NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 18 2022
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
CHAD BARRY BARNES, No. 20-17141
Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No.
1:13-cv-00002-ACK-WRP
v.
KRIS HENRY, INC.; et al., MEMORANDUM*
Defendants-Appellees,
and
SEA HAWAII RAFTING, LLC; et al.,
Defendants.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Hawaii
Alan C. Kay, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted February 16, 2022**
Honolulu, Hawaii
Before: HAWKINS, R. NELSON, and FORREST, Circuit Judges.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
Chad Barnes was injured when the vessel he was working on exploded.
Barnes has brought numerous actions in admiralty against his employer at the time
of the injury, Sea Hawaii Rafting, LLC (“SHR”), and SHR’s sole member and
owner, Kris Henry. This case concerns allegations that SHR improperly transferred
assets to avoid Barnes’s collections efforts and names several new defendants that
Barnes alleges colluded with Henry to hide profits. On motion of the newly named
defendants, the district court dismissed part of Barnes’s Third Amended Complaint
for failure to state a claim. Barnes timely appealed. We have jurisdiction under 28
U.S.C. § 1292(a)(3) to consider arguments related to the district court’s dismissal,
see Barnes v. Sea Hawaii Rafting, LLC, 889 F.3d 517, 528 (9th Cir. 2018), and we
affirm.
1. Conversion. Barnes argues that the district court erred by failing to
convert the motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment. We review this
decision for an abuse of discretion. Hamilton Materials Inc. v. Dow Chem. Corp.,
494 F.3d 1203, 1206 (9th Cir. 2007). “If, on a motion under Rule 12(b)(6) or 12(c),
matters outside the pleadings are presented to and not excluded by the court, the
motion must be treated as one for summary judgment under Rule 56.” Fed. R. Civ.
P. 12(d). A district court does not abuse its discretion under Rule 12(d) when it does
not consider matters requiring conversion. See Hicks v. PGA Tour, Inc., 897 F.3d
1109, 1117 (9th Cir. 2018). Also, a district court may properly decline to convert a
2
motion where the proffered materials outside the pleadings are “superfluous” or
unnecessary because a “non-moving party does not have to substantiate its
allegations.” Shaver v. Operating Eng’rs Loc. 428 Pension Tr. Fund, 332 F.3d 1198,
1201 (9th Cir. 2003).
The district court expressly declined to consider evidence outside of the
pleadings that the parties introduced. The district court also properly found that there
was no need to consider this evidence because it was redundant of what was alleged
in Barnes’s Third Amended Complaint. Therefore, we conclude that the district
court did not abuse its discretion in declining to convert the motion to dismiss.
2. Accounting Claim. Barnes next argues that the district court erred in
dismissing his accounting claim. We review “a district court’s grant of a Rule
12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim de novo.” Bain v. Cal. Tchrs.
Ass’n, 891 F.3d 1206, 1211 (9th Cir. 2018) (citing Edwards v. Marin Park, Inc., 356
F.3d 1058, 1061 (9th Cir. 2004)). “A motion under Rule 12(b)(6) should be granted
only if ‘it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support
of his claim which would entitle him to relief,’ construing the complaint in the light
most favorable to the plaintiff.” Edwards, 356 F.3d at 1061 (citations omitted).
“The action of accounting is designed to provide a remedy to compel a person
who, by virtue of some confidential or trust relationship, has received or been
entrusted with money or property belonging to another or which is to be applied or
3
disposed of in a particular manner, to render an account thereof.” Block v. Lea, 688
P.2d 724, 732–33 (Haw. Ct. App. 1984). A “necessary prerequisite to the right to
maintain a suit for an equitable accounting, like all other equitable remedies is . . .
the absence of an adequate remedy at law.” Porter v. Hu, 169 P.3d 994, 1007 (Haw.
Ct. App. 2007) (citation omitted).
Barnes’s arguments are unpersuasive for two reasons. First, the district court
is correct that Barnes did not allege any confidential or trust relationship between
himself and the newly named defendants. See Block, 688 P.2d at 732–33. Second,
as the district court recognized, Barnes has an adequate remedy at law because “[t]he
information sought in the accounting claim is accessible to [Barnes] through the
normal discovery process.” See Gray v. OneWest Bank, Fed. Sav. Bank, No. 13-
00547 JMS–KSC, 2014 WL 3899548, at *14 (D. Haw. Aug. 11, 2014)
(unpublished). The district court therefore did not err in dismissing Barnes’s
accounting claim.
3. Unrelated Arguments. Barnes also contends that the district court erred
in threatening his attorney with sanctions and failing to address certain constitutional
arguments or other pending issues. These arguments have no relation to the order
that he appealed and are beyond the proper scope of this appeal. See Swint v.
Chambers Cnty. Comm’n, 514 U.S. 35, 50 (1995) (recognizing that the scope of
4
interlocutory jurisdiction is generally limited to the “precise decision independently
subject to appeal”). We therefore lack jurisdiction to decide these issues.1
AFFIRMED.
1
In his Opening Brief, Barnes asked “this Court to determine whether or not
his appeal tolled the 30-day deadline the [district court] set to seek permission to
amend his complaint.” He concedes that this argument is moot in his reply because
he sought and was granted leave to file his Fourth Amended Complaint. We
therefore do not address this issue.
5
Chad Barnes v. Kris Henry, Inc.
Combined Opinion