Aguilar v. Rp Mrp Washington Harbour, LLC

98 A.3d 979 (D.C. 2014)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

The Potomac River surged, and ten to twelve feet of water flooded the ground-level businesses, basement, and parking lot at Washington Harbour. Ps allege that at the time of the flood, the flood walls were only partially raised or not raised at all and that it was not until hours after the flood that the flood walls were fully raised. Ps' employers were forced to close, most of them temporarily - in some cases days, in other cases for several weeks - and, in at least one case, permanently. Ps sued D for negligence seeking to recover lost wages that resulted from the closure of their workplaces due to a flood at the Washington Harbour retail complex. Ps claimed that Ds owed them a duty of care to ensure the safe operation of Washington Harbour, which included raising the flood walls when notified of an impending flood, and that by failing to do so before the April 2011 flood, Ds breached that duty. The District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Services spokesman Pete Piringer said 'had the wall[s] been up, [they] would have prevented a flood.' D filed a motion to dismiss in that the economic loss doctrine bars recovery of claims alleging solely economic loss stemming from a defendant's negligence. Ps urged the court to ignore the economic loss doctrine in favor of a foreseeability test to determine whether Ds owed them a duty of care to raise the flood walls to prevent economic injury. The court ruled for D and Ps appealed.