Lee v. Kitchables Products
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:21-cv-01913
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 7
In Lee v. Kitchables Products, Judge Gilliam granted in part and denied in part Amazon’s motion, dismissing concealment and punitive damages with leave to amend.
Brian V. Lee and Amazon; the order addresses Amazon’s motion concerning Lee’s claims involving the teacups.
What happened
Brian V. Lee alleges that he bought glass teacups made by Kitchables Products and advertised, sold, and distributed through Amazon’s website. He says a teacup exploded when he poured hot liquid into it and that Defendants knew of earlier explosions.
Judge Gilliam allowed Lee’s negligence, failure-to-warn, and implied-warranty claims against Amazon to proceed. The court dismissed Lee’s fraudulent-concealment claim and request for punitive damages, but allowed him to amend those matters within 21 days; he could not add new claims or defendants.
The order in Lee v. Kitchables Products was issued by U.S. District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr., on July 27, 2021, and vacated the scheduled case-management conference.
The detailed version
- Lee v. Kitchables Products · No. 4:21-cv-01913
- Haywood Gilliam
- July 27, 2021
Background
Brian V. Lee alleges that he purchased glass teacups manufactured by Kitchables Products and advertised, sold, and distributed through Amazon’s website. He alleges that, before his purchase, Defendants knew that the teacups had exploded when used by other customers, based in part on an earlier customer review posted on Amazon’s website. Lee brings California-law claims for fraudulent concealment, strict liability based on manufacturing and design defects, strict liability for failure to warn, negligence, and breach of implied warranty. He also seeks punitive damages.
Amazon moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal for failure to state a legally sufficient claim. The court also applied Rule 9(b)’s heightened pleading requirement to the fraudulent-concealment claim because fraud is an essential element of that claim.
Rulings on the claims
Fraudulent concealment
The court granted the motion to dismiss this claim with leave to amend. The court held that Lee did not plead particularized facts identifying who knew about the alleged defect or how Amazon or another person or entity actively concealed it. The court also found an inherent tension between relying on a publicly available customer review to show knowledge and using that same review as the basis for concealment. The court did not conclude that amendment would be futile.
Negligence
The court denied the motion to dismiss this claim. Applying California law, the court found that Lee adequately alleged that Amazon negligently violated a duty of care by continuing to allow the allegedly exploding teacups to be sold on its website. The court also found that Lee sufficiently alleged a defect by claiming that he used the teacup as intended, poured hot liquid into it, and it exploded.
Strict liability for failure to warn
The court denied the motion to dismiss this claim. The court relied on a California appellate decision recognizing that strict products liability may apply to Amazon’s third-party-seller business model. It also found that Lee alleged that Amazon provided no warning about the possibility of an exploding teacup, so he was not required to describe the inadequacies of a warning that allegedly did not exist.
Breach of implied warranty
The court denied the motion to dismiss this claim. It rejected Amazon’s argument that Lee improperly grouped the defendants together because Lee identified actions allegedly taken specifically by Amazon, including advertising, marketing, distribution, and delivery of the teacups.
Punitive damages
The court granted the motion to dismiss Lee’s request for punitive damages with leave to amend. Under California law, punitive damages require facts supporting oppression, fraud, or malice. Because the court found that Lee had not adequately alleged fraudulent concealment, it also found that he had not adequately alleged facts supporting punitive damages.
Disposition
The court granted in part and denied in part Amazon’s motion to dismiss. It denied the motion as to Lee’s negligence, strict-liability failure-to-warn, and breach-of-implied-warranty claims. It granted the motion as to the fraudulent-concealment claim and punitive-damages request, with leave to amend. Any amended complaint had to be filed within 21 days of the order and could not add new causes of action or defendants. The court also vacated the case-management conference scheduled for July 29, 2021.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.