Erecruit Holdings, LLC v. Willis Group Holdings, LLC (Lawyers Weekly No. 12-003-17)
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS SUFFOLK, ss. SUPERIOR COURT SUCV2016-0557-BLS2 ERECRUIT HOLDINGS, LLC Plaintiff and SIXCEL, LLC Plaintiff/Intervenor vs. WILLIS GROUP HOLDINGS, LLC Defendant MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER ON PLAINTIFF ERECRUIT HOLDINGS, LLC’S MOTION FOR JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS This action arising from a business deal gone sour between the plaintiff Erecruit Holdings, LLC (Erecruit) and the defendant Willis Group Holdings, LLC. Erecruit alleges that Willis breached a written contract called the Non-Perpetual Software License Agreement (the Agreement) by fabricating a pretext for terminating the Agreement, then refusing to pay Erecruit for amounts owed. In response, Willis asserted a Counterclaim alleging that Erecruit misled it as to Erecruit’s capabilities and then after Willis had already paid Erecruit $ 93,500, failed to deliver on the promises it made to provide Willis with a fully functional software product – promises that Erecruit knew at the time that it made them that it could not keep. Erecruit now moves for a judgment on the pleadings as to Willis’s Counterclaim. This Court concludes that the Motion must be DENIED for the reasons set forth in Willis’s Opposition, and offers the following by way of brief explanation. A motion pursuant to Rule 12(c), Mass.R.Civ.P., is governed by the same standard that apples to a motion made pursuant to Rule 12(b) (6). That is, it must be denied if the targeted claims contain factual allegations that are “adequately detailed so as to plausibly suggest an entitlement to relief.” Greenleaf Arms Realty Trust, LLC v. New Boston Fund, Inc., 81 Mass. App.Ct. 282, 288 (2012) (reversing lower court’s allowance of Rule 12(b) (6) motion); see also Iannacchino v. Ford Motor Co., 451 Mass. 623, 636 (2008). Plausibility is not the same as credibility. Thus, that the claim relies on facts that are improbable does not support dismissal as long as those allegations, “even if doubtful in fact,” “raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Iannachino, supra, quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S.544, 557 (2007). In seeking judgment in its favor before any discovery in the case has been conducted, Erecruit misapplies this standard, parsing the wording of the Counterclaim in a way that ignores the requirement that the Court draw all reasonable inferences from its factual allegations in favor of Willis. Although it is true that the claim of fraud (Count II of the Counterclaim) does call for greater particularity in pleadings, this Court concludes that even as to that count, the Counterclaim satisfies what is required of a claimant at this early stage in the litigation. The Counterclaim goes into some detail about the various misrepresentations that Erecruit made to Willis, […]