Centro Medico Del Turabo v. Feliciano De Melecio

• Decision Date: 19 April 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-1967.,04-1967.
• Parties: CENTRO MEDICO DEL TURABO, INC., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Carmen FELICIANO DE MELECIO, Defendant, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 1

406 F.3d 1

CENTRO MEDICO DEL TURABO, INC., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Carmen FELICIANO DE MELECIO, Defendant, Appellee.

No. 04-1967.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard March 10, 2005.

Decided April 19, 2005.

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Fernando E. Agrait, with whom Orlando H. Martínez-Echeverría was on brief, for appellants.

Doraliz E. Ortiz-de-León, Assistant Solicitor General, with whom Roberto J. Sánchez Ramos, Solicitor General, Kenneth Pamias Velázquez, Deputy Solicitor General, and Camelia Fernández-Romeu, Office of the Solicitor General, were on brief, for appellee.

Before SELYA, Circuit Judge, COFFIN, Senior Circuit Judge, and LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

In this appeal, the plaintiffs challenge the district court's dismissal of their complaint, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, for failure to state a claim upon which relief might be granted. After careful consideration of the briefs and the record, we conclude that the most recent incident described in the complaint was not actionable; that the earlier incidents fell outside the limitations period; and, therefore, that the district court properly dismissed the complaint.

I. Background

Beginning in 1993, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico embarked on a process of privatizing its extensive network of public health facilities. That effort provides the backdrop for this litigation.

On November 22, 1999, plaintiffs-appellants Centro Medico del Turabo, Inc., Turabo Medical Center Partnership, Hospital Interamericano de Medicina Avanzada de Humacao, and Joaquín Rodríguez García (Rodríguez) filed a civil action against Carmen Feliciano de Melecio (the Commonwealth's Secretary of Health). The complaint charged that, between 1993 and 1999, the Secretary had refused to grant certificates of necessity and convenience required to develop certain medical facilities at two of the plaintiffs' hospitals,¹ denied them permission to transfer a license from one hospital to another, and awarded contracts for the purchase, lease, and/or administration of various public health facilities to entities not affiliated with the plaintiffs. The complaint further alleged that these acts and omissions were discriminatory, transgressed due process, denied the plaintiffs the equal protection of the laws, and were taken in retaliation for the plaintiffs' exercise of their First Amendment rights (i.e., their persistent challenges to various of the Secretary's actions in the local courts). The suit sought both damages and injunctive relief to redress these alleged constitutional harms.

The Secretary filed a motion to dismiss, arguing, inter alia, that the statute of limitations had run. The plaintiffs rejoined that the described incidents comprised an interrelated series of constitutional violations, one of which occurred within the limitations period, and, thus, that the "continuing violation" doctrine salvaged all of their claims. The district court disagreed and granted the motion to dismiss. See Centro Medico Del Turabo v. Feliciano De Melecio, 321 F.Supp.2d 285 (D.P.R.2004).

In pertinent part, the district court concluded that the complaint, on its face, demonstrated that the plaintiffs were aware as early as 1996 of the need to assert their rights in response to the Secretary's actions, but nevertheless failed seasonably to invoke section 1983. See id. at 292. The court then focused on the one timeous incident described in the complaint—the Secretary's contractual assignment of the Caguas Regional Hospital (CRH) to the control of a medical school, Escuela de Ciencias Medícas San Juan Bautista (San Juan Bautista), in July of 1999—and concluded that the circumstances there were neither sufficiently similar to those underlying the time-barred claims to justify treating it as a continuation of the earlier episodes nor independently sufficient to ground a cognizable constitutional claim. See id. at 292-94. This appeal ensued.

II. Discussion

In this venue, the plaintiffs argue that the 1999 grant to San Juan Bautista of the right to administer CRH was one in a series of discriminatory actions taken against them by the Secretary; that the 1999 incident falls within the limitations period; and that the events underlying the time-barred claims are so substantially related to that incident that the entire series of claims should be deemed timely filed under the continuing violation doctrine. We limn the standard of review, chart the contours of the pertinent legal landscape, and then turn to the plaintiffs' argument.

A. Standard of Review

The court below dismissed the plaintiffs' action for failure to state a claim under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). We review that determination de novo, adhering to the same criteria that bound the lower court. In re Colonial Mortg. Bankers Corp., 324 F.3d 12, 15 (1st Cir.2003). The tools of this trade include the complaint, documents annexed to it or fairly incorporated into it, and matters susceptible to judicial notice. Rodi v. S. New Eng. Sch. of Law, 389 F.3d 5, 12 (1st Cir.2004).

