Raymond Chong v. Healthtronics, Inc. , 285 F. App'x 647 ( 2008 )

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 08-10160 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
JULY 17, 2008
Non-Argument Calendar
THOMAS K. KAHN
________________________
CLERK
D.C. Docket No. 07-01491-CV-TCB-1
RAYMOND CHONG,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
HEALTHTRONICS, INC.,
d.b.a. Healthtronics Service Center, Inc.,
Defendant-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
________________________
(July 17, 2008)
Before DUBINA, PRYOR and COX, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
The Plaintiff, Raymond Chong, appeals following the district court’s dismissal
of his action against Healthtronics, Inc., the Defendant, for failure to state a claim.
The district court granted the Defendant’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion, dismissing all of the
Plaintiff’s claims.
Attached to the Defendant’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion were two affidavits and
several documents. The Plaintiff objected to the consideration of these documents
as outside the pleadings, contending that consideration of matters outside the
pleadings required that the motion be treated as a Rule 56 motion for summary
judgment, which would require the court to permit the Plaintiff to submit evidence
in support of his claims. The district court rejected this argument. We consider each
of the Plaintiff’s claims against this background.
It is clear that the Defendant’s 12(b)(6) motion relied upon documents
submitted by it to support dismissal of the Plaintiff’s breach of contract and quantum
meruit claims. It is also clear that the district court’s dismissal of these claims relied
upon these documents. We disagree with the district court’s conclusion that our
precedent supports consideration of these documents. Pretermitting consideration of
the authenticity of these documents, nothing in the complaint supports the district
court’s conclusion that these documents were central to the Plaintiff’s contract claims.
Similarly, nothing in the complaint supports the conclusion relative to the quantum
meruit claim that the Plaintiff received a $72,500 annual salary and benefits and was
“reasonably compensated for the services he rendered” (R.2-47 at 7). The district
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court erred in considering matters beyond the face of the complaint without
complying with Rule 56. We have held:
Whenever a judge considers matters outside the pleadings in a 12(b)(6)
motion, that motion is thereby converted into a Rule 56 Summary
Judgment motion. When that conversion occurs, the district court must
comply with the requirements of Rule 56. The district court is required
to notify the parties that the motion has been converted, and give the
parties 10 days in which to supplement the record. Herron v. Beck, 693
F.2d 125, 126 (11th Cir.1982).
Trustmark Ins. Co. v. ESLA, Inc., 299 F.3d 1265, 1267 (11th Cir. 2002) (internal
citations omitted).
Neither the Defendant’s brief in the district court nor its brief on this appeal
include a principled argument that the Plaintiff’s complaint fails on its face to state
a breach of contract claim or a quantum merit claim. And, the district court did not
so hold. So, we decline to address the issue here. We vacate the denial of these
claims and remand to the district court with instructions to comply with Rule 56.
The district court dismissed the Plaintiff’s fraud claim on the grounds that it
was duplicative of his breach of contract claim and failed to satisfy the heightened
pleading standard of Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(b). The court dismissed the Plaintiff’s New
York labor law claim on the ground that New York courts have held that bonus
payments made under a profit-sharing scheme are excluded from the definition of
“wages” under the applicable statute.
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The Plaintiff does not argue on appeal that the district court’s legal analysis
with respect to its dismissal of his fraud claim for failure to comply with Rule 9(b)
was erroneous nor does he argue that the court’s legal analysis of his New York labor
law claim was erroneous. Instead, he contends generally that the entirety of the
district court’s dismissal of his claims should be reversed, because it improperly
relied upon evidence not contained on the face of his complaint. We disagree. The
district court dismissed the Plaintiff’s fraud and New York labor law claims on
defects appearing from the face of the complaint. We find no reversible error in the
dismissal of these two claims.
For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the district court’s dismissal of the
Plaintiff’s breach of contract and quantum meruit claims, and remand with
instructions to the district court to comply with Rule 56. We affirm the district
court’s dismissal of the Plaintiff’s fraud and New York labor law claims.
AFFIRMED IN PART; VACATED AND REMANDED IN PART.
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