Boateng v. InterAmerican Univ. Inc.

• Decision Date: 08 March 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-1230,99-1230
• Citation: 210 F.3d 56
• Parties: (1st Cir. 2000) PETER A. BOATENG, PLAINTIFF, APPELLANT, v. INTERAMERICAN UNIVERSITY, INC., DEFENDANT, APPELLEE. Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 56

210 F.3d 56 (1st Cir. 2000)

PETER A. BOATENG, PLAINTIFF, APPELLANT, v. INTERAMERICAN UNIVERSITY, INC., DEFENDANT, APPELLEE.

No. 99-1230

United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit

Heard March 8, 2000

Decided April 18, 2000

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Marybeth Holland for appellant.

Alberto G. Estrella, with whom William Estrella Law Offices, Psc was on brief, for appellee.

Before Selya, Circuit Judge, Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge, and Lipez, Circuit Judge.

Selya, Circuit Judge.

This litigation crashes on the shoals of res judicata. Because the district court correctly apprehended this reality, we affirm its entry of judgment in the defendant's favor.

I. BACKGROUND

The relevant facts are undisputed. Dr. Peter Boateng, a black man from Ghana, began teaching accounting at the San German campus of InterAmerican University (the University) in 1988. Seven years later, the University denied him tenure but extended his probationary term as a professor for an additional year (during which time his candidacy was to be reevaluated). After unsuccessfully requesting reconsideration of the tenure denial, Boateng filed suit in the Puerto Rico Court of First Instance (Suit No. 1) on July 31, 1995. In his complaint, he invoked Puerto Rico law and alleged breach of contract and discrimination on the basis of race and nationality.

On March 16, 1996, Boateng amended his complaint to add an allegation that the University had retaliated against him by investigating charges that he had plagiarized some of his course materials. Following the completion of discovery and a six-day bench trial, the court entered a judgment in the University's favor. See Boateng v. InterAmerican Univ., No. I PE95-0122 (P.R. Super. Mar. 30, 1998). Boateng's efforts to undo the judgment - including a motion for reconsideration, an abortive appeal to the Puerto Rico Circuit Court of Appeals, and a petition for certiorari to the Puerto Rico Supreme Court - were uniformly unavailing.

Whilst prosecuting Suit No. 1, Boateng plied a parallel course. On January 19, 1996, after what Boateng apparently considered to be an unfavorable change of venue in Suit No. 1, he filed a second suit in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico (Suit No. 2). The only relevant difference between the amended complaint in Suit No. 1 and the complaint in Suit No. 2 was that the latter included a statement of claim under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to e-17.¹ On April 8, 1996, the University moved for dismissal of Suit No. 2 or, in the alternative, a stay. It attached to its motion an English translation of the complaint in Suit No. 1. The district court denied this motion.

The University filed another motion to dismiss Suit No. 2 on May 6, 1998, this time arguing that the judgment in Suit No 1 (a copy of which was attached to the motion) barred further proceedings. In response, Boateng asserted that the judgment was not final because, at that moment, the thirty-day appeal period (which he claimed had been tolled by the pendency of his motion for reconsideration) had not run. This rebuttal argument collapsed on June 30, when the Puerto Rico Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed as untimely Boateng's appeal from the judgment entered in Suit No. 1.

Boateng's fallback position was that his federal court case dealt with "matters different from those of the state court case (Title VII)." The district court rejected this argument and entered judgment in favor of the University. See Boateng v. InterAmerican Univ., 36 F. Supp. 2d 60 (D.P.R. 1998). This appeal ensued.

II. ANALYSIS

We review de novo orders granting summary judgment. See Garside v. Osco Drug, Inc., 895 F.2d 46, 48 (1st Cir. 1990). In undertaking such review here, we bifurcate our analysis, first addressing a procedural point and then discussing the applicability of res judicata in the circumstances of this case.

A. Conversion.

Boateng posits that the court below effectively converted the University's second motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment, expressly relying upon the complaint and judgment in Suit No. 1 in reaching its decision. He assigns error, contending that the court failed to furnish him advance notice and an opportunity to present opposing evidence before venturing outside the four corners of the pleadings in Suit No. 2. This contention derives from Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b), which provides that:

If, on a [Rule 12(b)(6)] motion..., matters outside the pleading are presented to and not excluded by the court, the motion shall be treated as one for summary judgment and disposed of as provided in Rule 56, and all parties shall be given reasonable opportunity to present all material made pertinent to such a motion by Rule 56.

