Aybar v. Crispin-Reyes

• Decision Date: 10 January 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-1676,CRISPIN-REYES,96-1676
• Citation: 118 F.3d 10
• Parties: Carlos Yamil AYBAR, Maria I. Morales-Laboy, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Digna, et al., Defendants, Appellees. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 10

118 F.3d 10

38 Fed.R.Serv.3d 693

Carlos Yamil AYBAR, Maria I. Morales-Laboy, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Digna CRISPIN-REYES, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 96-1676.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Heard Jan. 10, 1997.

Decided June 26, 1997.

Eduardo M. Joglar, Hato Rey, PR, with whom Esther Crespin Credi was on brief, for appellants.

John F. Nevares, San Juan, PR, with whom Lizzi M. Portela and Smith & Nevares, San Juan, PR, were on brief, for appellees.

Before STAHL, Circuit Judge, ALDRICH and CAMPBELL, Senior Circuit Judges.

STAHL, Circuit Judge.

This appeal concerns the district court's dismissal of and subsequent refusal to reconsider plaintiffs-appellants' 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims against two law enforcement officials of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Background

On March 25, 1993, appellees Sonia Otero-Martinez, Assistant District Attorney of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and Diana Crispin-Reyes, a Commonwealth of Puerto Rico police officer, filed criminal charges against appellant Carlos Yamil Aybar for the commission of sexual misconduct, based on the allegations of a witness named Emily Rivera. On April 29, 1993, officer Crispin-Reyes visited Aybar's place of employment, Wometco of Puerto Rico, and informed Aybar's superiors of the charges against him. Wometco subsequently terminated Aybar's employment. According to Aybar, his termination resulted from Crispin-Reyes' visit to Wometco. On July 13, 1993, appellant Maria I. Morales-Laboy, Aybar's then girlfriend and future wife who also was a Wometco employee, resigned from her position at Wometco citing as the cause of her resignation harassment from co-workers concerning the charges against Aybar. On July 1, 1994, the district court of Puerto Rico dismissed all charges against Aybar.

On July 1, 1994, Aybar and Morales-Laboy filed a complaint in federal district court naming numerous defendants and deriving from the prosecution of Aybar and his subsequent termination of employment. The complaint charged Otero-Martinez and Crispin-Reyes with violations of the Federal Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, allegedly for malicious prosecution of Aybar, violation of Aybar's right not to be subject to defamation, and infringement of his right to secure employment. Morales-Laboy alleged a continuous tort and, with Aybar, injury to their conjugal relationship, both stemming from the alleged violations of Aybar's civil rights. Aybar and Morales-Laboy also named the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Pedro Rossello (the Governor of Puerto Rico), Pedro Pierluisi (the Attorney General of Puerto Rico), and Pedro Toledo (the Puerto Rico Superintendent of Police) as defendants both in their official and in their personal capacities. On August 9, 1994, Aybar and Morales-Laboy amended the complaint to increase the damages sought.

On September 13, 1994, the Commonwealth and Pierluisi (in his official capacity) filed a motion to dismiss the claims against them based on the immunity afforded by the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution. On November 30, 1994, Rossello and Pierluisi, in his personal capacity, joined the motion to dismiss and filed a supplemental memorandum in support thereof. On February 7, 1995, Toledo also joined the motion to dismiss. Neither Otero-Martinez nor Crispin-Reyes joined in the motion. Aybar and Morales-Laboy failed to respond to the motion.

On March 15, 1995, the district court for the district of Puerto Rico (Fuste, J.) entered a final judgment pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) dismissing appellants' complaint against all defendants, including Otero-Martinez and Crispin-Reyes. The district court determined that appellants' § 1983 claim against all appellees for malicious prosecution did not state a claim for either a procedural or a substantive due process violation. The district court also found that although appellants' actions may have violated Aybar's Fourth Amendment rights, the applicable one year statute of limitations barred this claim. With respect to appellants' claimed violation of Aybar's right to secure employment, Judge Fuste ruled that Aybar, as an employee of a private corporation, did not possess a property interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court also concluded that defamation alone "cannot be the basis for a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983." The court further indicated that the Eleventh Amendment barred appellants' suit against Puerto Rico, Rossello, Pierluisi, and Toledo. Finally, the court held that appellants' claims against Otero-Martinez were barred because Otero-Martinez enjoyed absolute immunity as a state prosecutor prosecuting the state's case.

