CYNTHIA M. RUFE, District Judge.
Presently before the Court is Defendant Samuel Zieleniec's motion to dismiss the Amended Complaint for failure to state a claim.
The Amended Complaint alleges the following facts. Starting in 2007, Zieleniec solicited investments from Plaintiff Glenn Segal, a resident of Pennsylvania, to fund a series of loans to owners of real property in Israel. Between June 4, 2007 and October 18, 2007, Zieleniec and Segal entered into four Trust Agreements that are the subject of this litigation: the Baka Trust, the Katamon Trust, the Metudela Trust, and the Avida Trust. Zieleniec was the trustee, and Segal was the beneficiary. After problems developed with the Trusts, Defendant Zieleniec's father Henry Zieleniec became co-trustee.
The Trust Agreements provide that "the beneficiary together with others have decided to provide private loans to third parties" and that the beneficiary would wire a specified principal amount into an escrow account set up on the Trust's behalf.
Zieleniec, as trustee, agreed to undertake certain fiduciary duties to Segal as beneficiary. Zieleniec agreed to "hold and manage" the Trust property on Segal's behalf, and not to benefit from the Trust or Trust property without Segal's written consent.
Between July 1, 2007 and October 18, 2007, Segal wired a total of $1,060,000 to the escrow accounts of the Trust in order to fulfill his obligations under the Trust Agreements. Even if extended to twelve months, the term of every loan made pursuant to the Trust Agreements had expired by October 18, 2008. At that time, Segal's investment was not repaid in full. Although Segal never received any payments whatsoever on his investment in the Baka Trust, Segal received interest payments totaling $578,482.19 on his investments in the Katamon, Metudela, and Avida Trusts, with the last payment received on November 20, 2012. Segal alleges losses on his investments totaling $1,935,580.01 in outstanding principal and unpaid interest, with interest continuing to accrue at 2% per month after the filing of this case.
Segal contends that his losses were caused by Zieleniec's failure to perform his fiduciary duties under the Trust and Zieleniec's fraudulent misrepresentations. Zieleniec allegedly did not fund any loans, rendering all of his representations regarding the nature of the loan transactions fraudulent. Segal alleges that the Trusts were a Ponzi scheme and Zieleniec used the funds deposited into escrow for his own personal gain and to repay earlier investors. Defendant Zieleniec and his father Henry Zieleniec allegedly made fraudulent representations regarding their attempts to collect the loans, including that payment was delayed by the borrowers' bankruptcies or involvement in litigation. Defendant Zieleniec and Henry Zieleniec also allegedly refused to provide documentation of their administration of the Trusts, including an accounting of their actions on behalf of the Trusts. Notably, Segal does not plead when any of these failures to perform a fiduciary duty or fraudulent misrepresentations occurred.
On November 20, 2013, Segal filed this action in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas against Defendant Zieleniec and Henry Zieleniec. On December 23, 2013, Defendants timely removed the case to this Court and Segal filed an Amended Complaint on January 13, 2014. The Amended Complaint asserts nine state law causes of action arising out of Zieleniec's alleged failures to perform his fiduciary duties and fraudulent misrepresentations: 1) Breach of Contract; 2) Breach of Fiduciary Duty; 3) and 4) Two Counts of Fraud; 5) Violation of the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law ("UTPCPL");
On January 27, 2014, Defendants moved to dismiss the Amended Complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. By memorandum opinion and order dated June 16, 2014, this Court dismissed all claims against Henry Zieleniec for lack of personal jurisdiction, but held that Defendant Zieleniec's contacts with Pennsylvania were sufficient to subject him to personal jurisdiction. Zieleniec is therefore the sole remaining defendant in this action. With regard to whether Segal had stated a claim against Zieleniec, the Court found that it could not determine what law to apply due to the parties' agreement that Israeli law would govern the trust agreements. The Court therefore denied this aspect of Defendants' motion without prejudice until the parties briefed the choice of law issue.
On July 28, 2014, Zieleniec filed a renewed motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, which raises a statute of limitations defense to Segal's claims for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, conversion, negligence, unjust enrichment and civil conspiracy. Zieleniec further contends that Segal's remaining claim, for violation of the UTPCPL, should be dismissed because Segal's claims do not fall within the statute. For the purposes of this motion, the parties agree that Pennsylvania law governs the statute of limitations defense.
In order to survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, a complaint must contain "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief."
A plaintiff is not required to plead facts sufficient to overcome affirmative defenses, such as failure to comply with the statute of limitations, in order to survive a motion to dismiss.
Under Pennsylvania law, the statute of limitations begins to run "as soon as the right to institute and maintain suit arises."
Based upon the current record, the Court cannot determine as a matter of law that any of the claims are time-barred because the statutes of limitation for all of Segal's claims are subject to tolling under Pennsylvania's "discovery rule." The discovery rule "applies in Pennsylvania to all causes of action, including breach of contract."
However, that Segal did not receive full repayment of his investment is insufficient to establish, as a matter of law, that Segal knew or should have known of the alleged cause of his injuries: Zieleniec's failure to perform his fiduciary duties and fraudulent misrepresentations. The Trust Agreements provided that the loans were to be made to third parties in Israel, and Plaintiff argues that he was deceived by allegedly fraudulent statements by the Zieleniecs that the purported Israeli borrowers were unable to pay on time because they were involved in bankruptcies or litigation. Segal also alleges that he received what were purported to be interest payments from the Katamon, Metudela, and Avida Trusts into 2012. The Amended Complaint also alleges that Segal made repeated requests for records of the Trusts' activities, but the Zieleniecs refused to provide them. Segal does not plead when he discovered the alleged causes of his injury, and he is not required to do so at this stage of the proceedings.
In the context of the discovery rule, "when the pleading does not reveal when the statute of limitations period began to run ... the statute of limitations cannot justify Rule 12 dismissal."
Rather than raising a statute of limitations defense, Zieleniec moves to dismiss Segal's UTPCPL claim on the basis that the loan transactions at issue do not fall within the scope of the UTPCPL. Because the UTPCPL is a Pennsylvania statute, the Court may apply Pennsylvania law in determining its merits. The private right of action under the UTPCPL applies only to "purchases or leases [of] goods or services primarily for personal, family, or household purposes."
The Court finds that Segal cannot obtain relief under the plain language of the statute. In funding loans to Israeli borrowers through the Trust Agreements, Segal did not purchase a good or service. Segal also does not allege that he viewed the loan transactions as anything other than an investment, and investment is not a personal, family or household purpose as those terms are ordinarily used. Thus, Segal's UTPCPL claim will be dismissed.
For the reasons stated above, Defendant's Renewed Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint will be granted in part and denied in part. None of Segal's claims will be dismissed as time-barred because the Amended Complaint does not permit the conclusion that the discovery rule does not apply or when the cause of Segal's injuries was known or reasonably knowable. Dismissal of the UTPCPL claim will be granted because the investment transactions at issue in this case do not fall within the scope of the statute.
An appropriate order follows.