Doe v. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C.

Background

Jane Doe and John Doe asserted claims for sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence against Marriott International, Inc. and The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. The defendants moved to dismiss the claims and to strike allegations against Marriott and requests for attorney’s fees and punitive damages. The court treated the challenge to the claims against Marriott as part of the motion to dismiss.

Claims Against Marriott

The plaintiffs relied on allegations that a Marriott claims adjuster interacted with them after the incident to support alter-ego liability. Alter-ego liability is a theory under which one corporation may be held responsible for another corporation’s conduct when the corporations have such a unity of interest and ownership that their separate identities do not meaningfully exist, and treating them separately would produce an unfair result. The court found that the plaintiffs had not alleged facts addressing the relevant unity-of-interest factors or cited authority showing that their allegations were sufficient. It dismissed the claims against Marriott with leave to amend.

Direct and Vicarious Liability

The defendants argued that they could not be directly liable for sexual assault or intentional infliction of emotional distress. The plaintiffs did not contest that argument, so the court granted dismissal of counts one and two under a direct-liability theory without leave to amend.

The court denied dismissal of counts one and two under a vicarious-liability theory. Vicarious liability can make an employer responsible for an employee’s torts committed within the scope of employment. The court concluded that allegations about hotel-labeled water bottles delivered to a guest room by hotel staff made the claimed hotel liability plausible at the motion-to-dismiss stage. It also rejected the argument that a hotel employee’s sexual assault of a guest is always outside the scope of employment.

John Doe’s Negligence Claim

The court treated John Doe’s negligence claim as one for negligent infliction of emotional distress because he alleged no physical injury. Under the applicable California standard, a bystander generally must be closely related to the injured person, present and contemporaneously aware that the event was causing injury, and suffer emotional distress beyond that expected of a disinterested witness.

The court found that John Doe alleged emotional distress from learning months later that the water contained semen and that Jane Doe had been distressed. Because he was asleep when she drank from the bottle and lacked contemporaneous awareness that she was being subjected to tortious conduct, the court granted dismissal of his negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim with leave to amend. The court denied dismissal of Jane Doe’s negligence claim for the same reasons it denied dismissal of the vicarious-liability claims.

Motion to Strike

The defendants moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f) to strike the requests for attorney’s fees and punitive damages. The court denied both requests. It explained that Rule 12(f) was not the proper procedure for challenging whether damages or attorney’s fees were legally available. The court also noted that denial of the motion to strike the attorney’s-fee request did not depart from the general rule that each party ordinarily pays its own attorney’s fees.

Disposition

The court granted the motion to dismiss the claims against Marriott with leave to amend; granted dismissal of counts one and two under a direct-liability theory without leave to amend; denied dismissal of counts one and two under a vicarious-liability theory; granted dismissal of John Doe’s count-three negligence claim with leave to amend; and denied the motion to strike the requests for attorney’s fees and punitive damages. Any amended complaint had to be filed by June 6, 2024. No additional parties or claims could be added without the court’s permission or the defendants’ agreement.