2021 WL 3211209

United States District Court, M.D. Florida,
Orlando Division.
Cora NESBIT, Plaintiff,
v.
Mecit Ziya DAYI, UZ Auto Trans, LLC, Daimler Trucks North America, LLC, Detroit Diesel Corporation and Continental Motors Corporation, Defendants.
Case No. 6:21-cv-389-JA-LRH
|
Signed 07/29/2021
Attorneys and Law Firms
Lawrence Gonzalez, II, Nicholas P. Panagakis, Morgan & Morgan, P.A., Orlando, FL, for Plaintiff.
Ellis T. Fernandez, III, Miriam L. Sumpter-Richard, John M. Howell, Fernandez Trial Lawyers, PA, Jacksonville, FL, Nicole D. Walsh, Robert M. Fulton, Hill Ward Henderson, PA, Tampa, FL, for Defendants.

ORDER
JOHN ANTOON II, United States District Judge
*1 Plaintiff Cora Nesbit, as personal representative of the estate of decedent Michael Burns, originally filed this action in state court against Defendants Mecit Ziya Dayi and UZ Auto Trans, LLC. (Compl., Doc. 1-1). After Dayi and UZ Auto removed the Case to this Court, (Notice, Doc. 1), Nesbit amended her complaint to add claims against Defendants Daimler Trucks North America, LLC; Detroit Diesel Corporation; and Continental Motors Corporation, (Third Am. Compl., Doc. 32). In identical motions, Daimler and Detroit Diesel now argue that Nesbit’s Third Amended Complaint is an impermissible shotgun pleading. (Docs. 36 & 37). They move to dismiss the claims brought against them or, alternatively, for a more definite statement of those claims. (Id.). Because the Court concludes that the Third Amended Complaint is not a shotgun pleading, the motions will be denied.

I. Background1
Around 1:50 a.m. on June 18, 2020, Nesbit’s son, Michael Burns, was driving on Interstate 95 when his vehicle suffered a flat tire. (Doc. 32 at 7). To alert other traffic to his vehicle’s disablement, Burns turned on his blinking hazard lights. (Id.). Dayi, who was driving a tractor-trailer on Interstate 95 that night, did not see the lights and crashed into the rear of Burns’s vehicle at 70 mph. (Id.). According to Nesbit, Dayi was distracted by a cellular device or tablet at the time of the crash, did not brake before crashing into Burns’s vehicle, was veering and not staying in his traffic lane, and could have seen the blinking hazard lights from approximately one minute prior to impact and over a mile a mile away. (Id.). Burns died as a result of the accident. (Id.).

At the time of the accident, Dayi’s tractor-trailer was equipped with Detroit Assurance 4.0 radar and camera collision mitigation systems. (Id.). As designed, the systems included automatic emergency braking, front collision warning, side collision warning, obstacle aware acceleration, blind spot monitoring, lane departure avoidance, and emergency lane departure avoidance. (Id. at 8). However, the “systems and their components [allegedly] malfunctioned, failed to detect [Burns’s] vehicle, failed to brake or avoid the collision, and failed to issue any warnings to Dayi,” contributing to the crash. and Burns’s death. (Id.).

Nesbit filed suit on behalf of Burns’s estate. In her Third Amended Complaint, she pleads claims for negligence against Dayi and UZ Auto, the lessee of the tractor trailer (Counts I & II); negligent entrustment, strict liability, and vicarious liability against UZ Auto (Counts III, IV, & V); and strict liability and negligence against Daimler (Counts VI & VII), Detroit Diesel (Counts VIII & IX), and Continental (Counts X & XI). (Id. at 9–22). As to Daimler, Detroit Diesel, and Continental, Nesbit pleads identical claims that these defendants “designed, manufactured, produced, distributed [,] and sold the Detroit Assurance 4.0 radar/camera systems that were installed on the tractor driven by Dayi.” (Id. at 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21). In all three strict liability claims, she asserts that the “systems are defective in their design, manufacture[,] and warnings.” (Id. at 15, 18, 20). In all three negligence claims, she alleges that these defendants “owed a duty to properly design, manufacture, produce, and distribute the Detroit Assurance 4.0 radar/camera systems that were used on the tractor driven by Dayi, so that they were not in a defective and unsafe condition.” (Id. at 16–17, 19, 21). She further states that they “owed a duty to assure the quality of the Detroit Assurance 4.0 radar/camera systems that were used on the tractor driven by Dayi before placing these items into the stream of commerce.” (Id. at 17, 19, 21).

