Bartek v. Lawrence

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI EASTERN DIVISION ANNIKA BARTEK, et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) vs. ) No. 4:21-CV-01070-JAR ) DAVID LAWRENCE, et al., ) ) Defendants. ) ) MEMORANDUM AND ORDER This matter comes before the Court upon Defendants David Lawrence and Mychelle Raisbeck’s Motion to Strike. (Doc. No. 5). Plaintiffs raise a number of state-law claims related to their purchase of certain real property from Defendants, including a claim for violation of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. (Doc. No. 1-1). Plaintiffs allege they are entitled to punitive damages for that violation. Id. at ¶ 16. Defendants move to strike allegations of punitive damages from Plaintiff’s complaint pursuant to Missouri Revised Statute § 510.261. Under MO. REV. STAT. § 510.261(5), effective August 28, 2020, “[n]o initial pleading in a civil action shall contain a claim for a punitive damage award. Any later pleading containing a claim for a punitive damage award may be filed only with leave of the court.” Defendants argue any references to punitive damages in Plaintiff’s initial complaint must be struck pursuant to § 510.261. Plaintiffs respond that the statute is inapplicable, as this Court has twice concluded § 510.261 does not apply in federal court. See Kilburn v. Autosport Acquisitions, LLC, No. 1:20cv-211-ACL, 2021 WL 307550 (E.D. Mo. Jan. 29, 2021); Anderson v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., No. 4:20-CV-01610-MTS, 2021 WL 3525165 (E.D. Mo. Aug. 11, 2021). The Court finds the reasoning in Kilburn and Anderson to be persuasive. The Kilburn court declined to strike a claim for punitive damages pursuant to § 510.216(5). That court noted the Supreme Court instructed federal courts in Shady Grove Orthopedic Assocs., P.A. v. Allstate Insurance Company, 559 U.S. 393 (2010) not to “apply a state a state law or rule if (1) a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure ‘answer[s] the same question’ as the state law or rule and (2) the Federal Rule does not violate the Rules Enabling Act.” Abbas v. Foreign Policy Grp., LLC, 783 F.3d 1328, 1333 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (quoting Shady Grove Orthopedic Assocs. 559 U.S. 393 , 398–99 (2010)). The Kilburn court determined Fed. R. Civ. P. 8, which governs the federal requirements for pleading, answers the same question as § 510.216(5) but comes out differently: under the Missouri statute, a claim for punitive damages cannot be included in an initial pleading, but under Rule 8, it can. See Kilburn, 2021 WL 307550 , at *2. It also held that Rule 8 is valid under the Rules Enabling Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2072 , because it “governs the pleading standard and content of a complaint” and thus “regulates procedure.” Id. Finding, then, that § 510.261(5) meets both requirements provided in Shady Grove, the Kilburn court concluded that it should not apply § 510.261(5). Id. The Anderson court adopted the reasoning in Kilburn. 2021 WL 3525165 at * 7. Plaintiff argues this Court should reject the holdings of Kilburn and Anderson and instead apply the reasoning of the District of Minnesota in Kuehn v. Shelcore, Inc., 686 F. Supp. 233, 235 (D. Minn. 1988). The Kuehn court analyzed a similar Minnesota statute1 and granted the 1 The statute at issue in Kuehn is Minnesota Statute § 549.191, which states in relevant part: Upon commencement of a civil action, the complaint must not seek punitive damages. After filing the suit a party may make a motion to amend the pleadings to claim punitive damages. MINN. STAT. § 549.191. defendants’ motion to strike the plaintiff's prayer for punitive damages. Kuehn was decided in June of 1988, over thirty years prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Shady Grove. That decision has called into question the application of MINN. STAT. § 549.191 in federal court. See Benner v. Saint Paul Pub. Sch., .S.D. #625, 407 F. Supp. 3d 819 , 825 (D. Minn. 2019) (citing Rogers v. Mentor Corp., No. 12-CV-2602 (SRN/SER), 2018 WL 2215519 , at *6 (D. Minn. May 15, 2018)) (Section 549.191’s “prohibition on including punitive damages in an initial complaint may conflict with Fed. R. Civ. P. 8 and 9”). In light of the reasoning in Kilburn and Anderson as well as the questionable precedential value of Kuehn, the Court concludes that it should not apply the prohibition in § 510.261 on asserting a claim for punitive damages in an initial pleading. Rule 8 governs the pleading requirements in this case. Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants’ Motion to Strike [5] is DENIED. Dated this 1st day of October, 2021. few ax fle A oe UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE