Judge: Maurice A. Leiter, Case: 23STCV13576, Date: 2023-11-21 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23STCV13576    Hearing Date: March 27, 2024    Dept: 54

Hearing Date: March 27, 2024

Department 54, Judge Maurice Leiter

Demurrer to Second Amended Complaint without Motion to Strike

Moving Party: Defendants West Hills Hospital, et al.

Responding Party: Plaintiff Marion Martinez

T/R:     DEMURRER TO SIXTH CAUSE OF ACTION IS SUSTAINED WITHOUT LEAVE TO AMEND.

DEFENDANTS’ TO NOTICE.

If the parties wish to submit on the tentative, please email the courtroom at¿SMCdept54@lacourt.org¿with notice to opposing counsel (or self-represented party) before 8:00 am on the day of the hearing.

            The Court considers the moving papers, opposition, and reply.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Marion Martinez filed the operative Second Amended Complaint on December 18, 2023, alleging violations of Labor Code Sections 1102.5, 6310, and 6311; violation of Health and Safety Code Section 1278.5; wrongful termination in violation of Public Policy; defamation; and Private Attorney General Act against Defendants West Hills Hospital; HCA Healthcare Inc.; HCA Healthcare; CHC Payroll Agent, Inc.; HCA Human Resources, LLC; HCA Human Resources Group; Los Robles Regional Medical Center; Charlene Timms; and Adam Gardner.

Plaintiff alleges he was terminated after he complained to Defendants and the State inspection agency that Defendants were violating the law as to the nurse-to-patient ratio, and he refused to perform work assignments that violated the ratio. 

ANALYSIS

A demurrer to a complaint may be taken to the whole complaint or to any of the causes of action in it.  (CCP § 430.50(a).)  A demurrer challenges only the legal sufficiency of the complaint, not the truth of its factual allegations or the plaintiff's ability to prove those allegations.  (Picton v. Anderson Union High Sch. Dist. (1996) 50 Cal. App. 4th 726, 732.)  The court must treat as true the complaint's material factual allegations, but not contentions, deductions or conclusions of fact or law.  (Id. at 732-33.)  The complaint is to be construed liberally to determine whether a cause of action has been stated.  (Id. at 733.)

Leave to amend must be allowed where there is a reasonable possibility of successful amendment. (Goodman v. Kennedy (1976) 18 Cal.3d 335, 348.) The burden is on the complainant to show the Court that a pleading can be amended successfully. (Id.)¿¿

Defendants demur to the sixth cause of action for defamation on the grounds that Plaintiff fails to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action and the cause of action is uncertain.

“The elements of a defamation claim are (1) a publication that is (2) false, (3) defamatory, (4) unprivileged, and (5) has a natural tendency to injure or causes special damage.” (J-M Manufacturing Co., Inc. v. Phillips & Cohen LLP (2016) 247 Cal.App.4th 87, 97.) To plead a cause of action for defamation, the plaintiff “must set forth ‘either the specific words or the substance of’ the allegedly defamatory statements.” (Comstock v. Aber (2012) 212 Cal.App.4th 931, 948.) “The chief reason appears to be that the court must determine, as a question of law, whether the defamatory matter is on its face or capable of the defamatory meaning attributed to it by the innuendo. Hence, the complaint should set the matter out verbatim, either in the body or as an attached exhibit.” (Id., quoting 5 Witkin, Cal. Proc. (5th Ed. 2008) Pleading, § 739, p. 159.)

Defendants argue Plaintiff does not plead when the purported statements were made, to whom the statements were made, or how the communications occurred. Defendants also contend Plaintiff any purported statement is opinion, and/or is protected by Civil Code Section 47c. Defendants assert the only substantive change made in Plaintiff’s SAC was adding a date of January 18, 2023 as the alleged date of a disciplinary action form.

In opposition, Plaintiff argues he has sufficiently set forth the defamatory statements and contends that Defendants clearly have superior knowledge of  the facts underlying this cause of action. Plaintiff asserts Defendants’ privilege claim requires an evidentiary hearing and is not suitable for demurrer.

The SAC alleges the Defendants made defamatory publications consisting of “oral, written, knowingly false, and unprivileged communications tending directly to injure Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s personal, business, and professional reputation, including specific statements on a January 18, 2023 Disciplinary/ Corrective Action Form issued to Plaintiff by Defendants that marked the categories of disciplinary action Plaintiff was terminated for as: ‘conduct/behavior,’ ‘performance,’ and ‘policy violation.’”(SAC, ¶ 71.) The SAC also alleges the Disciplinary/ Corrective Action Form contained multiple untrue statements in which Defendants expressly and impliedly asserted that Plaintiff was untruthful, insubordinate, and a poor employee: ‘[Plaintiff’s] actions represented a cessation of job duties to which he was assigned. His actions also caused a delay in patient care, caused operational delay, caused a diversion of attention and resources away from caring for patients, and constituted insubordination’ and that ‘[Plaintiff’s] substandard conduct and performance are incompatible with continued employment at West Hills Hospital and Medical Center.’” (Id.) The SAC further alleges that the precise dates of these publications are unknown to Plaintiff but may have started in December 2022. (Id., at ¶ 72.) The SAC also alleges Defendants published these statements to third persons believed to include but not limited to, “other agents and employees of Defendants, and the community, all of whom are known to Defendants but unknown at this time to Plaintiff.” (Id., at ¶ 73.)

The SAC does not allege sufficient facts to support the sixth cause of action for defamation. Plaintiff generally alleges that purported defamatory statements were made but does not specify the names of the people to whom they were made or how these communications occurred. Plaintiff pleads no facts concerning any specific statements purportedly made by any specific Defendant, what was said, or to whom. Plaintiff pleads only one alleged defamatory statement from a January 18, 2023 disciplinary form, but does not allege which Defendant wrote the statement on that form, what third persons the form was published to, or when it was published.

Plaintiff’s concessions that he does not know to whom these statements allegedly were made, when they were made, or how they were communicated, show that Plaintiff cannot successfully amend this cause of action.

The demurrer to the sixth cause of action is SUSTAINED without leave to amend.