV-14-6024621-S
03-03-2017
JUAN RAMIREZ v. GEORGE DIETRICH, ET. AL
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION RE: MOTIONS TO STRIKE #133, #135
RORABACK, J.
I
BACKGROUND
The plaintiff, Juan Ramirez, brings this personal injury action seeking damages for injuries he allegedly suffered as a result of a motor vehicle collision that occurred during a snow storm on Interstate 84 (I-84) in Danbury at approximately 1:42 am on March 8, 2013. The complaint alleges the following facts. A tractor trailer truck operated by the defendant George Dietrich and owned by the defendant Bolus Freight Systems Incorporated (Bolus) collided with a jersey barrier, jack-knifed and blocked all three lanes of westbound travel on I-84 near Exit 2 in Danbury. The plaintiff, who was operating his small SUV at the same time and place, came upon the jack-knifed truck and was able to avoid a collision with that truck by moving to the right shoulder of the highway and coming to a stop. Moments later, another westbound tractor trailer truck, operated by the defendant Kenneth Shaw and owned by the defendant Cressler Trucking Incorporated (Cressler), came upon the scene and was unable to stop before it collided with the plaintiff's vehicle.
On August 26, 2016, the plaintiff filed a seventy page, seventeen count amended complaint against the four defendants: Dietrich, Bolus, Shaw and Cressler. The seventeen counts allege: negligence (count one), common law recklessness (count two) and statutory recklessness (count three) as to Dietrich; General Statutes § 52-183 (count four), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (count five), negligent hire (count six), negligent supervision (count seven) and reckless supervision of an employee (count eight) as to Bolus; negligence (count nine), common law recklessness (count ten) and statutory recklessness (count eleven) as to Shaw; General Statutes § 52-183 (count twelve), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (count thirteen), negligent hire (count fourteen), negligent supervision (count fifteen), negligent retention of an employee (count sixteen), and reckless supervision of an employee (count seventeen) as to Cressler. Specifically, in count six of the amended complaint, the plaintiff alleges that Bolus knew or should have known that Dietrich's former employer terminated him due to a history of motor vehicle accidents, damage and/or crashes. In counts seven and fifteen of the amended complaint, the plaintiff alleges that Bolus and Cressler, respectively, knew or should have known that Dietrich and Shaw were operating their tractor trailers in extreme hazardous and/or dangerous weather conditions but chose not to instruct Dietrich and Shaw to cease operation of the tractor trailers. Finally, in counts eight and seventeen of the amended complaint, the plaintiff alleges that the collision was caused by the reckless, willful and/or wanton indifference to the rights of others by the defendants Bolus and Cressler respectively. Specifically, the plaintiff alleges in count seventeen that Cressler knew that Shaw regularly used alcohol, drugs and/or controlled substances when operating tractor trailers and that he failed alcohol, drugs and/or controlled substance testing but that Cressler nevertheless permitted him to operate its tractor trailer on March 8, 2013.
On October 5, 2016, Cressler filed a motion to strike counts twelve, thirteen, fifteen and seventeen of the amended complaint. On October 21, 2016, Bolus and Dietrich filed a motion to strike counts five, six, seven and eight of the amended complaint. On November 2, 2016, the plaintiff filed an objection to both motions. Both matters were heard at the short calendar on November 7, 2016.
During oral argument, the plaintiff consented to the court granting the motion to strike as to counts five, twelve and thirteen.
II
DISCUSSION
" The purpose of a motion to strike is to contest . . . the legal sufficiency of the allegations of any complaint . . . to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Fort Trumbull Conservancy, LLC v. Alves, 262 Conn. 480, 498, 815 A.2d 1188 (2003). " A motion to strike admits all facts well pleaded; it does not admit legal conclusions or the truth or accuracy of opinions stated in the pleadings." (Emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted.) Faulkner v. United Technologies Corp., 240 Conn. 576, 588, 693 A.2d 293 (1997). " A motion to strike is properly granted if the complaint alleges mere conclusions of law that are unsupported by the facts alleged." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Santorso v. Bristol Hospital, 308 Conn. 338, 349, 63 A.3d 940 (2013). " [The court] construe[s] the complaint in the manner most favorable to sustaining its legal sufficiency." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Coppola Construction Co. v. Hoffman Enterprises Ltd. Partnership, 309 Conn. 342, 350, 71 A.3d 480 (2013).
Cressler and Bolus have moved to strike the counts which allege that they negligently and recklessly supervised the drivers of their respective trucks. The gravamen of these allegations are that both trucking companies failed to adequately train their drivers in how to respond to snowstorm conditions and failed to direct their drivers on the night of the collision to pull over and stop driving until conditions improved. Bolus has also moved to strike count six which alleges that it was negligent in its hiring of Dietrich.
Counts seven and eight are against Bolus for negligent supervision and reckless supervision respectively. Counts fifteen and sixteen are against Cressler for negligent supervision and reckless supervision respectively.
In its memorandum of law in support of the motion to strike, Cressler argues that because Connecticut law does not recognize a cause of action for either negligent supervision or reckless supervision of a truck driver, counts fifteen and seventeen are improper and should be stricken. Bolus and Dietrich argue that counts six, seven and eight fail to allege sufficient facts to support causes of action for negligent hire, negligent supervision and reckless supervision and, therefore, those claims are insufficient as a matter of law.
A common-law claim in negligent hiring exists in " any situation where a third party is injured by an employer's own negligence in failing to select an employee fit or competent to perform the services of employment." Shore v. Stonington, 187 Conn. 147, 155, 444 A.2d 1379 (1982). " [I]n the context of negligent hiring, courts generally rule that an employer cannot be held liable for the conduct of its employees that injure a third party if the employer could not have foreseen that the employee would engage in such conduct." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Hearn v. Yale-New Haven Hospital, Superior Court, judicial district of New Haven, Docket No. CV-02-0466339-S, (April 2, 2007, Licari, J. ). Our Superior Court has interpreted this foreseeability requirement as one in which the employer knew or should have known of the employee's propensity to engage in the alleged harmful conduct. See Beach v. Jean, 46 Conn.Supp. 252, 746 A.2d 228 (1999).
In the present case, in count six of the amended complaint, the plaintiff alleges that Bolus was negligent in its hiring of Dietrich because it " knew or should have known that Dietrich's former employer terminated him due to a history of motor vehicle accidents, damage and/or crashes." This allegation provides a factual basis for the claim that Dietrich's potential for tortious conduct was foreseeable by Bolus before it hired Dietrich and that Bolus should have anticipated the harm suffered by the plaintiff, based on what it knew or should have known. Read in a light most favorable to the plaintiff, the plaintiff sufficiently pleads facts for the negligent hiring claim. Therefore, the motion to strike count six is denied.
" Under Connecticut law, an employer may [also] be held liable for the negligent supervision of employees. . . . [I]n [a] negligent supervision action, [the] plaintiff must plead and prove that she suffered an injury due to the defendant's failure to supervise an employee whom the defendant had [a] duty to supervise." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Brooks v. Sweeney, 299 Conn. 196, 207 n.12, 9 A.3d 347 (2010). Within the context of a negligent supervision cause of action, a plaintiff must allege facts that support the element of foreseeability. " Would the ordinarily prudent man in the position of the defendant, knowing what he knew or should have known, anticipate that harm of the general nature of that suffered was likely to result? This does not mean foreseeability of any harm whatsoever or foreseeability that the particular injury which resulted would occur. It is, in short, the foreseeability or anticipation that harm of the general nature of that suffered would be likely to result, which gives rise to a duty to use due care, breach of which might constitute negligence." Gutierrez v. Thorne, 13 Conn.App. 493, 500, 537 A.2d 527 (1988). Accord Di Teresi v. Stamford Health System, Inc., Superior Court, judicial district of Stamford, Docket No. CV-06-5001340-S (November 21, 2012, Jennings, J.T.R. ). In Gutierrez, our Appellate Court noted that given the particular vulnerability of the plaintiff, a mentally impaired woman, and the complete and unsupervised access to her apartment, which the defendant, Department of Mental Retardation, afforded its male employee by providing him with a key to that apartment, " the foreseeability of whether the defendant's conduct in permitting [the male employee] to have a key to the plaintiff's apartment would result in a sexual assault upon the plaintiff is a question to be resolved by the trier of fact." Gutierrez v. Thorne, supra, 501.
