Torres v. E.I. Dupont De Nemours & Co.

• Decision Date: 06 January 2000
• Docket Number: AGRO-INDUSTRIAS,TORRES-SANTOS,TORRES-SANTO,Nos. 99-1066,99-1102,TORRES-SANCHEZ,s. 99-1066
• Citation: 219 F.3d 13
• Parties: (1st Cir. 2000) WILSON TORRES, d/b/aDE Comerio; ARMANDO TORRES, d/b/aDE Comerio; Plaintiffs, ANGEL LUIS, d/b/a/DE Comerio; MELBA; LUIS ANGELS; ZULMA;DE Comerio; Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. E.I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & COMPANY, a/k/a DUPONT CORP., a/k/a DUPONT CO.; A, B, C AS UNKNOWN DEFENDANTS; XYZ INSURANCE CO., Defendants, Appellees. Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 13

219 F.3d 13 (1st Cir. 2000)

WILSON TORRES, d/b/a AGRO-INDUSTRIAS DE Comerio; ARMANDO TORRES, d/b/a AGRO-INDUSTRIAS DE Comerio; Plaintiffs, ANGEL LUIS TORRES-SANCHEZ, d/b/a/ AGRO-INDUSTRIAS DE Comerio; MELBA TORRES-SANTO; LUIS ANGEL TORRES-SANTOS; ZULMA TORRES-SANTO; AGRO-INDUSTRIAS DE Comerio; Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. E.I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & COMPANY, a/k/a DUPONT CORP., a/k/a DUPONT CO.; A, B, C AS UNKNOWN DEFENDANTS; XYZ INSURANCE CO., Defendants, Appellees.

Nos. 99-1066, 99-1102

United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit

Heard Jan. 6, 2000.

Decided July 17, 2000.

APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO. Hon. Juan M. Perez-Gimenez, U.S. District Judge. Jesus A. Castellanos, U.S. Magistrate Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] James L. Ferraro, with whom Ana M. Rivero, Kerry A. Raleigh, and Ferraro & Associates, P.A. were on brief, for appellants.

Eric A. Tulla, with whom Jorge L. Cordova, Guillermo Ramos-Luina, Ramon L. Vinas-Bueso and Rivera, Tulla & Ferrer were on brief, for appellee E.I. Dupont De Nemours and Company, Inc.

Before: Torruella, Chief Judge, Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge, and Lynch, Circuit Judge.

TORRUELLA, Chief Judge.

Appellants Angel Luis Torres and Agro-Industrias de Comerio sued E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company for producing a fungicide that, due to contamination or other defect, allegedly destroyed appellants' papaya crops in 1988. DuPont moved for summary judgment on the basis that the suit was barred both by judicial estoppel and the applicable statute of limitations. The district court granted the judicial estoppel motion only as to Agro-Industrias de Comerio but granted summary judgment as to both appellants on the statute of limitations ground. See Torres v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., No. 94-2632 (D.P.R. June 22, 1998) ("Torres I"); Torres v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., No. 94-2632 (D.P.R. Nov. 30, 1998) ("Torres II"). The latter ruling was premised on the court's conclusion that appellants had the requisite legal knowledge of their injury and its cause in 1988, four years prior to the initiation of this suit. We see no error in this determination. Accordingly, we affirm the entry of summary judgment.¹

BACKGROUND

I. Factual Background

In the 1980s, appellants Angel Luis Torres and Agro-Industrias de Comerio were engaged in the cultivation, planting, and sale of papayas in Puerto Rico. They had separate businesses and finances, but they shared practices, employees, customers, and tracts of land. Appellant Torres was the president of the Board of Directors of Agro-Industrias; while his brother, Armando Torres, was the corporation's general manager and sole shareholder.

Beginning in 1988, appellants purchased Benlate 50 DF, a fungicide manufactured and sold by appellee E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company, for application to their papaya crops. According to appellants, the Benlate was "either contaminated with one or more herbicides, incompatible fungicides or other chemicals toxic to plants, or was defectively designed, or both." Appellants allege that as a result of this contamination or defect, the Benlate stunted the tree and fruit growth of their papaya plants, caused abnormal root growth, chlorosis, and ultimately, the death of the papaya trees.

In his deposition, Armando Torres outlined the time frame of appellants' injury, stating that during the summer of 1988 the papaya crops of Agro-Industrias and Torres exhibited symptoms of a disease once fumigated with Benlate:

After the trip [in April of 1988], . . . I was grateful to DuPont who had taken me on a trip to see agriculture. I asked my brother Angel Luis [Torres] what was the product that DuPont distributed in Puerto Rico because I didn't know and he told me that it was Benlate. It was the main one, it was a panacea, the best thing in the world and logically, well, I fumigated the entire plantation with Benlate.