II. Legal Standard
*2 “Generally, federal civil complaints need only state ‘a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.’ ” United States ex rel. Clausen v. Lab. Corp. of Am., Inc., 290 F.3d 1301, 1308 (11th Cir. 2002) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2)). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 10(b) further requires:
A party must state its claims or defenses in numbered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set of circumstances. A later pleading may refer by number to a paragraph in an earlier pleading. If doing so would promote clarity, each claim founded on a separate transaction or occurrence … must be stated in a separate count or defense.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b). “Complaints that violate either Rule 8(a)(2) or Rule 10(b), or both, are often disparagingly referred to as ‘shotgun pleadings.’ ” Weiland v. Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, 792 F.3d 1313, 1320 (11th Cir. 2015). “A defendant served with a shotgun complaint should move the district court to dismiss the complaint pursuant to Rule 120b)(6)2 or for a more definite statement pursuant to Rule 12(e)3 on the ground that the complaint provides it with insufficient notice to enable it to file an answer.” Paylor v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 748 F.3d 1117, 1126–27 (11th Cir. 2014).

The Eleventh Circuit in Weiland outlined four rough types of shotgun pleadings: 1) “a complaint containing multiple counts where each count adopts the allegations of all preceding counts, causing each successive count to carry all that came before and the last count to be a combination of the entire complaint”; 2) a complaint “replete with conclusory, vague, and immaterial facts not obviously connected to any particular cause of action”; 3) a complaint that does “not separat[e] into a different count each cause of action or claim for relief”; and 4) a complaint “asserting multiple claims against multiple defendants without specifying which of the defendants are responsible for which acts or omissions, or which of the defendants the claim is brought against.” 792 F.3d at 1321–23. All four types of shotgun complaints “fail … to give the defendants adequate notice of the claims against them and the ground upon which each claim rests.” Id. at 1323.

III. Discussion
The pending motions in this case raise a single, narrow argument. Based on the identical language of the claims brought against these three defendants, Daimler and Detroit Diesel contend that the Third Amended Complaint is an impermissible shotgun pleading. (Doc. 36 at 7–8). They assert that this pleading style essentially lumps the defendants together in a manner that does not allow them to determine for which acts or omissions Nesbit seeks to hold each of them liable. (Id. at 7). Daimler and Detroit Diesel thus argue that Nesbit’s Third Amended Complaint falls within the fourth category of shotgun pleadings. The Court disagrees.

*3 These defendants are being sued for the same alleged wrong—causing defective Detroit Diesel 4.0 radar and camera systems to enter the stream of commerce, resulting in Burns’s death. Nesbit does not go to great lengths to differentiate the conduct of the defendants because she claims they did the same thing. This is not like the typical complaint falling within the fourth category of shotgun pleadings—the counts do not include various defendants engaged in a wide variety of conduct such that liability could be based on a range of legal theories. See Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1323 n.14 (collecting cases).4

And notably, Daimler and Detroit Diesel do not otherwise argue that the Third Amended Complaint fails to state a claim. For example, they do not list the elements of the claims and assert that Nesbit has insufficiently pleaded specific elements such that the claims should be dismissed or more specifically pleaded based on those grounds. They solely contend that the identical language in the claims against them makes it unclear which acts or omissions are being attributed to each of them.

Accordingly, the Court will not dismiss the complaint or require Nesbit to plead a more definite statement of her claims.

IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, it is ORDERED that Defendant Daimler Trucks North America, LLC’s Motion to Dismiss or Alternative Motion for More Definite Statement (Doc. 36) and Defendant Detroit Diesel Corporation’s Motion to Dismiss or Alternative Motion for More Definite Statement (Doc. 37) are DENIED.

DONE and ORDERED in Orlando, Florida, on July 27, 2021.

All Citations
Slip Copy, 2021 WL 3211209

Footnotes

1
At this stage of the case, the facts from Nesbit’s Third Amended Complaint (Doc. 32) are taken as true and construed in the light most favorable to Nesbit. See Hill v. White, 321 F.3d 1334, 1335 (11th Cir. 2003).

2
Rule 12(b)(6) provides that, prior to answering a complaint, a defendant may move the district court to dismiss the complaint for “failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).

3
Rule 12(e) provides: “A party may move for a more definite statement of a pleading to which a responsive pleading is allowed but which is so vague or ambiguous that the party cannot reasonably prepare a response. The motion must be made before filing a responsive pleading and must point out the defects complained of and the details desired. If the court orders a more definite statement and the order is not obeyed within 14 days after notice of the order or within the time the court sets, the court may strike the pleading or issue any other appropriate order.”

4
The Court also concludes that the Complaint does not fall within any of the other categories of shotgun pleadings.

2021 WL 3163152
Unpublished Disposition

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION – SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
WILLIAM DOOLEY Appellant
v.
FLOYD A. TATE JR., BNG LOGISTICS, LLC, AND BNG TRANSPORTATION INCORPORATED
No. 1721 EDA 2020
|
FILED JULY 27, 2021
Appeal from the Judgment Entered September 4, 2020
In the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County Civil Division at No(s): No. CV-2017-008071
BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., DUBOW, J., and STEVENS, P.J.E.*

MEMORANDUM BY BENDER, P.J.E.:

*1 Appellant, William Dooley, appeals from the judgment entered on September 4, 2020, against him and in favor of Appellees, Floyd A. Tate Jr., and BNG Logistics, LLC.1,2 We affirm.

Dooley seeks damages for personal injuries sustained in a September 23, 2015 automobile accident. Dooley filed a complaint sounding in negligence against Tate, the tractor-trailer driver that rear-ended him in that accident, and Tate’s employer, BNG Logistics, LLC. In March of 2020, the case went to a jury trial. The trial court described the relevant facts adduced at trial as follows:
*2 At trial, [Dooley] and [Tate] gave conflicting versions of the accident. Both were traveling southbound on route I-476 towards Media and Swarthmore, Delaware County, Pennsylvania[,] on the evening of September 23, 2015. … Dooley testified that congested traffic caused him to brake and stop before he was rear[-]ended by [Tate’s] tractor-trailer. [Tate] testified that prior to impact, he was traveling southbound in the passing lane when his flow was interrupted by an automobile which had suddenly pulled in front of him and braked. After recovering, Tate added that [Dooley] proceeded to pull in front of his truck and proceed behind the erratic driver. As Tate continued down the highway, Tate testified that [Dooley] appeared to have chased after and then pulled alongside the vehicle which had originally darted in front of his tractor-trailer. As the two … vehicles were side by side, both suddenly braked and stopped. Tate testified that the trafficway in front of both vehicles was clear. After the testimony of both [Dooley] and [Tate], Exhibit D-3[ — a two-minute-and-twenty-one-second dashcam video taken from the front of Tate’s tractor-trailer at the time of accident —] was played in its entirety twice for the jury in the courtroom.
Trial Court Opinion (TCO), 11/4/20, at 3-4.

On March 6, 2020, the jury rendered a verdict, finding that Dooley’s negligence was a factual cause of the harm to him, and attributing negligence at 65% to Dooley and 35% to Tate. On March 16, 2020, Dooley filed a motion for a new trial, which the trial court subsequently denied. On September 4, 2020, judgment was entered on the docket in favor of Tate and BNG Logistics, LLC, and against Dooley. Thereafter, Dooley filed a timely notice of appeal. The trial court then instructed Dooley to file a concise statement of errors complained of on appeal pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b), and he timely did so.

Dooley poses a single question for our review:
Is the jury’s determination that [Dooley], whose vehicle was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer, was 65% negligent so contrary to common sense and logic and inherently improbable and at variance with admitted or proven facts and with ordinary experience as to render it shocking to one’s sense of justice?
Dooley’s Brief at 4.

Dooley argues that the trial court “erroneously failed to grant a new trial because the jury’s determination that [he] was 65% negligent defies common sense and logic and is so inherently improbable, and at variance with admitted or proven facts or with ordinary experience as to render it shocking to one’s sense of justice.” Id. at 15. Specifically, Dooley insists that “[t]he cause of the rear-end collision was [Tate’s] failure to drive his truck slowly enough to stop within the assured clear distance.” Id. Moreover, Dooley maintains that the statute upon which Tate relied at trial to demonstrate Dooley’s negligence — 75 Pa.C.S. § 3364(a)3 — “does not apply to one who decelerates in the face of gridlocked traffic and then, after the congestion eases, fails to accelerate as quickly as the truck driver behind him might predict.” Id. Here, Dooley claims that he “slowed down to a speed of approximately 45 miles per hour in a 65 mile per hour speed zone in the face of slowing traffic in front of him. Slowing down to a speed of 20 miles per hour less than the maximum speed does not … constitute ‘impeding’ traffic.” Id. at 20 (citation omitted). Thus, he says that he “did not drive at so slow a speed as to impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic. Rather, [Tate] miscalculated when he assumed that [Dooley], who had been caught in slow-moving traffic, would quickly accelerate after the congestion eased.” Id. at 15. Dooley further adds that the dashcam video and testimony at trial disprove Tate’s accusations that Dooley and the erratic driver were hovering next to each other, and that Dooley made a dramatic change in speed. Id. at 24 (citations omitted).

*3 We apply the following standard of review to weight-of-the-evidence claims:
Appellate review of a weight claim is a review of the [trial court’s] exercise of discretion, not of the underlying question of whether the verdict is against the weight of the evidence. Because the trial judge has had the opportunity to hear and see the evidence presented, an appellate court will give the gravest consideration to the findings and reasons advanced by the trial judge when reviewing a trial court’s determination that the verdict is against the weight of the evidence. One of the least assailable reasons for granting or denying a new trial is the lower court’s conviction that the verdict was or was not against the weight of the evidence and that a new trial should be granted in the interest of justice.
The factfinder is free to believe all, part, or none of the evidence and to determine the credibility of the witnesses. The trial court may award a … new trial only when the jury’s verdict is so contrary to the evidence as to shock one’s sense of justice. In determining whether this standard has been met, appellate review is limited to whether the trial judge’s discretion was properly exercised, and relief will only be granted where the facts and inferences of record disclose a palpable abuse of discretion. When a fact[finder’s] verdict is so opposed to the demonstrative facts that looking at the verdict, the mind stands baffled, the intellect searches in vain for cause and effect, and reason rebels against the bizarre and erratic conclusion, it can be said that the verdict is shocking.
Haan v. Wells, 103 A.3d 60, 70 (Pa. Super. 2014) (brackets in original; internal citations and quotation marks omitted).

Here, in rejecting Dooley’s challenge to the weight of the evidence, the trial court opined:
The dash[cam] video enabled the jurors to assess and determine the credibility of both [Dooley] and [Tate] regarding their conflicting testimony as to liability. Both parties were able to describe their driving attention, speed[,] and distances[,] and the jurors used the video in Exhibit D-3 to assess credibility. This [c]ourt’s examination of the transcript and Exhibit D-3 establishes that the evidence supports the credibility determination of the jury and the apportionment of liability. Exhibit D-3 depicts that prior to impact, [Dooley] appeared to chase the vehicle that had darted in front of [him] and was engaged in improper braking with that vehicle in causing the accident. The jury was within its province to find that [Dooley] violated section 3364 of the vehicle code for stopping unnecessarily on the highway and apportioning higher negligence to him.
TCO at 7.

