No duty owed: Elevator company dismissed from guests’ personal injury suit

An elevator operator company was dismissed from a personal injury suit by the Eastern District of Virginia, which held the company owed the injured plaintiffs no duty.

While the company had a contract with a Henrico County hotel where the plaintiffs were injured in an elevator accident, Senior U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne said that, generally, there is no higher duty owed between such parties than a general duty to act with reasonable care.

“Absent the contract, the relationship between Otis and the plaintiffs is no different than the relationship between two passers-by on the street,” the judge wrote.

Payne granted a petition by the elevator company to dismiss the plaintiff’s complaint against them and dismissed the company from the suit in Manning v. Drury Hotels Company LLC (VLW 024-3-240).

Malfunction

James Manning, Sherry Lomax, Robert Watson and Debra Manning, who were guests at the Drury Plaza Hotel Richmond, were injured when a hotel elevator allegedly malfunctioned, falling approximately two floors before coming to an abrupt stop.

Drury held a contract with Otis Elevator Company to maintain the elevators.

Each plaintiff filed an individual action in the Henrico County Circuit Court against both Drury and Otis, alleging negligent failure to maintain the elevator. The plaintiffs said Otis had a duty to properly maintain the elevator and had a duty to warn guests and Drury “of any defective condition associated with the elevator.” The plaintiffs also claimed that Otis “carelessly and negligently maintained” the elevator.

Otis argued that it did not owe a duty to the plaintiffs; the maintenance contract was solely between Otis and Drury and the plaintiffs were not a party to it.

Looking to the Supreme Court of Virginia’s holding in Tingler v. Graystone Homes, Otis argued that, in order to establish a negligence claim, the plaintiffs had to establish that the duty breached was a statutory or common law duty rather than one arising out of contract.

The elevator company also cited Holderfield v. ThyssenKrupp Elevator Corp., which held in relevant part that “[w]hile Virginia tort law has recognized actionable claims with respect to elevator injuries, these decisions have only extended to the owners and operators of elevators, and not in the context of a defendant tasked solely, in a contractual capacity, with elevator maintenance and repair.”

In response, the plaintiffs contended that “a Virginia court has ruled against Otis before on this very issue,” citing Markert v. Richmond Int’l Raceway, a 2008 order from the Richmond Circuit Court.

“According to the plaintiffs … they, guests of the hotel, would be foreseeably affected by the elevator and therefore, Otis owed them a common law duty of care,” Payne wrote in summarizing the plaintiffs’ arguments.

Dismissed

The “mere statement that a duty to maintain existed, and that the maintenance was negligent, are the types of ‘threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements’ that the heightened pleading standard seeks to weed out,” Payne said, citing Ashcroft v. Iqbal.

“The analysis therefore turns to whether, taking the well-pled factual allegations as true, the complaint pleads a legally sufficient negligence claim (for failure to maintain or failure to warn),” the judge wrote. “It does not.”

Since Tingler is controlling authority here, Payne determined that the contract between Otis and Drury can’t give rise to a negligence action for the plaintiffs.

“It is well-settled there (and in other Virginia cases, relied on in Tingler and elsewhere) that the source of a legal duty in tort cannot arise from a contract,” he said.

Otis contracted with Drury to maintain the elevator; that contractual duty was for the hotel’s benefit, even if the plaintiffs were foreseeable victims of a breach of that duty, the judge noted.

“Because Otis owed the plaintiffs no duty in contract, the plaintiffs must allege that a common law duty existed to state a legally sufficient negligence claim,” Payne pointed out. “They have not made such an allegation.”

Payne said Holderfield was also persuasive.

“As in Tingler, Holderfield held that ‘[actionable tort claims] have only extended to the owners and operators of elevators, and not in the context of a defendant tasked solely, in a contractual capacity, with elevator maintenance and repair,’” the judge said. “Furthermore, the existence of the contract in Holderfield did not transform the elevator company’s role into something greater, like a common carrier, or create a special relationship, elevating the duty of care to something higher than a general duty of reasonableness. Thus, Otis did not owe the plaintiffs a common law duty by virtue of being a common carrier, or by virtue of some other special relationship, either.”

Finally, Payne said the plaintiffs’ complaint failed to allege a common law duty owed to them by Otis to keep the elevator free from defects or a common law duty to warn.

The judge granted Otis’ motion to dismiss without leave to amend. Payne noted that plaintiffs’ counsel explained he had not yet amended the complaint “to comply with the ‘plausibility’ standard” set forth in Iqbal and Twombly as he was “awaiting discovery that had the ‘necessarily particular facts.’”

“However, counsel for Otis made it known that Otis had turned over the relevant documents, weeks prior, in its initial disclosures,” the judge wrote. “Counsel for the plaintiffs did not dispute that representation. Therefore, plaintiffs had the opportunity to seek leave to modify the complaint before the hearing on this matter, which they failed to do.”