Forbes Park, LLC v. Irving Oil Corp.

26 Mass. L. Rptr. 378
CourtMassachusetts Superior Court
DecidedNovember 30, 2009
DocketNo. 090913BLS2
StatusPublished

This text of 26 Mass. L. Rptr. 378 (Forbes Park, LLC v. Irving Oil Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Superior Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Forbes Park, LLC v. Irving Oil Corp., 26 Mass. L. Rptr. 378 (Mass. Ct. App. 2009).

Opinion

Fabricant, Judith, J.

INTRODUCTION

This action arises from an oil spill alleged to have damaged the plaintiffs’ property. Before the Court is the defendants’ motion to dismiss six of the seven counts of the complaint. For the reasons that will be explained, the motion will be allowed in part and denied in part.

BACKGROUND

The First Amended Complaint alleges that the plaintiffs own contiguous parcels along the Chelsea River; Forbes Park owns what is referred to as the “upland parcel,” and Seawall Really owns what is referred to as the “waterfront” parcel.1 Plaintiffs’ property “is the subject of a major private development initiative.” Defendants own land on the river on which they operate a “tank farm” for the storage of oil. On [379]*379March 8, 2006, a release of some 20,000 gallons of oil occurred from the defendants’ property into the river, “causing property damage and injury ... to both the Upland Parcel and the Waterfront Parcel.” Under the direction of various public officials, defendants “commandeered” the plaintiffs’ property “as a platform from which to perform response actions,” and “physically evicted the Plaintiffs and their agents . . . specifically including the agent from the Plaintiffs’ lender, . . . and interfered with the various construction and development activities occurring thereon.” The lender’s agent was engaged in a site visit “to assess the status and direction of the Project so that additional and anticipated loan proceeds would be made available to advance the Project.” The release and the presence of the defendants’ agents on the property caused the lender to decline increased funding, accelerate the loans, and place the plaintiffs in default. To obtain replacement financing, plaintiffs had to incur various fees as well as “a substantial premium in the cost to develop the Project so as to meet the requirement that union contractors be retained for all construction work at the Property.”

Based on these allegations, the complaint asserts seven counts: negligence (count I); strict liability (count II); trespass (count III); nuisance (count IV); liability for response costs under G.L.c. 21E, §4 (count V); liability for property damage under G.L.c. 2IE, §5 (count VI); and discharge of petroleum in violation of G.L.c. 91, §59A (count VII). The complaint seeks damages, without further specification, as well as response costs under c. 2 IE, double damages under c. 91, §59A, and attorneys fees and costs. Defendants now move to dismiss all counts except the claim for response costs under G.L.c. 2 IE, countV.

DISCUSSION

A motion to dismiss “argues that the complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Jarosz v. Palmer, 436 Mass. 526, 529 (2002), quoting J.W. Smith & H.B. Zobel, Rules Practice §12.16 (1974). In considering such a motion, the court takes as true the well-pleaded factual allegations of the complaint, as well as such inferences as may be drawn from them in favor of the non-moving party, Nader v. Citron, 372 Mass. 96, 98 (1977), but disregards legal conclusions cast in the form of factual allegations. Schaer v. Brandeis University, 432 Mass. 474, 477 (2000). To survive a motion to dismiss under current law, the complaint must contain “allegations plausibly suggesting (not merely consistent with) an entitlement to relief,” and “must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Iannacchino v. Ford Motor Co., 451 Mass. 623, 636 (2008), quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007).

In evaluating the sufficiency of the complaint, the Court is generally limited to the complaint itself and materials attached or appended to it or incorporated by reference in it. In some circumstances, the Court may also consider public records that are central to the subject matter of the dispute. See Schaer, supra, 432 Mass. at 477. Here, the defendants urge the Court to consider pleadings and other materials filed by the plaintiffs in an action they brought against their lender to enjoin the lender from accelerating the loan and exercising rights to collateral.2 The Court has reviewed those materials, but is not persuaded that they have any significant bearing on the sufficiency of the allegations in the present case.

Defendants raise a series of arguments in support of their motion to dismiss as to all six counts: (1) The plaintiffs’ allegation of consequential damages arising from the release is implausible because it is inconsistent with the position taken by the plaintiffs in their prior action against the lender;3 (2) the facts alleged do not indicate that the damages claimed were foreseeable, so as to be recoverable as consequential damages; and (3) the complaint does not adequately allege physical damage to the property, so as to provide a basis for recovery for economic loss. In addition to these common theories, defendants argue that count II fails to state a claim of strict liability, in that the complaint fails to allege facts indicating that the release resulted from an abnormally dangerous activity; count III fails to state a claim for trespass, since no intentional, unprivileged intrusion on land is alleged; and count IV, alleging nuisance, is barred by the statute of limitations and fails to allege any condition on defendants’ property affecting plaintiffs’ use of their property. The Court will address these arguments in turn.

1. Theories Common to Counts I, II, III, IV, VI, and VII.

The substance of the contention raised in the plaintiffs’ prior complaint, and in an affidavit submitted in support of a motion for preliminary injunction in that case, was that the lender acted wrongfully in accelerating the loan based on the release and related events, since the release need not have had any effect on the development project. That contention does not undermine the plaintiffs’ position here, which is that the lender in fact did accelerate the loan based on the release, whether legitimately or not, and that the release thereby caused the consequential damages for which the plaintiffs seek to recover. The allegation on its face is not implausible.4

As defendants point out, their liability in negligence is limited to those damages that were “within the scope of the foreseeable risk arising from the negligent conduct.” Jupin v. Kask, 447 Mass. 141, 146 (2006). The allegations of the complaint are that defendants released oil into a river that ran along property on which plaintiffs were actively engaged in construction, and that response actions triggered by the release forced a temporary halt to construction activity and prevented plaintiffs and their agents from having access to plaintiffs’ property. It is certainly plausible that such [380]*380conduct would cause harm to plaintiffs’ development effort, along with physical damage to the property. The precise scope of the harm, and whether each component of it would have been foreseeable, remains to be determined.5 At this stage, it is enough to say that the allegations of the complaint provide a plausible claim of liability for some economic harm.

The complaint does, contrary to the defendants’ contention, allege property damage to both plaintiffs’ parcels.

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Bluebook (online)
26 Mass. L. Rptr. 378, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/forbes-park-llc-v-irving-oil-corp-masssuperct-2009.