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Strynar v. Rahill3/28/2002
d notice to the attorney general of these proceedings. Nevertheless, the only state constitutional provision that plaintiff cites is article 1, section 5, of the Rhode Island Constitution, guaranteeing "a certain remedy, by having recourse to the laws, for all injuries or wrongs which may be received in one's person." The plaintiff argues that, without an "opt out provision," the IOD statute violates this provision. Here, however, with respect to a limited class of defendants (municipalities, fellow police officers, superiors, and municipal officials), the IOD statute provides municipal police officers with a certain remedy, available under law, for all the work-related personal injuries and wrongs that municipal police officers may suffer that incapacitates them for police work. Although the IOD statute provides an alternative remedy to the common-law claims that otherwise would arise out of such injuries -- even though in some respects it may not afford as desirable or as complete a remedy to the incapacitated police officer as the common law might allow --it is no less a certain remedy, available under law, for all the injuries and wrongs that it covers. Therefore, the IOD statute does not violate article 1, section 5, of the Rhode Island Constitution.
Furthermore, because plaintiff does not specify how the IOD statute allegedly violated his due-process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution -- much less set forth his reasoning in support of this constitutional claim -- we are unable to address this asserted error on the merits. By failing to brief this assertion properly, he has waived that specification of error. See, e.g., Wilkinson v. The State Crime Laboratory Commission, 788 A.2d 1129, 1132 n.1 (R.I. 2002).
The plaintiff's next contention is that the motion justice should have treated the defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint as one for summary judgment because the parties presented evidentiary matters to the court that were not contained within the pleadings. The plaintiff also asserts that the court erred in fully dismissing his complaint because the defendants had only moved for a partial dismissal. This Court applies the same legal standard as the trial justice when reviewing the grant or denial of a Super. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. Hendrick v. Hendrick, 755 A.2d 784, 793 (R.I. 2000). "A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) will only be granted 'when it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the plaintiff would not be entitled to relief from the defendant under any set of facts that could be proven in support of the plaintiff's claim.'" Id. (quoting Bruno v. Criterion Holdings, Inc., 736 A.2d 99, 99 (R.I. 1999) and Folan v. State, 723 A.2d 287, 289 (R.I. 1999)). A dismissal motion that relies on evidence outside of the pleadings, however, must be treated as a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56 of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure. See Martin v. Howard, 784 A.2d 291, 298-99 (R.I. 2001).
Contrary to the plaintiff's assertions, however, the motion justice granted the defendants' dismissal motions on the grounds that the IOD statute barred all the claims in the complaint and that the defendants were entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. In doing so, she clearly dismissed the complaint based only on the allegations contained therein, without relying on any extraneous evidentiary material. Indeed, she expressly confined her dismissal decision to the four corners of the complaint, stating "I don't think there are any facts, other than the pleadings properly before the Court, unless there are affidavits, or something of that nature. So, counsel for the plaintiff, I will decide this particular motion as a mo
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