Fields v. Brown

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

No. 6:20-cv-00475

Michael Fields et al.,

Plaintiffs,

V.

Tommy Brown et al.,

Defendants.

ORDER

Plaintiffs sued Tyson Foods, Inc. and Tommy Brown, Mi-

cah Fenton, and Felicia Alexander, alleging unsafe practices

at a Tyson Foods meatpacking facility that led to plaintiffs

contracting COVID-19. Doc. 7. Now before the court is de-

fendants Tommy Brown, Micah Fenton, and Felicia Alexan-

der’s renewed motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ first amended

complaint. Doc. 12. For the reasons set forth below, that mo-

tion (Doc. 12) is granted, and plaintiffs’ claims against Tommy

Brown, Micah Fenton, and Felicia Alexander are dismissed

with prejudice.

Background

Plaintiffs Michael Fields, Vickie Grant, Jessica Matlock,

and Kelly Reese are former employees of Tyson Foods’s meat-

packing plant in Carthage, Texas. Doc. 7 J 13. According to

the complaint, after multiple states—including Texas—issued

stay-at-home orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic,

Tyson Foods required its employees to return to work. Id.

{ 14. Plaintiffs claim that during this period, Tyson Foods

failed to take adequate safety measures in its plants, including

by not providing personal protective equipment to its em-

ployees or instituting social-distancing guidelines. Id. {| 15, 21.

This failure, plaintiffs contend, led to their contracting

COVID-19. Id. J 16.

Alleging negligence and gross negligence, plaintiffs

brought this lawsuit against their former employer, Tyson

Foods, Inc., and individually named defendants Tommy

Brown, Micah Fenton, and Felicia Alexander, who are also

employed at Tyson Foods. According to plaintiffs, because the

individually named defendants held the roles of Plant Man-

ager, Plant Safety Manager, and Production Shift Manager,

respectively, they “were directly responsible for implement-

ing a safe work environment at Tyson’s Carthage, Texas,

meatpacking plant.” Id. Part of that responsibility included

“implementing and enforcing adequate safety measures to

prevent the spread of COVID-19 to the Tyson employees.” Id.

On August 28, 2020, defendants removed this case from

the County Court at Law of Panola County, Texas. Doc. 7.

Shortly after, the individually named defendants—Tommy

Brown, Micah Fenton, and Felicia Alexander—filed a motion

to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint under Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 12(b)(6). Doc. 3. However, plaintiffs subsequently

amended their complaint to add Tyson Foods, Inc. as a de-

fendant (Doc. 7), thereby mooting defendants’ original mo-

tion to dismiss. See Doc. 15. On October 16, 2020, the individ-

ually named defendants renewed their motion to dismiss, as-

serting that plaintiffs have failed to state a claim against them

because only Tyson Foods had a duty to ensure a safe work-

place. Doc. 12. Plaintiffs timely responded (Doc. 14), and de-

fendants filed a reply. Doc. 16.

Standards and analysis

To survive a motion brought under Rule 12(b)(6), the com-

plaint must contain a “statement of the claim showing that the

[plaintiff] is entitled to relief.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,

677 (2009) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2)). To make the nec-

essary showing, the claim must have “facial plausibility.” Id.

at 678. A claim has facial plausibility only if, when the plain-

tiff’s factual allegations are “accepted as true,” the court may

“draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable.”

Id. Consequently, the court construes all well-pleaded facts in

the complaint as true, viewing them in the light most favora-

ble to the non-movant. In re Katrina Canal Breaches Litig., 495

F.3d 191, 205 (5th Cir. 2007).

After a case has been removed under the federal officer re-

moval statute, “[a] federal court’s role . . . is similar to that of

a federal court sitting in diversity.” Winters v. Diamond Sham-

rock Chem. Co., 941 F. Supp. 617, 620 (E.D. Tex. 1996). “Accord-

ingly, the federal court applies the choice of law rules of the

forum state to determine the applicable law.” Id. In this case,

Texas substantive law controls.

Having construed the facts in the light most favorable to

plaintiffs, the court now finds that plaintiffs’ first amended

complaint fails to state a claim against defendants Tommy

Brown, Micah Fenton, and Felicia Alexander for which relief

may be granted.

Under Texas law, employers have a non-delegable duty to

provide a safe workplace for its employees. Leitch v. Hornsby,

935 S.W.2d 114, 117 (Tex. 1996); see Austin v. Kroger, Texas L.P.,

746 F.3d 191, 199 (5th Cir. 2014) (“In the employment context,

the Texas Supreme Court has repeatedly held that an em-

ployer owes a continuous, non-delegable duty to provide its

employees with a safe workplace.”). But “[w]hen the em-

ployer is a corporation, the law charges the corporation itself,

not the individual corporate officer, with the duty to provide

the employee a safe workplace.” Id. Stated differently, the

duty to ensure a safe workplace rests solely with the em-

ployer, not individual employees.

In Leitch v. Hornsby, for example, an employee sued his

employer and two corporate officers after suffering back inju-

ries while on the job. Leitch, 935 S.W.2d at 116. The employee

sued the corporate officers partially “because of their posi-

tions [with the employer].” Id. at 117. Reversing the court be-

low, the Texas Supreme Court held that “a corporate officer

acting on the corporation’s behalf does not owe a corporate

employee an individual duty to provide that employee with

a safe work place.” Id. at 118. Specifically, the court found that

the corporate officers were merely “acting within their capac-

ities” as employees, and that “[t]he alleged actions by [the of-

ficers], whether active or passive, were actions of a corporate

officer on behalf of [the employer] and deemed [the em-

ployer’s] acts.” Id.

To be sure, employees and corporate officers may be liable

for their own tortious conduct. As the Texas Supreme Court

recognized in Leitch, “an agent whose negligence causes an

auto accident may be held individually liable along with his

or her employer when driving in the course and scope of em-

ployment.” Id. at 117. But the employee in that example is

only liable because he “owes a duty of reasonable care to the

general public regardless of whether the auto accident occurs

while driving for the employer.” Id. Conversely, if no inde-

pendent duty of care is owed, the employee is not liable.

Even in cases where the plaintiff is not an employee, Texas

law has recognized that “liability cannot be imposed on em-

ployees where the employer and the employees committed

the identical negligent acts or omissions.” In re Butt, 495

S.W.3d 455, 467 (Tex. App. 2016); see also Tri v. J.T.T., 162

S.W.3d 552, 562 (Tex. 2005) (“[A] negligence finding against

an individual does not automatically result in individual lia-

bility when the individual was acting as the agent or em-

ployee of a corporation.”); Palmer v. Wal-Mart Stores, 65 F.

Supp. 2d 564, 567 (S.D. Tex. 1999) (relying on Leitch to hold

that a store manager was not liable in a routine slip-and-fall

case because he did not owe “any independent duty of reason-

able care, apart from that which his employer owed any store

patron”).

In this case, the individually named defendants—Tommy

Brown, Micah Fenton, and Felicia Alexander—did not owe

the plaintiffs a duty “apart from the employer’s duty.” See

Leitch, 925 S.W.2d at 117. As a corporate employer, Tyson

Foods, Inc. held a non-delegable duty to ensure workplace

safety for its employees. But that duty did not extend to the

individually named defendants as employees of Tyson. At

any rate, the individually named defendants engaged in the

alleged conduct—failing to take proper safety precautions to

prevent the spread of COVID-19—on behalf of Tyson Foods

and in the scope of their employment. See Doc. 7 ¶ 19 (“Ty-

son’s conduct, effectuated through the named Defendants in

this lawsuit, was negligent and grossly negligent and was the

cause of the underlying incident.”).

Moreover, plaintiffs cannot impose liability “on employ-

ees where the employer and the employees committed iden-

tical negligent acts or omissions.” See In re Butt, 495 S.W.3d at

467. Plaintiffs’ first amended complaint does little to distin-

guish between any acts or omissions by Tyson Foods and the

individually named defendants. The complaint refers to al-

leged misconduct by defendants in tandem, bringing the

same causes of action of negligence and gross negligence

against them for essentially the same conduct of not ade-

quately preventing the spread of COVID-19. See Doc. 7 ¶ 20-

32. Accordingly, plaintiffs’ complaint fails to state a claim

against the individually named defendants.

