Mitchell v. General Engineering Corp.

67 V.I. 271
CourtSuperior Court of The Virgin Islands
DecidedFebruary 23, 2017
DocketCase No. SX-07-CV-504
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 67 V.I. 271 (Mitchell v. General Engineering Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of The Virgin Islands primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mitchell v. General Engineering Corp., 67 V.I. 271 (visuper 2017).

Opinion

WILLOCKS, Administrative Judge

MEMORANDUM OPINION

(February 23, 2017)

THIS MATTER is before the Court sua sponte following a review of the case file. The Court finds that certain motions, which are technically still pending, should be deemed withdrawn or denied as moot. Other motions — a request to stay this matter and a motion to dismiss the complaint — must still be addressed so that the record is clear, even though subsequent proceedings have rendered these motions moot as well. Lastly, even though this case is currently consolidated with a number of other individual cases under a master case, the Court has determined that this case must be removed from the master case and allowed to proceed on its own.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Cyril Mitchell filed a complaint in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands on October 19, 2007. He named as defendants General Engineering Corporation, Alcoa, Inc., and St. Croix Alumina, LLC. He alleged that these defendants caused him to be exposed to bauxite dust containing silica, alumina dust, and asbestos dust and fibers during the years he worked at the now-former alumina refinery on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mitchell further alleged that he had developed pneumoconiosis as a result of his work-related exposure to toxic dusts. He demanded damages, including punitive damages, for claims sounding in negligence, gross negligence, and strict product liability, among other claims.

[274]*274Upon receiving Mitchell’s complaint, the Civil Division opened a new case, assigned it at random to Judge Darryl Dean Donohue, Sr., and then transferred the case to the Jury Trial Division for further proceedings. The next action occurred on November 26, 2007, when counsel appeared on behalf of Alcoa and St. Croix Alumina, LLC. Two weeks later, Mitchell stipulated with Alcoa and St. Croix Alumina to extend their time to respond to his complaint until January 8, 2008, which the court approved in a January 11, 2008 order. Both Defendants responded on January 8, 2008: Alcoa answered Mitchell’s complaint and denied liability while St. Croix Alumina filed a motion to dismiss Mitchell’s complaint for failure to state a claim. Mitchell responded in opposition to St. Croix Alumina’s motion on January 24, 2008 and St. Croix Alumina filed its reply on February 8, 2008. Although the motion was fully briefed at that point, Mitchell filed a motion a few days later to request leave to file a surresponse and a surreply,1 which this Court eventually granted nunc pro tunc. Mitchell filed his surresponse on March 25, 2008 and St. Croix Alumina filed its surreply on April 10, 2008.

Once briefing on St. Croix Alumina’s motion was complete, Alcoa filed its own motion to dismiss on November 14, 2008. Mitchell responded in opposition on November 20, 2008 and (in the same paper) requested leave to amend his complaint. Alcoa filed its reply in support of its motion to dismiss on January 28, 2009, and likewise responded (in the same motion paper) in opposition to Mitchell’s request for leave to amend. Mitchell filed his reply in support of amending his complaint on January 30, 2009.

At this point three motions were pending: St. Croix Alumina’s January 8, 2008, Motion to dismiss; Alcoa’s November 14, 2008, Motion to Dismiss; and Mitchell’s November 20, 2008, Motion to Amend his Complaint. Before the court had ruled on any of these motions, Mitchell filed another motion, on April 14, 2009, but requesting the same relief as before — leave to amend his complaint. In this motion, however, Mitchell explained that he would drop his claims against St. Croix Alumina and also abandon his demand for punitive damages from Alcoa. He also attached a copy of his proposed amended complaint to his motion. The reason for requesting leave to make these changes was, Mitchell [275]*275explained, based on decisions another Superior Court judge had made regarding the same three motions, but in another case, Erwin LaBast v. Lockheed Martin Corporation, et al., SX-07-CV-502. Judge Francis J. D’Eramo had granted St. Croix Alumina’s Motion to Dismiss in LaBast and granted in part and denied in part both Alcoa’s motion to dismiss and LaBast’s motion to amend. In response, Mitchell proposed to amend his complaint to conform to the decisions Judge D’Eramo made regarding LaBast’s complaint. None of the defendants filed a response, either in support of or in opposition to Mitchell’s April 14, 2009 motion to amend his complaint.

A week later, Presiding Judge Donohue issued an order and sua sponte transferred Mitchell to Judge D’Eramo for all further proceedings. The Order, dated April 22, 2009, but not entered until April 24, 2009, noted that Mitchell “involve[d] the same parties and require[d] resolution regarding the same legal issues” as LaBast, so ‘“in the interest of judicial economy, [and] to avoid unnecessary delay,” Judge Donohue transferred Mitchell to Judge D’Eramo. See also In re: Alumina Dust Claims, 67 V.I. 172, 176 (Super. Ct. 2017) for additional background. Judge D’Eramo unexpectedly passed away shortly after the order was issued. To reduce the impact caused by his sudden death, Judge Donohue, in his capacity as Presiding Judge of the Superior Court, designated Judge Edgar D. Ross as a senior sitting judge and reassigned all of Judge D’Eramo’s cases to Judge Ross until a successor judge could be nominated and confirmed. Judge Ross then granted Mitchell’s April 14, 2009 motion by order dated May 22, 2009 and entered May 27, 2009. The Order directed that Mitchell serve his amended complaint on the Defendants within ten days. However, the order did not state whether Mitchell would also file a copy of his amended complaint or whether the court should deem as filed the proposed amended complaint that Mitchell had attached to his motion.

As noted, because a number of cases were pending in the Superior Court with similar claims against the same or similar parties, all of which alleged workplace exposure to toxic dust at the former alumina refinery, Judge Ross, in May 2009, approved a proposed stipulated case management that the parties had filed in LaBast. The Case Management Order directed that a master case file and docket be opened and designated In re: Alumina Dust Claims and that all of the individual cases be consolidated under the master case. However, that Order was not fully [276]*276implemented, in part because Judge D’Eramo had taken the lead in coordinating the cases that would later be consolidated under Alumina Dust Claims. But Judge Donohue, again in his capacity as presiding judge, later issued an order, entered April 20, 2011, and directed the Clerk’s office to designate LaBast’s case number as the master case number and also to reassign all of the individual cases consolidated under the master case to the undersigned judge, who had been nominated and confirmed as a Superior Court judge by then.2

A few months after all of the individual cases, including Mitchell, were formally reassigned to the undersigned judge, this Court issued an order, entered August 29, 2011, and scheduled a pre-trial conference for October 27, 2011, but only in Mitchell. Mitchell responded to that order on October 24, 2011, and explained that his case was consolidated under Alumina Dust. Yet, even though the other Alumina Dust

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Related

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67 V.I. 488 (Superior Court of The Virgin Islands, 2017)
Wilson v. Hess Oil Virgin Islands Corp.
67 V.I. 523 (Superior Court of The Virgin Islands, 2017)
Ayala v. Lockheed Martin Corp.
67 V.I. 290 (Superior Court of The Virgin Islands, 2017)

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Bluebook (online)
67 V.I. 271, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mitchell-v-general-engineering-corp-visuper-2017.