In a civil rights case, there is no heightened pleading standard. Educadores Puertorriquenos en Accion v. Hernandez, 367 F.3d 61, 66-67 (1st Cir.2004). Therefore, a district court charged with the adjudication of a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) must apply the notice pleading requirements of Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2). Rivera v. Rhode Island, 402 F.3d 27, 33 (1st Cir.2005); Educadores, 367 F.3d at 66. A complaint satisfies that standard if it contains "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief," Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2), and "give[s] the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiff's claim is and the grounds upon which it rests," Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957).

In measuring a complaint against this benchmark, a reviewing court must "assume the truth of all well-pleaded facts and indulge all reasonable inferences that fit the plaintiff's stated theory of liability." Colonial Mortg. Bankers, 324 F.3d at 15. Still, such a court is not bound to credit "bald assertions, unsupportable conclusions, periphrastic circumlocutions, and the like." Aulson v. Blanchard, 83 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir.1996).

Once the court has performed this tamisage, dismissal for failure to state a claim will be appropriate if the pleadings fail to set forth "factual allegations, either direct or inferential, respecting each material element necessary to sustain recovery under some actionable legal theory." Berner v. Delahanty, 129 F.3d 20, 25 (1st Cir.1997) (quoting Gooley v. Mobil Oil Corp., 851 F.2d 513, 515 (1st Cir.1988) (internal quotation marks omitted)). We will affirm a dismissal only if it is transparently clear that the complaint, in light of the facts alleged, engenders no viable theory of liability. Educadores, 367 F.3d at 66; Blackstone Realty LLC v. FDIC, 244 F.3d 193, 197 (1st Cir.2001).

Under this rubric, it is sometimes permissible to grant a motion to dismiss based on an affirmative defense, such as the statute of limitations. That happens "when the pleader's allegations leave no doubt that an asserted claim is time-barred." LaChapelle v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., 142 F.3d 507, 509 (1st Cir.1998). This is the test that we apply here.

B. The Limitations Period

Section 1983 creates a private right of action for redressing abridgments or deprivations of federally assured rights.² Cox v. Hainey, 391 F.3d 25, 29 (1st Cir.2004); McIntosh v. Antonino, 71 F.3d 29, 33 (1st Cir.1995). Because it does not contain a built-in limitations period, a federal court adjudicating a section 1983 action must borrow the forum state's general statute of limitations for personal injury actions. Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235, 240-41, 249-50, 109 S.Ct. 573, 102 L.Ed.2d 594 (1989); Nieves v. McSweeney, 241 F.3d 46, 51 (1st Cir.2001). In Puerto Rico, the limitations period for injuries to the person is one year. See 31 P.R. Laws Ann. § 5298(2). Accordingly, that term applies here. See Rodriguez-Garcia v. Municipality of Caguas, 354 F.3d 91, 96 (1st Cir.2004); Rivera-Muriente v. Agosto-Alicea, 959 F.2d 349, 353 (1st Cir.1992).

Puerto Rico's one-year limitations period begins to run one day after the date of accrual. See Carreras-Rosa v. Alves-Cruz, 127 F.3d 172, 175 (1st Cir.1997) (per curiam). The accrual date, however, is determined in accordance with federal law. Rivera-Muriente, 959 F.2d at 353. In a section 1983 case, a claim ordinarily accrues "when the plaintiff knows, or has reason to know, of the injury on which the action is based." Id.; see also Nieves-Marquez v. Puerto Rico, 353 F.3d 108, 119-20 (1st Cir.2003) (noting that a claim accrues "when facts supportive of a civil rights action are or should be apparent to a reasonably prudent person similarly situated" (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).

Here, the plaintiffs do not dispute that they knew, or had reason to know, of their injuries immediately following the occurrence of each of the various incidents. It is likewise undisputed that the only stand-alone claim of injury that falls chronologically within the limitations period is the claim relating to the Secretary's July 1999 transfer of administrative responsibility over CRH to San Juan Bautista. The plaintiffs nevertheless seek to salvage their earlier claims by bringing them under the umbrella of the continuing violation doctrine. To that end, they allege that the CRH contretemps was part of a long-running serial violation.³

Under the serial violation branch of the continuing violation doctrine, a plaintiff may link a number of discriminatory acts emanating from the same discriminatory animus, even though each act constitutes a separate wrong. See Provencher v. CVS Pharmacy, 145 F.3d 5, 14 (1st Cir.1998); Jensen v. Frank, 912 F.2d 517, 522 (1st Cir.1990). If the plaintiff can forge that link and can also show that at least one...