As a preliminary matter, we question whether this case actually involved conversion. After all, a court may look to matters of public record in deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion without converting the motion into one for summary judgment. See Watterson v. Page, 987 F.2d 1, 3-4 (1st Cir. 1993). And a court ordinarily may treat documents from prior state court adjudications as public records. See Henson v. CSC Credit Servs., 29 F.3d 280, 284 (7th Cir. 1994) (collecting cases). In light of these principles, it is at least arguable that this case does not involve conversion at all.

Having raised this point, we conclude that we need not decide it definitively. The University has not challenged the fact of conversion, and we therefore assume, for argument's sake, that the court converted the motion. On that assumption, we consider Boateng's procedural argument.

We have interpreted Rule 12(b) as requiring some type of notice as a condition precedent to a court's conversion of a motion to dismiss into one for summary judgment. See, e.g., Collier v. City of Chicopee, 158 F.3d 601, 603 (1st Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1023 (1999). Withal, "this circuit does not mechanistically enforce the requirement of express notice of a district court's intention to convert a Rule 12(b)(6) motion into a motion for summary judgment. Instead, we treat 'any error in failing to give express notice as harmless when the opponent has received the affidavit and materials, has had an opportunity to respond to them, and has not controverted their accuracy.'" Chaparro-Febus v. International Longshoremen Ass'n, Local 1575, 983 F.2d 325, 332 (1st Cir. 1992) (quoting Moody v. Town of Weymouth, 805 F.2d 30, 31 (1st Cir. 1986) (per curiam)); see also Rodriguez v. Fullerton Tires Corp., 115 F.3d 81, 83 (1st Cir. 1997) (explaining that "[t]he proper approach to conversion under [Rule 12(b)] is functional rather than mechanical"). Viewed against this mise en scene, Boateng's position is untenable.

The documents on which the district court relied were familiar to Boateng. The University submitted copies of those documents in the course of litigating Suit No. 2, and in all events, Boateng obviously possessed copies of both the complaint he himself had filed in Suit No. 1 and the judgment terminating that action. The motion to dismiss explicitly mentioned the complaint and the judgment, and rendered the court's reliance on those documents readily foreseeable. Furthermore, some seven months elapsed between the service of the University's second motion to dismiss and the district court's decision. During this interval, Boateng filed two responsive pleadings, one of which included a copy of a motion for reconsideration in Suit No. 1 (thus impliedly inviting the court to consider the record in that case). The short of it, then, is that Boateng was familiar with the proffered documents, had ample opportunity to respond to them, and, in fact, did so. By the same token, he had a full and fair chance to contest the accuracy of the proffered documents, but did not do so.²

That ends the matter. No more was exigible to effect substantial compliance with the applicable notice requirement. See Collier, 158 F.3d at 603 (explaining that "the notice requirement [anent Rule 12(b)] can be satisfied when a party receives constructive notice that the court has been afforded the option of conversion - a phenomenon that occurs when, for example, the movant attaches to his motion, and relies on, materials dehors the pleadings"). If failing to announce the conversion entailed error at all - a matter on which we need not opine -the error was harmless. See Chaparro-Febus, 983 F.2d at 332.

B. Res Judicata.

We turn now to the res judicata issue. In determining the preclusive effect of a state court judgment in federal court - and Puerto Rico is, for this purpose, the functional equivalent of a state, see Cruz v. Melecio, 204 F.3d 14, 18 n.2 (1st Cir. 2000) - the question is whether courts in the rendering state would ascribe preclusive effect to the judgment. See 28 U.S.C. § 1738; see also Kremer v. Chemical Constr. Corp., 456 U.S. 461, 466 (1982). For a judgment to have preclusive effect in a subsequent action, Puerto Rico law requires "the most perfect identity between the things, causes, and persons of the litigants, and their capacity as such." P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, § 3343. Boateng concedes that the two suits involve identical parties, but asseverates that there is no perfect identity of "things" or "causes" between them. This asseveration cannot withstand scrutiny.

Puerto Rico courts do not interpret the phrase "perfect identity" literally. See Cruz, 204 F.3d at 19; Futura Dev. Corp. v. Centex Corp., 761 F.2d 33, 43-45 (1st Cir. 1985). For res judicata purposes, "[t]he thing corresponds basically to the object or matter over which the action is exercised." Lausell Marxuach v. Daz de Yanez, 3 P.R. Offic. Trans. 742, 745 (1975). The test for identity of "things" is whether a decision in the second action may contradict the prior adjudication. See A & P Gen. Contractors, Inc. v. Asociacion Cana, 10 P.R. Offic. Trans. 987, 998 (1981). Similarly, "ca...