## Facts

- Mercury Skyline Yacht Charters, Inc. operated the sightseeing vessel *Chicago’s Little Lady* on the Chicago River.
- The Dave Matthews Band, Inc. employed Stefan A. Wohl as a driver for a leased tour bus equipped with a human-waste collection tank that could be emptied via a driver-controlled switch, discharging through a drain beneath the coach.
- While driving across the Kinzie Street bridge, which had an open grated area in its deck, Wohl allegedly discharged the waste tank as *Chicago’s Little Lady* passed underneath with 117 passengers onboard.
- The alleged discharge fell through the bridge grates onto the vessel and passengers, requiring significant cleanup and allegedly causing business disruption, lost profits, and reputational harm.
- The plaintiff sued on Illinois tort theories (trespass, public nuisance, tortious interference with business relationships, gross negligence, and negligence). Defendants removed on diversity and moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) and to strike damages allegations under Rule 12(f).

## Issues

1. Whether the complaint plausibly stated claims for negligence, gross negligence, trespass, public nuisance, and tortious interference with business relationships under Illinois law.
2. Whether Illinois’ economic-loss doctrine barred recovery of lost profits and other economic damages, particularly under a public-nuisance theory, absent personal injury or property damage.
3. Whether requested damages categories (including punitive and certain reputational/goodwill theories) were insufficiently pleaded or legally improper such that they should be stricken.

## Decision

- The court granted in part and denied in part the motions to dismiss and to strike.
- The court held the complaint sufficiently pleaded core tort claims, including negligence, gross negligence, trespass, public nuisance, and tortious interference, allowing them to proceed past Rule 12(b)(6).
- The court declined to treat the economic-loss doctrine as a categorical bar to a properly pleaded public-nuisance claim seeking economic damages tied to interference with a public right where the plaintiff alleged a special injury.
- The court struck certain damages allegations (including some punitive and certain reputational/goodwill theories) as inadequately supported, duplicative, or facially speculative, while permitting other damages allegations, including lost profits linked to the asserted torts, to remain.

## Legal Principles

- On a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the court accepts well-pleaded factual allegations as true and draws reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor; the question is plausibility, not proof.
- Negligence and gross negligence may be plausibly pleaded where alleged conduct makes harm to others reasonably foreseeable, and the complaint alleges duty, breach, causation, and damages; gross negligence requires allegations supporting conscious disregard or utter indifference.
- Trespass may be supported by allegations of a physical invasion or direct physical interference with the plaintiff’s property.
- A public-nuisance claim requires allegations of unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public; a private plaintiff must plead a special injury distinct from the public at large to seek damages.
- Illinois’ economic-loss doctrine does not automatically defeat a public-nuisance claim seeking economic damages when the pleaded theory rests on interference with a public right and alleges special injury; the availability and scope of such damages depend on nuisance principles and later proof.
- Rule 12(f) permits striking damages requests that are redundant or insufficiently pleaded; however, damages such as lost profits may remain where tied to plausible liability theories and not facially improper.

## Conclusion

The court allowed the plaintiff’s tort case to proceed based on allegations that a tour bus driver dumped human waste through a grated bridge onto a sightseeing vessel, while narrowing certain damages theories and rejecting a blanket economic-loss bar to nuisance-based economic damages at the pleading stage.


Mercury Skyline Yacht Charters, Inc. v. The Dave Matthews Band, Inc., No. 05 C 1698, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29663 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 22, 2005)