In the present case, in counts seven and fifteen, the plaintiff alleges that Bolus and Cressler failed to advise, instruct and/or supervise Dietrich and Shaw in connection with their respective decisions to operate their tractor-trailers during the snow storm on March 8, 2013, and that one or more of these failures resulted in plaintiffs injuries. The plaintiff alleges that the weather conditions " were extreme, hazardous and/or dangerous for tractor trailer operation, but [Bolus and Cressler] chose not to instruct George Dietrich [and Kenneth Shaw] to cease operation of [the] tractor trailer." This court concludes that the plaintiff alleges sufficient facts to show that harm of the general nature that the plaintiff suffered was foreseeable to both Bolus and Cressler. Accordingly, the negligent supervision claims against both Bolus and Cressler are legally sufficient, and the motion to strike counts seven and fifteen is denied.
A common law action for reckless supervision of an employee has been recognized in Connecticut in the case of Dewey v. Gosselin , Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Docket No. CV-97-0571659-S (September 9, 1997, Rittenband, J. ) (20 Conn.L.Rptr. 217, ). In that case, the plaintiff alleged that a hotel employee, while trying to assist the plaintiff, drove a utility cart backwards causing the plaintiff to sustain severe injuries. Id., 217, . The plaintiff further alleged that the employee was intoxicated at the time he was operating the utility cart, that the employer knew the employee was intoxicated and that the employer nevertheless permitted the intoxicated employee to continue to perform his duties in reckless indifference to the rights of the plaintiff. Id., 217-18, . The court ruled that those allegations were sufficient to support a cause of action for reckless supervision against the employer. Id., 218, .
In the present case, in count seventeen of the amended complaint, the plaintiff alleges that Cressler knew that Shaw " failed alcohol, drugs and/or controlled substance testing" and " regularly used alcohol, drugs and/or controlled substances when operating tractor-trailer but permitted him to operate its tractor trailer on" the day of the accident. It also alleges that with actual knowledge of the hazardous road conditions on the night in question, Cressler chose to allow Shaw to continue driving despite the fact that doing so constituted a danger to others. Consistent with the reasoning set forth in Dewey, this court concludes that the facts alleged in count seventeen of the amended complaint are sufficient to set forth a cognizable cause of action for reckless supervision. The motion to strike count seventeen is therefore denied.
As to the reckless supervision claim alleged against Bolus in count eight of the amended complaint, the plaintiff's allegations in that count largely restate the negligence allegations in count seven, replacing the word " negligence" with the words " reckless, willful and/or wanton indifference to the rights of others." The principal difference between the two counts is that in count eight it is alleged that Bolus had actual knowledge on March 8, 2013 that Dietrich was operating his truck in extremely hazardous weather which constituted danger to others and that Bolus still chose not to instruct Dietrich to cease operation of the truck. Thus, the plaintiff does allege circumstances which would allow a trier of fact to find that Bolus was reckless in its disregard of foreseeable dangers arising from its decision to allow Dietrich to continue to drive in a snowstorm. The motion to strike count eight is therefore denied.
III
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the motion to strike counts six, seven, eight, fifteen and seventeen is denied. The motion to strike counts five, twelve and thirteen is granted by agreement.