On March 31, 1995, appellants filed a motion for reconsideration of this judgment claiming, among other things, that the statute of limitations had tolled because he was a minor during the relevant period. On January 30, 1996, the district court denied the motion, again finding that the statute of limitations barred the malicious prosecution claim based on the alleged Fourth Amendment violation. Although the district court acknowledged that Aybar was a minor during much of the time preceding the filing of the complaint (a fact which normally would toll the running of the statute of limitations), the court concluded that Aybar's marriage "emancipated" him under Puerto Rico law, and thus precluded tolling. The district court upheld its earlier rulings for substantially the same reasons it previously had enunciated.

Undaunted, the appellants then filed a motion, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 52(b) and 59(e), to amend and reconsider the district court's January 30, 1996 order. ¹ In this motion, appellants contended that Aybar was not married during the period between March 25, 1993 (the date of Aybar's arrest) and April 16, 1994 (the date of Aybar's marriage to Morales-Laboy), and, therefore, that his minority status in fact did toll the statute of limitations until the latter date. On May 7, 1996, the district court denied this motion. Although Judge Fuste recognized that Aybar actually was not married during much of the time preceding the filing of the complaint, he found that Aybar represented to the court that in fact he was married during the relevant time by referring to Morales-Laboy as his wife and claiming injury to their conjugal relationship. After reminding the appellants of their duties to the court pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 11, the district court concluded that the appellants had failed to demonstrate that it "erroneously assessed their averments." This appeal followed. ²

Standard of Review

Our standard of review of a dismissal pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) is well established. We accept all well-pleaded facts as true and we draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the appellants. See Washington Legal Found. v. Massachusetts Bar Found., 993 F.2d 962, 971 (1st Cir.1993). "Because a dismissal terminates an action at the earliest stages of litigation without a developed factual basis for decision, we must carefully balance the rule of simplified civil pleadings against our need for more than conclusory allegations." Id. As we previously have explained, however, "once a motion to dismiss or a motion for summary judgment has been granted, the district court has substantial discretion in deciding whether to reopen the proceedings in order to allow the unsuccessful party to introduce new material or argue a new theory." Mackin v. City of Boston, 969 F.2d 1273, 1279 (1st Cir.1992). "Consequently, we will overturn the trial court's decision on such a matter only if an appellant can persuade us that the refusal to grant favorable reconsideration was a clear abuse of discretion." Id.; see Vasapolli v. Rostoff, 39 F.3d 27, 36 (1st Cir.1994) (explaining that "[w]e review a trial court's motion to alter or amend a judgment for manifest abuse of discretion"); Fragoso v. Lopez, 991 F.2d 878, 886 (1st Cir.1993) ("The trial court's decision on such a motion will be overturned only if the appellant convinces us that the court committed a clear abuse of discretion.").

Discussion

To determine the scope of this appeal, we first must resolve a threshold issue. Otero-Martinez and Crispin-Reyes argue that Aybar appealed only the district court's order of May 7, 1996, denying their second reconsideration motion. If true, then the only substantive issue for our resolution entails whether or not the district court abused its discretion in determining that Aybar's Fourth Amendment claim was barred due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. If, on the other hand, Aybar's notice of appeal pertained not only to the May 7th order, but also to the underlying judgment, then we must consider a number of issues in addition to Aybar's Fourth Amendment claim.

"Under Fed. R.App. P. 4(a) timely motions under Rules ... 52(b) and 59 suspend the finality of the original judgment, and the time for appeal from both that judgment and denial of the motions runs from the entry of the order denying the motions." Fiore v. Washington County Community Mental Health Ctr., 960 F.2d 229, 234 (1st Cir.1992); see Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(4)(B) & (C). In this case, appellants timely filed their first motion for reconsideration of the district court's initial March 15, 1995 order dismissing their claims. ³ Subsequent to the district court's denial of appellants' motion on January 30, 1996, appellants filed a renewed motion for reconsideration on February 13, 1996. Following the district court's May 7, 1996 denial of the latter motion for reconsideration, appellants appealed to this court on May 16, 1996. The appellants thus followed the procedural guidelines to preserve their appeal of the May 7th order. See Mariani-Giron v. Acevedo-Ruiz, 945 F.2d 1, 2 n. 3 (1st Cir.1991).

The appellants, however, did not timely appeal the underlying judgment. Fed. R.App. P 4(a)(1) dictates that "the notice of appeal required by Rule 3 must be...