Arce v. Garcia

• Decision Date: 04 January 2006
• Docket Number: No. 02-14427.,02-14427.
• Citation: 434 F.3d 1254
• Parties: Juan Romagoza ARCE, Neris Gonzalez, and Carlos Mauricio, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Jose Guillermo GARCIA, an Individual, Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, an Individual, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

434 F.3d 1254

Juan Romagoza ARCE, Neris Gonzalez, and Carlos Mauricio, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Jose Guillermo GARCIA, an Individual, Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, an Individual, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 02-14427.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

January 4, 2006.

Kurt R. Klaus, Jr., Coral Gables, FL, for Defendants-Appellants.

Peter J. Stern, Morrison & Foerster, LLP, Tokyo, Japan, James K. Green, James K. Green, P.A., West Palm Beach, FL, Joshua N. Sondheimer, San Francisco, CA, Carolyn P. Blum, UC School of Law-Boalt Hall, New York City, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court Southern District of Florida.

Before TJOFLAT and CARNES, Circuit Judges, and CONWAY^*, District Judge.

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

On its own motion, entered on August 5, 2005, the court vacated its opinion issued on February 28, 2005, in Arce v. Garcia, 400 F.3d 1340. We substitute the following as the opinion of the court:

The three plaintiffs in this case are Salvadoran refugees who were allegedly tortured by military personnel in El Salvador during a campaign of human rights violations by the Salvadoran military from 1979 to 1983; the two defendants were leaders in the Salvadoran military. All of the plaintiffs sought compensatory and punitive damages under the Torture Victim Protection Act ("TVPA"), 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note;¹ two plaintiffs sought the same relief under the Alien Tort Claims Act ("ATCA"), 28 U.S.C. § 1350.² A jury awarded the plaintiffs a total of $54,600,000, and the court entered judgments accordingly. The defendants now appeal, contending that the statute of limitations bars the plaintiffs' claims. We conclude, based on the doctrine of equitable tolling, that the claims are not time-barred.

I.

The plaintiffs in this case are Juan Romagoza Arce, Neris Gonzalez, and Carlos Mauricio. Arce, a physician, was allegedly kidnapped by Salvadoran soldiers on or about December 12, 1980 and tortured for approximately twenty-two days; he arrived in the United States in 1983. Gonzalez, a lay worker with the Catholic Church, was allegedly abducted by Salvadoran soldiers on December 26, 1979 and tortured for approximately twelve days; she came to the United States in 1997. Mauricio, a college professor, was allegedly kidnapped on June 13, 1983 and tortured for approximately ten days at the National Police Headquarters; he came to the United States in 1983.

The defendants in this case are Jose Garcia and Carlos Vides Casanova. Garcia served as Minister of Defense of El Salvador from 1979 to 1983, and Casanova served as Director General of the El Salvador National Guard during the same period. After Garcia resigned as Minister of Defense in 1983, Casanova was appointed as his successor and held the position of Minister of Defense until he resigned in 1989. Both defendants became permanent residents of the United States in 1989, Casanova in August and Garcia in October.

II.

A.

Arce and Gonzalez³ commenced this action against Garcia and Casanova on May 11, 1999, by filing in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida a nine-count complaint seeking compensatory and punitive damages for torture they allegedly suffered at the hands of Salvadoran military personnel under the defendants' command. They invoked the court's jurisdiction under the ATCA, by claiming that the torture had been administered in violation of the law of nations and treaties of the United States,⁴ and 28 U.S.C. § 1331, by claiming that the torture was actionable under the TVPA. On November 12, 1999, they moved the court for leave to amend their complaint, in conformance with the amended complaint attached to their motion, to add as parties plaintiff Mauricio⁵ and Jorge Montes. On December 22, 1999, the court granted the motion and, at the same time, dismissed on its own initiative the proposed amended complaint because it failed to comply with the Rules of Civil Procedure.⁶

On February 17, 2000, the plaintiffs, now consisting of Arce, Gonzalez, Mauricio, and Montes, having been granted leave to do so, filed a second amended complaint (hereafter the "complaint"). Like the initial complaint, it consisted of nine counts, each containing multiple claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The first count was brought by all of the plaintiffs under the TVPA. The remaining counts, in which Arce, not being an alien, did not join, were brought by Gonzalez, Mauricio, and Montes⁷ under the ATCA.⁸ Garcia and Casanova answered the second amended complaint,⁹ denying liability and asserting several affirmative defenses, including the statute of limitations defense, the focus of this appeal.¹⁰

B.