Having reviewed the arguments of the parties, the relevant testimony, and the dashcam video, we discern no abuse of discretion by the trial court. The evidence supports that Dooley suddenly and unnecessarily braked on a high-speed highway and, consequently, was mostly responsible for the accident that occurred.4 Thus, no relief is due.

*4 Judgment affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq. Prothonotary

All Citations
Slip Copy, 2021 WL 3163152 (Table)

Footnotes

*
Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.

1
Dooley purports to appeal from the “Order/Judgment” entered on September 4, 2020. See Notice of Appeal, 9/11/20. However, our review of the docket shows that no order was entered on September 4, 2020; only the judgment was entered on that day. Furthermore, “an appeal properly lies from the entry of judgment, not from the denial of post-trial motions.” See Hall v. Jackson, 788 A.2d 390, 395 n.1 (Pa. Super. 2001) (citation omitted). We have amended the caption accordingly.

2
This Court expended considerable time trying to determine what happened to Dooley’s claims against the third Appellee listed in the caption, BNG Transportation Incorporated. While we suspected that BNG Transportation Incorporated had been dismissed from the action somehow, neither party — nor the trial court — mention if, and how, Dooley’s claims against BNG Transportation Incorporation were disposed of, and our own review of the docket did not reveal any telling information. Despite this lack of forthcoming information, we could not simply overlook this ambiguity as it informs our jurisdiction to hear Dooley’s appeal. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 742 (“The Superior Court shall have exclusive appellate jurisdiction of all appeals from final orders of the courts of common pleas, regardless of the nature of the controversy or the amount involved, except such classes of appeals as are by any provision of this chapter within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Supreme Court or the Commonwealth Court.”); Takosky v. Henning, 906 A.2d 1255, 1258 (Pa. Super. 2006) (“A final order is one that disposes of all the parties and all the claims in a case, is expressly defined as a final order by statute, or is entered as a final order pursuant to the trial court’s determination. The appealability of an order goes directly to the jurisdiction of the Court asked to review the order.”) (citations, quotation marks, and brackets omitted; emphasis added). Only after a painstaking review of the entire record did we discover that the parties agreed to remove BNG Transportation Incorporation from the action. See Report and Award of Arbitrators, 3/27/19 (single page) (containing a hand-written note that BNG Transportation Incorporation was “removed by consent of the parties”). We note our displeasure with the parties for not including this information in their statements of the case, and we encourage them to make a cleaner, clearer record in the future.

3
Section 3364(a) provides that:
(a) Impeding movement of traffic prohibited.–Except when reduced speed is necessary for safe operation or in compliance with law, no person shall drive a motor vehicle at such a slow speed as to impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic.
75 Pa.C.S. § 3364(a).

4
We agree with Appellees that the jury may have found Dooley’s estimate that he was traveling at 45 miles per hour at the time of impact to be improbable. See Appellees’ Brief at 12; Dooley’s Brief at 13. Tate testified at trial that he was “doing about 30, 35” miles per hour at the point of impact. N.T., 3/3/20, at 108. As Appellees observe, “[i]t is very likely that the speed of the Dooley vehicle when braking hard at the last second was substantially less than the speed estimated by [Dooley] during trial. If the jury believed the tractor trailer was going between 25 to 35 miles per hour at the time of contact, then the car of Dooley had to be moving at a slower speed or stopping….” Appellees’ Brief at 17. Furthermore, while there was conflicting testimony from Tate and Dooley as to whether the road in front of Dooley was clear of traffic, the jury viewed the dashcam video, which supports that the road was clear enough that Dooley did not need to brake like he did, and, notably, no other vehicles were involved in the collision. See Appellees’ Brief at 15, 28.