Kuzian v. Electrolux Home Products, Inc.

937 F. Supp. 2d 599, 2013 WL 1314722, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44050
CourtDistrict Court, D. New Jersey
DecidedMarch 28, 2013
DocketCivil No. 12-3341 (NLH/AMD)
StatusPublished
Cited by27 cases

This text of 937 F. Supp. 2d 599 (Kuzian v. Electrolux Home Products, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Kuzian v. Electrolux Home Products, Inc., 937 F. Supp. 2d 599, 2013 WL 1314722, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44050 (D.N.J. 2013).

Opinion

OPINION

HILLMAN, District Judge.

I. BACKGROUND

In this consolidated putative class action, currently pending before the Court are the motions of defendant Electrolux Home Products, Inc. (“Electrolux”) to dismiss the [605]*605four plaintiffs’ complaints,1 as well as plaintiffs’ motion to appoint interim class counsel. Plaintiffs, three from New Jersey and one from New York,2 claim that the ice makers in their refrigerators, manufactured by Electrolux, are defective. Plaintiffs contend that even though Electrolux knew of this defect since at least February 2008, Electrolux continued to manufacture and sell refrigerators with this defect.3 Plaintiffs claim that Electrolux provided repairs to the ice makers as part of the one-year express warranty, but that Electrolux knew that the repairs would be temporary and only last long enough to get past the one-year mark. Plaintiffs claim that Electrolux’s marketing and sale of its “top of the line” refrigerators that provided “ice at your fingertips” and “nine pounds of ice in 24 hours” constitutes consumer fraud and violates the express and implied warranties because Electrolux, knew that the ice makers were defective when they advertised and sold them and would not perform as advertised. Plaintiffs are seeking the certification of a class comprising of all parties who have purchased Electrolux refrigerator models that contain the defective ice makers.

Electrolux has moved to dismiss most of plaintiffs’ claims on various bases. Electrolux’s main argument is that the New Jersey plaintiffs’ fraud and implied warranty claims are subsumed by the New Jersey Products Liability Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:58C-1, et seq., because those claims allege a defective product that has caused damage to other property. Electrolux also argues that the plaintiffs do not have standing to pursue claims for refrigerators that they did not purchase. Plaintiffs have opposed Electrolux’s motion. As to Electrolux’s main arguments, plaintiffs contend that their claims may proceed- because they are not product defect claims, and because the same defective ice accordance with the Federal Rules, maker is in numerous Electrolux refrigerator models.

For the reasons expressed below, Electrolux’s motions will be denied in part and granted in part, and plaintiffs’ motion to appoint interim class counsel will be denied without prejudice.

II. JURISDICTION

Plaintiffs assert that this Court has jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2), the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), which provides, in relevant part, that “district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action in which the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $5,000,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and is a class action in [606]*606which ... (A) any member of a class of plaintiffs is a citizen of a State different from any defendant.”4

III. ELECTROLUX’S MOTIONS TO DISMISS

A. STANDARD FOR MOTION TO DISMISS

When considering a motion to dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), a court must accept all well-pleaded allegations in the complaint as true and view them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Evancho v. Fisher, 423 F.3d 347, 351 (3d Cir.2005). It is well settled that a pleading is sufficient if it contains “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2). Under the liberal federal pleading rules, it is not necessary to plead evidence, and it is not necessary to plead all the facts that serve as a basis for the claim. Bogosian v. Gulf Oil Corp., 561 F.2d 434, 446 (3d Cir.1977). However, “[although the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not require a claimant to set forth an intricately detailed description of the asserted basis for relief, they do require that the pleadings give defendant fair notice of what the plaintiffs claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.” Baldwin Cnty. Welcome Ctr. v. Brown, 466 U.S. 147, 149-50 n. 3, 104 S.Ct. 1723, 80 L.Ed.2d 196 (1984) (quotation and citation omitted).

A district court, in weighing a motion to dismiss, asks “ ‘not whether a plaintiff will ultimately prevail but whether the claimant is entitled to offer evidence to support the claim.’ ” Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 563 n. 8, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) (quoting Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974)); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 684, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (“Our decision in Twombly expounded the pleading standard for ‘all civil actions’ ... ”); Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 210 (3d Cir.2009) (“Iqbal ... provides the final nail-in-the-coffin for the ‘no set of facts’ standard that applied to federal complaints before Twombly.”).

Following the Twombly/Iqbal standard, the Third Circuit has instructed a two-part analysis in reviewing a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6). First, the factual and legal elements of a claim should be separated; a district court must accept all of the complaint’s well-pleaded facts as true, but may disregard any legal conclusions. Fowler, 578 F.3d at 210 (citing Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950). Second, a district court must then determine whether the facts alleged in the complaint are sufficient to show that the plaintiff has a “ ‘plausible claim for relief.’ ” Id. (quoting Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950). A complaint must do more than allege the plaintiffs entitlement to relief. Id.; see also Phillips v. Cnty. of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 234 (3d Cir.2008) (stating that the “Supreme Court’s Twombly formulation of the pleading standard can be summed up thus: ‘stating ... a claim requires a complaint with enough factual matter (taken as true) to suggest’ the required element. This ‘does not impose a probability requirement at the pleading stage,’ but instead ‘simply calls for enough facts to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of the necessary element”).

[607]*607A court need not credit either “bald assertions” or “legal conclusions” in a complaint when deciding a motion to dismiss. In re Burlington Coat Factory Sec. Litig.,

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937 F. Supp. 2d 599, 2013 WL 1314722, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44050, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kuzian-v-electrolux-home-products-inc-njd-2013.