Rollins v. Dignity Health

338 F. Supp. 3d 1025
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedSeptember 6, 2018
DocketCase No. 13-cv-01450-JST
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 338 F. Supp. 3d 1025 (Rollins v. Dignity Health) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rollins v. Dignity Health, 338 F. Supp. 3d 1025 (N.D. Cal. 2018).

Opinion

JON S. TIGAR, United States District Judge

Before the Court is Defendants' motion to dismiss the first amended complaint. ECF No. 249. The Court will grant the motion in part and deny it in part.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs bring this putative class action on behalf of all participants, former participants, and beneficiaries of the Dignity Health Pension Plan ("the Dignity Plan" or "the Plan"). ECF No. 243, First Amended Complaint ("FAC") ¶ 3. Defendant Dignity Health "operates a health care conglomerate in California, Arizona and Nevada and ancillary care facilities in nineteen states." Id. ¶ 1. Plaintiffs allege that the Plan violates many provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"). Id. ¶ 4. Plaintiffs challenge Defendants' claim that the Plan is exempt from ERISA because it is a church plan. Id. Plaintiffs bring claims alleging violations of ERISA and, alternatively, state law claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and breach of common law fiduciary duty. Id. ¶¶ 277-321. Plaintiffs also bring a claim for declaratory relief that the church plan exemption violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Id. ¶¶ 266-276.

This case was filed on April 1, 2013 and assigned to Judge Thelton. E Henderson. ECF Nos. 1, 16. Judge Henderson granted Plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment on July 22, 2014. ECF No. 175. Judge Henderson found that the Dignity Plan is not a church plan as defined by ERISA because the plan was not established by a church. Id. at 13. Judge Henderson then granted Defendants' motion to stay the case and to certify the district court's partial summary judgment order for interlocutory appeal. ECF No. 205.

On July 26, 2016 the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion affirming the district court. ECF No. 220. The Supreme Court granted Defendants' petition for a writ of certiorari and subsequently issued an opinion *1031reversing the Ninth Circuit. ECF Nos. 223, 224. The case was reassigned to the undersigned on August 14, 2017. ECF No. 225. Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on November 3, 2017. ECF No. 243. Defendants now move to dismiss the complaint. ECF No. 249.

II. REQUEST FOR JUDICAL NOTICE

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 201(b), "[t]he court may judicially notice a fact that is not subject to reasonable dispute because it: (1) is generally known within the trial court's territorial jurisdiction; or (2) can be accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned." On a motion to dismiss, the court may also "consider materials incorporated into the complaint" when "the complaint necessarily relies upon a document or the contents of the document are alleged in a complaint, the document's authenticity is not in question and there are no disputed issues as to the document's relevance." Coto Settlement v. Eisenberg, 593 F.3d 1031, 1038 (9th Cir. 2010). This is true even if "the plaintiff does not explicitly allege the contents of that document in the complaint." Knievel v. ESPN, 393 F.3d 1068, 1076 (9th Cir. 2005). The court "must take judicial notice if a party requests it and the court is supplied with the necessary information." Fed. R. Evid. 201(c)(2). However, courts "cannot take judicial notice of the contents of documents for the truth of the matters asserted therein when the facts are disputed." Cal. Sportfishing Prot. All. v. Shiloh Grp., LLC, 268 F.Supp.3d 1029, 1038 (N.D. Cal. 2017).

Before turning to Defendants' specific requests, the Court makes a general observation about the appropriate use of judicial notice. As the Ninth Circuit recently noted, "[t]he overuse and improper application of judicial notice and the incorporation-by-reference doctrine ... can lead to unintended and harmful results. Defendants face an alluring temptation to pile on numerous documents to their motions to dismiss to undermine the complaint, and hopefully dismiss the case at an early stage. Yet the unscrupulous use of extrinsic documents to resolve competing theories against the complaint risks premature dismissals of plausible claims that may turn out to be valid after discovery." Khoja v. Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc., 899 F.3d 988, 998-99 (9th Cir. 2018).

Here, Defendants repeatedly do what Khoja forbids - ask the Court to take judicial notice of documents that they then use as a basis to challenge the factual averments in the complaint. Exhibit 3, for example, is a copy of Dignity Health's "Mission." Dignity offers this document for the purpose of contradicting the assertion in Plaintiffs' complaint that the Dignity Plan is not sufficiently associated with the Catholic Church to qualify for the church plan exemption under ERISA. See ECF No. 249 at 15 ("Dignity Health holds itself out as a religiously affiliated health system. Dignity Health's website describes its 'Mission' as a commitment to 'furthering the healing ministry of Jesus.' "); 29 ("Dignity Health's website describes its 'Mission' as a commitment to 'furthering the healing ministry of Jesus,' and its Mission Integration process ensures that the healing ministry of Jesus is folded into all aspects of the organization."). Dignity is not explaining or arguing the allegations in Plaintiffs' FAC - it is trying to factually rebut them. As Khoja makes clear, to grant the request for judicial notice would improperly convert this Rule 12(b)(6) motion into a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56. Khoja, 899 F.3d at 998-99. Many of Dignity's other requests are similarly problematic.

*1032Many of Defendants' requests also seek notice of material taken from websites, including their own website. These materials are not proper subjects of judicial notice. Dignity is correct that there are cases suggesting that courts may take judicial notice of "publicly available" websites. See Perkins v. LinkedIn Corp., 53 F.Supp.3d 1190, 1204 (N.D. Cal. 2014) ; Caldwell v. Caldwell, No. C 05-4166 PJH, 2006 WL 618511, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 13, 2006), order clarified, No. C 05-4166 PJH,

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Bluebook (online)
338 F. Supp. 3d 1025, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rollins-v-dignity-health-cand-2018.