Cabrera v. Municipality of Bayamon

Decision Date28 May 1980
Docket NumberNos. 79-1494,79-1516,s. 79-1494
Parties, 10 Envtl. L. Rep. 20,463 Jose Ortega CABRERA et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. MUNICIPALITY OF BAYAMON et al., Defendants, Appellees. Jose Ortega CABRERA et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. MUNICIPALITY OF BAYAMON et al. Ramon Luis Rivera, etc., Defendant, Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Arturo Aponte Pares, Hato Rey, P. R., with whom Olaquibeet A. Lopez Pacheco, Hato Rey, P. R., was on brief, for Jose Ortega Cabrera, et al.

Jose E. Bosch Roque, Bayamon, P. R., with whom Francisco Ponsa Feliu, F. Ponsa Flores, San Juan, P. R., and Elmer Toro Lucchetti, Santurce, P. R., were on briefs, for Municipality of Bayamon, et al.

Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, CAMPBELL, Circuit Judge, WISDOM, Senior Circuit Judge. *

COFFIN, Chief Judge.

Again we address legal and practical problems arising from the lamentable inadequacies of the municipal dump in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Fuller descriptions of the factual background and procedural history are given in our earlier opinion, Ortega Cabrera v. Municipality of Bayamon, 562 F.2d 91 (1st Cir. 1977). For present purposes we need only recall that the dump, intended as a "sanitary landfill" for solid wastes, was constructed at the upper end of a mountainous ravine receiving heavy annual rainfall and situated above the headwaters of a creek flowing into local drinking water. Poor planning and heavy rains have caused toxic and malodorous runoff into the drinking water, exposure to the air of solid wastes, and damage to the agricultural and residential value of nearby property.

Plaintiffs are local landowners who claim violation of their constitutional rights and of local law. Defendant is the mayor of Bayamon, presently Ramon Luis Rivera. In January, 1974, the district court, finding violations of local nuisance and environmental law, ordered defendant to remedy the situation. The methods of ameliorating the dump were left unspecified pending the report of an expert committee. Appeal was taken to this court on a number of issues, although defendant did not seek review of the district court's January, 1974, order which thus became binding. On appeal, inter alia, we sustained the general course of the court's injunctive relief against claims by the plaintiffs that it should be broader; affirmed the court's setting aside of a damage verdict against defendant's predecessors in office because we held that plaintiffs had failed to state a valid claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983; and agreed that the district court had properly assumed pendent jurisdiction over the local law claims. Id.

Subsequently, the district court made certain rulings limiting this litigation as to parties, to which plaintiffs appeal, and imposing a daily fine upon defendant as a sanction for civil contempt, to which order defendant appeals. We consider first the two issues raised by plaintiffs in their appeal. ** They appeal from district court orders dismissing their amended complaint against the municipality and holding that Mayor Rivera is not a party in his personal capacity.

The municipality was named as a defendant in the original complaint filed in 1972. Subsequently, the parties agreed to dismiss voluntarily the complaint against the municipality, apparently because they understood Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961), to preclude a section 1983 suit against a municipality. In 1978, plaintiffs filed an amended complaint seeking to join the municipality as a defendant, apparently wishing to take advantage of Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), which partially overruled Monroe. The district court, however, dismissed the amended complaint against the municipality because it thought that either the doctrine of res judicata or that of the law of the case precluded reopening the question of the city's liability.

Unfortunately, the district court erred in its formulation of the issue. There exists neither a prior judgment in another suit concerning the liability of the municipality nor a prior ruling of law by the court in this case that the suit against the city should be dismissed. A prior judgment or ruling is the prerequisite for invocation respectively of res judicata or law of the case. See generally 1B Moore's Federal Practice P 0.404(1). The complaint against the municipality was voluntarily dismissed and the first such dismissal against a party must be without prejudice. Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(a)(1). Plaintiffs' amended complaint must be treated as if it was attempting to join the municipality as a defendant for the first time. 9 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 2367. The district court's order must be vacated.

This does not mean, however, that the municipality should be brought back into the case as a defendant. The court has discretion to refuse an attempt to join a new party at this late stage of the litigation when liability has been determined and the court is trying to enforce final relief for the plaintiffs. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 21. We note that plaintiffs' reason for seeking to add the municipality now seems to be that Monell has opened the door to section 1983 suits against municipalities. We held, however, in our prior opinion in this case that plaintiffs' claim under section 1983 failed as a matter of law in that it did not describe a violation of their constitutional rights. Ortega Cabrera v. Municipality of Bayamon, supra, at 102-03. Monell thus changes nothing in this case and plaintiffs can be understood only to wish to prosecute a local law claim against the municipality. Because only a pendent local claim remains in the case the discretion of the district court in allowing or disallowing joinder of a new defendant is particularly broad. Moreover, the additional delay which joinder would trigger is, in this already deplorably interminable litigation, a strong basis for denying the request. While we thus see strong reasons supporting the action taken by the court, we stop short of affirming it on a different rationale, preferring to allow the district court, which is much closer to the scene, to decide upon remand whether such addition will further justice and the expeditious resolution of this lengthy litigation.

As for the second issue raised by plaintiffs' appeal, we see no reversible error in the district court's conclusion that Mayor Rivera was not a party to this suit in his personal capacity. Rivera entered the case only when he replaced his predecessor in office by a motion for the substitution of an official party pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 25(d). Neither the original nor the amended complaint contains specific allegations of extraofficial wrongdoing that would give any substance to a suit against the mayor in his private capacity. We have already held that plaintiffs have no federal cause of action that could hold a Bayamon mayor personally liable, Ortega Cabrera v. Municipality of Bayamon, supra, at 102-03, and plaintiffs suggest no new theory to hold Mayor Rivera personally liable.

We now turn to defendant...

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