The question of whether the statute of limitations barred the plaintiffs' claims was presented to the district court on several occasions prior to trial. The defendants raised the defense in motions to dismiss¹¹ and for judgment on the pleadings. The court denied each motion, concluding that the complaint contained allegations of fact sufficient to make out a case for equitable tolling so as to make the plaintiffs' claims timely.¹² The final denial occurred at the pretrial conference.¹³

Prior to the commencement of the trial on June 24, 2002, the court gave the parties a set of jury instructions and elicited their comments. The set did not include an instruction on the defendants' statute of limitations defense. In response, the defendants sent the court an instruction on the statute of limitations defense. The court did not act on it, however, until trial, after the plaintiffs had rested and the defendants were putting on their case.

The jury instruction aside, the question of whether the statute of limitations barred any of the plaintiffs' claims as a matter of law surfaced at the conclusion of the plaintiffs' case when the defendants moved for judgment as a matter of law. Defense counsel contended that the claims brought by Arce and Mauricio were time-barred because they came to the United States in 1983 and could have filed suit at any time thereafter.¹⁴ The court denied the motion. Considering the evidence in the light most favorable to Arce and Mauricio, the court concluded that a trier of fact could reasonably find that conditions in El Salvador between 1983 and 1992, when the El Salvador Peace Agreement was reached, justified these plaintiffs' delay in filing suit and thus warranted application of equitable tolling.

The question of whether the jury should resolve the equitable tolling issue (as the defendants' proposed jury instruction presumed) was taken up in the midst of the defendants' case. In the absence of the jury, a colloquy ensued between the court and counsel over whether equitable tolling was a matter for the jury or the court to decide. Plaintiffs' counsel contended that the court should decide the issue since it sounded in equity. The court agreed and turned to the evidence bearing on the question of whether the conditions in El Salvador effectively precluded the plaintiffs from filing suit against the defendants until after the El Salvador Peace Agreement was reached in 1992. The court found that until the agreement was reached, the fear of reprisals against the plaintiffs' relatives orchestrated by people aligned with the defendants excused the plaintiffs' delay in prosecuting their claims against the defendants. The court therefore declared the statute of limitations equitably tolled, and that the plaintiffs' claims were timely filed. At this point in the proceedings, and before the jury returned, the plaintiffs announced that they had reduced their nine-count complaint to three claims of torture: Arce's claim under the TVPA and Gonzalez and Mauricio's claims under the ATCA.

Following this announcement, the defendants resumed their defense. Both defendants took the stand. Their testimony related, for the most part, to the issue of whether they had command responsibility for the torture the plaintiffs allegedly endured. They testified that they neither ordered the torture nor participated in it.

At the close of all the evidence, defense counsel moved the court for judgment as matter of law on all claims on the ground that the evidence failed to establish that the defendants exercised command responsibility for the alleged torture. As an additional ground for judgment as a matter of law on Mauricio's claim, which was lodged against Casanova only, counsel asserted that the claim was barred by the statute of limitations. The court denied the motions, and, following counsels' oral arguments, sent the case to the jury. The jury found that the plaintiffs had been tortured, as alleged, held the defendants liable under the doctrine of command responsibility, and returned verdicts totaling $54,600,000.

After the jury returned its verdicts, the defendants filed two motions. One, a motion for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial on all claims, addresses the focus of this appeal, the statute of limitations defense. It asserts that the statute had run prior to the commencement of suit and that "no legally or equitably sufficient reasons" tolled the limitations period. The other motion raises an issue not before us.¹⁵ The court denied their motions, and the defendants appealed.

III.

The defendants' brief on appeal raises two issues. One of them, the issue dealt with in the brief's argument section, merits discussion: Whether the district court abused its discretion in equitably tolling the statute of limitations.¹⁶ Abuse of discretion is the standard of review. See Ellis v. Gen. Motors Acceptance Corp., 160 F.3d 703, 706 (11th Cir.1998) (noting "discretion" of district courts to apply equitable tolling). A district court abuses its discretion when it misapplies the law in reaching its decision or bases its decision on findings of fact that are clearly erroneous. See Mincey v. Head, 206 F.3d 1106, 1137 n. 69 (11th Cir.2000). In this case, we find no error in the court's...