The symptoms began during the one (1) week period but this extended more, it was a little bit slower process. During the period of approximately one (1) month after the moment we already became aware that something more deep rooted was failing was when we began to . . . [c]all agronomists to investigate what was happening and high ranking officials, especially [Eugenio Toro,] the person who gave us orientation at the level of Puerto Rico . . . . All of the agronomists from the area, from the Agricultural Extension Service, all of them visited [appellants'] farm . . . .

Deposition testimony from several other witnesses corroborated Armando Torres's account, each indicating that damage to appellants' crops was apparent following the 1988 application of Benlate. Ventura Cruz-Sanchez, an employee who worked with Armando Torres from 1986 to 1989, stated in his deposition that once "we sprayed the poison [onto the papaya crops], the following day we had to pull a machete and start cutting them up." Similarly, Angel Rivera-Rodrguez, appellants' chemicals supplier, testified that he visited appellants' papaya farms both before and after the application of Benlate sometime in 1987 or 1988. Rivera described appellants' crops prior to the application of Benlate as "[a] robust seeding area with lots of fruits and pretty." However, "[a]fter the Benlate, the plantation looked unnourished, yellowish, the fruit falling to the ground without reaching ripeness." Rivera further testified that Armando Torres told him that after the papayas had been sprayed with Benlate "they had become unwell."

Similarly, Eugenio Toro, a tropical fruit specialist employed by the Agricultural Extension Service, testified that by late 1988 or early 1989, he considered the possibility that the damage to appellants' papaya crops was being caused by something physiological, "possibl[y] an intoxication with something." Further, by that time he had rejected disease, lack-of-nutrient problems, or excessive rainfall as potential causes. He recommended that appellants harvest the fruit that was available and abandon the papaya fields.

The testimony presented to the district court was not, however, entirely unequivocal. Ramon Luis Martnez-Zayas, an Agricultural Agent for the Extension Service who visited appellants' farm, testified that the cause of the damage to the papaya plants was not immediately clear. He stated that sometime after 1987, discovering the cause of the damage to the papaya crops "really sort of became a huge jigsaw puzzle because it wasn't only [Angel] Luis [Torres], it was all of the papaya producers and we started making some conjectures as to what could be happening but we really didn't have anything clear as to what was happening as such."

Despite the initial uncertainty, David Berros, an Area Agronomist for Puerto Rico, testified that he became aware of complaints from farmers in appellants' region relating to the use of Benlate in the late 1980s and that at least one farmer in the region was taking steps to make a claim against DuPont in 1988 or 1989. More important, one of appellants' clients, Miguel A. Colon-Capeles, testified at his deposition that Armando Torres requested "a certification" of the papayas he had purchased from appellants in 1986, 1987, and 1988. According to Colon-Capeles, Armando Torres stated that he needed the certification "because they had a claim against the DuPont company concerning a chemical which had apparently affected the sowing and the farms and the lands in which they had their 'papaya' farms." He reiterated that Armando Torres "requested that he needed a certification what he had sold to me during the year so as to be able to support his case."

In response to discovery, appellants produced a similar proof of papaya purchases from a second customer, Fermn Rivera Torres. The January 10, 1990 document certified the amount of papaya purchased from Angel Luis Torres from 1984 to 1988.

Due to the alleged destruction of their crops by Benlate, appellants were no longer cultivating papaya as of 1989.

II. Procedural History

On September 23, 1992, appellants sent a demand letter to DuPont claiming damages in the amount of $4,000,000. Two years later, on October 21, 1994, Wilson Torres, Armando Torres, and Angel Luis Torres, doing business as Agro-Industrias de Comerio, sued E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company in the Superior Court of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. DuPont removed the case to the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico pursuant to the diversity of citizenship statute. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). Following removal, appellants amended the complaint, dropping Armando and Wilson Torres and adding Agro-Industrias de Comerio as a named plaintiff. During the pendency of this action, Angel Luis Torres died and his cause of action was inherited by his heirs.

On March 28, 1998, DuPont filed its first motion for summary judgment. In that motion, DuPont raised two defenses: judicial estoppel and the statute of limitations. DuPont asserted that (1) appellants had failed to disclose their claims in previous bankruptcy actions, and (2) the claims of Agro-Industrias, filed in June of 1997, were time-barred. The district court granted DuPont's motion for summary judgment on the judicial estoppel ground as to Agro-Industrias but denied the motion as to appellant Torres. See Torres I, slip op. at 9-15. The court reasoned that Agro-Industrias was aware of its potential claim against DuPont prior to filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition in 1992, failed to make the required disclosure, and thereafter obtained relief from the bankruptcy court as a result of this misrepresentation. Seeid. at 11-15. In contrast, the court determined that Torres had failed to comply with the statutory disclosure requirements related to his Chapter 13 bankruptcy proceeding, but, unlike Agro-Industrias, he did not receive relief from the bankruptcy court. See id. at 9-11. Accordingly, appellant Torres's claims were not subject to...