In their response to this motion to dismiss, plaintiffs argue

that—by virtue of their positions as Plant Manager, Plant

Safety Manager, and Production Shift Manager, respec-

tively—the individually named defendants owed independ-

ent duties to plaintiffs “apart from those of Plaintiffs’ em-

ployer.” Doc. 14 at 6-7. Plaintiffs point specifically to the fact

that these defendants “were directly responsible for enforcing

adequate procedures and safety measures to prevent the

spread of COVID-19.” Id.

However, plaintiffs’ conclusory assertions are insufficient

to survive a motion under Rule 12(b)(6). It is unclear from

plaintiffs’ amended complaint what independent duty the in-

dividually named defendants owed to plaintiffs, much less

whether that duty was breached. Plaintiffs cite to no cases

holding that an employee’s job title can generate a separate

duty of care from their employer’s. And plaintiffs’ argument

here is similar to the employee’s contention in Leitch, who

sued corporate officers “because of their positions [with the

employer].” As in Leitch, that argument is meritless absent

any evidence that an employee owes a separate, independent

duty to plaintiffs.

In their response to defendants’ motion to dismiss, plain-

tiffs also cite multiple cases for the proposition that “a corpo-

rate agent is personally liable for his own fraudulent or tor-

tious acts.” Doc. 14 at 5 (quoting Meyer v. JP Morgan Chase

Bank, N.A., 2011 WL 13324489, at *7 (W.D. Tex. Mar. 16, 2011)).

As the court has noted above, it is true that employees can be

liable for their own tortious conduct. But that principle only

applies where a separate duty is owed. Here, plaintiffs have

failed to allege that the individually named defendants owed

them a duty.

Plaintiffs additionally argue that “courts in Texas have in-

terpreted Leitch in a way that does not foreclose a plaintiff’s

ability to hold individual employees liable.” Doc. 14 at 6. To

bulwark that claim, plaintiffs cite the Western District of

Texas’s decision in Guzman v. Cordero. Id. However, Guzman is

inapposite, as the court in that case distinguished those cir-

cumstances from the facts in Leitch. In Guzman, a customer of

a 12-point auto inspection from Wal-Mart was later involved

in a car accident “after the front tire tread separated.” Guzman

v. Cordero, 481 F. Supp. 2d 787, 788 (W.D. Tex. 2007). The cus-

tomer sued Wal-Mart and the employee who completed the

inspection and certified that the vehicle’s tires were in good

condition. Id. While evaluating whether the employee was im-

properly joined at the motion to remand stage, the court held

that, unlike Leitch, “it is quite possible that [the employee]

owed an independent duty of care” since the employee “ac-

tually performed the services in question.” Id. at 790. In

contrast, the facts in this case bear strong resemblances to

Leitch, as in both cases the corporate employers, not the em-

ployees, have a non-delegable duty to ensure workplace

safety. Because plaintiffs cannot articulate a distinct duty

owed by the individually named defendants, their complaint

cannot survive a motion to dismiss.

Finally, plaintiffs request that, if the court finds that plain-

tiffs’ complaint has failed to state a claim, they be permitted

to amend the complaint. Under Federal Rule of Procedure

15(a), “the court should freely give leave [to amend] when jus-

tice so requires.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a). However, “[i]t is within

the district court’s discretion to deny a motion to amend if it

is futile.” Stripling v. Jordan Production Co., Ltd., 234 F.3d 863,

872-73 (5th Cir. 2000). “An amendment is futile if it would fail

to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion.” Marucci Sports, LLC v. Nat’l

Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 751 F.3d 368, 378 (5th Cir. 2014) (cita-

tion omitted).

The court finds that any amendment to plaintiffs’ com-

plaint would be futile. Even if plaintiffs were to amend their

complaint a second time, corporate employers still cannot del-

egate a duty to ensure a safe workplace to their employees.

Accordingly, any amended complaint would still “fail to sur-

vive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion.” See Marucci Sports, LLC, 517 F.3d

at 378.

Conclusion

Because plaintiffs have failed to state a claim for which re-

lief may be granted against the individually named defend-

ants in this case, the motion (Doc. 12) is granted. Plaintiffs’

claims against Tommy Brown, Micah Fenton, and Felicia Al-

exander are dismissed with prejudice.

So ordered by the court on February 11, 2021.

J “CAMPBELL BARKER

United States District Judge

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