Miller v. D.C. Water & Sewer Auth.

Miller v. D.C. Water & Sewer Auth.

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

The 21 [*2]  plaintiffs in the instant action are neighbors who had the distinct misfortune of living on Delafield Place in the District of Columbia — a street containing mostly single-family residences in the Northeast quadrant of the city — on November 18, 2016. On that date, "more than two feet of raw sewage, including sanitary, semi-industrial, and commercial waste from a nearby nursing home, hospital, and several retail operations, flooded into Plaintiffs' homes[.]" (Am. Compl., ECF No. 9, ¶ 1.) Plaintiffs have sued the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority ("WASA") and three remediation companies that WASA hired to clean up and remediate the damage (collectively, "Defendants"); their complaint makes ten claims that can be grouped into three categories. Generally speaking, Plaintiffs allege that this disastrous occurrence and its unsatisfactory aftermath (1) constituted civil rights violations under federal and state law (Counts I-IV); (2) breached various federal and state environmental protection statutes (Counts V-VIII); and (3) amounted to gross negligence and trespass under D.C. common law (Counts IX and X). Plaintiffs seek compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys fees and costs, [*3]  and an order requiring Defendants to "address the injuries that Defendants caused on Delafield Place, including by arranging for and paying the medical monitoring of the citizens affected by Defendants' conduct[.]" (Am. Compl., at 45.)¹

Before this Court at present are the four separate motions to dismiss that Defendants have filed in this matter. (See Def. WASA's Mot. to Dismiss Pl.'s Am. Compl. ("WASA's Mot."), ECF No. 19; Mot. by Def. Charmay, Inc., d/b/a ServiceMaster NCR, to Dismiss Am. Compl. Relating to 129 Delafield Place ("ServiceMaster's Mot."), ECF No. 23; Belfor USA Group Inc.'s Mot. to Dismiss the Am. Compl. ("Belfor's Mot."), ECF No. 26; Def. Superior Mitigation Servs. Inc. d/b/a Servpro of Washington, DC's Rule 12(b)(6) Mot. to Dismiss ("Servpro's Mot."), ECF No. 27.)² In the main and taken together, Defendants' motions argue that Plaintiffs failed to comply with the notice requirements of the environmental statutes they invoked — statutes which do not apply to the factual circumstances here in any event; that Plaintiffs have failed to allege sufficiently that Defendants acted under color of state law or had the requisite discriminatory intent for the purpose of Plaintiffs' civil rights [*4]  claims; and that the facts alleged in the complaint contradict Plaintiffs' commonlaw tort claims, which are also barred by various immunity doctrines. In opposition, Plaintiffs insist that they provided sufficient notice of their claims to WASA under environmental statutes that apply to the sewage release at issue here and provide the purely injunctive relief they seek; that Plaintiffs' status as a uniformly African-American community raises a sufficient inference of discriminatory intent to raise civil rights claims; and that the immunity doctrines that Defendants allege do not insulate Defendants from the Plaintiffs' common-law tort claims, which Plaintiffs say have been alleged sufficiently. (See Pls.' Mem. in Opp'n to Defs.' Mots. To Dismiss Am. Compl. ("Pls.' Opp'n"), ECF No. 38, at 10-27.)

For the reasons explained below, this Court concludes that Plaintiffs have failed to comply with the procedural requirements of the environmental statutes they invoke, and that the facts alleged in the complaint do not state a claim for relief under the statutes. Plaintiffs have also fallen far short of making plausible allegations of federal civil rights violations, because the complaint contains [*5]  insufficient facts to establish either that Defendants acted under color of state law or that their conduct was discriminatorily motivated. Therefore, the federal claims in this case must be dismissed, and this Court will decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining local and common law claims. As a result, Defendants' motions to dismiss Plaintiffs' complaint have been GRANTED, and Plaintiffs' complaint has been DISMISSED. The Court issued a separate order consistent with this Memorandum Opinion on September 30, 2018.

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