González-Cabán v. JR Seafood Inc.

• Decision Date: 02 September 2022
• Docket Number: 19-1450
• Citation: 48 F.4th 10
• Parties: Luis GONZÁLEZ-CABÁN; Braulio González-Reyes; Jennifer González-Maldonado; Arlene González-Soto, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. JR SEAFOOD INC.; Packers Provisions of Puerto Rico Inc.; Puerto Rico Miscellaneous Insurance Guaranty Association, as Successor in Interest of Integrand Insurance Company ; Cooperativa de Seguros Múltiples de Puerto Rico; Evaristo Rivera-Berrios, d/b/a El Nuevo Amanecer, Defendants, Appellees, Ramón Gutiérrez, d/b/a GB Trading, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

48 F.4th 10

Luis GONZÁLEZ-CABÁN; Braulio González-Reyes; Jennifer González-Maldonado; Arlene González-Soto, Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
JR SEAFOOD INC.; Packers Provisions of Puerto Rico Inc.; Puerto Rico Miscellaneous Insurance Guaranty Association, as Successor in Interest of Integrand Insurance Company ; Cooperativa de Seguros Múltiples de Puerto Rico; Evaristo Rivera-Berrios, d/b/a El Nuevo Amanecer, Defendants, Appellees,

Ramón Gutiérrez, d/b/a GB Trading, Defendant.

No. 19-1450

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

September 2, 2022

Jaime F. Agrait Lladó, with whom Blanca E. Agrait-Lladó, Francisco Agrait-Oliveras, and Agrait-Lladó Law Firm were on brief, for appellants.

Jeannette Lopez de Victoria, with whom Nuyen Marrero-Bonilla and Sánchez Betances, Sifre & Muñoz Noya, P.S.C. were on brief, for Evaristo Rivera-Berrios d/b/a El Nuevo Amanecer and Cooperativa de Seguros Múltiples de Puerto Rico, appellees.

Igor J. Domínguez, with whom Igor J. Domínguez Law Offices, P.S.C. was on brief, for Puerto Rico Miscellaneous Insurance Guaranty Association in the interest of Packers Provisions of Puerto Rico Inc., appellee.

Miriam González Olivencia, with whom Law Offices of Miriam González Olivencia was on brief, for Puerto Rico Miscellaneous Insurance Guaranty Association in the interest of JR Seafood, Inc., appellee.

Before Barron, Chief Judge, Lynch and Lipez, Circuit Judges.

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

Luis González-Cabán alleges that he contracted paralytic shellfish poisoning ("PSP") after eating a contaminated shrimp at a restaurant in Puerto Rico. Along with several members of his family, he sued the restaurant and the food distributors who handled the shrimp before it reached the restaurant, arguing that their negligence caused his severe illness. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants, concluding that González-Cabán had not sufficiently established that any of their acts or omissions had proximately caused his illness. We affirm.

I.

We draw the relevant factual background from the pleadings and other record materials, "recount[ing] the facts and draw[ing] all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to" appellants. Hodgens v. Gen. Dynamics Corp., 144 F.3d 151, 156 (1st Cir. 1998).

On February 19, 2005, González-Cabán ate at Restaurante El Nuevo Amanecer in Barranquitas, Puerto Rico. He ordered an appetizer platter that included jumbo shrimp. After biting into a piece of shrimp, González-Cabán recalled "a feeling of stinging and numbness." Shortly thereafter, he "started developing problems with [his] breathing" and "[his] heart started pounding." He drove home but was later taken to the hospital in an ambulance, unconscious.

During his hospitalization, González-Cabán suffered from numerous additional symptoms, including "severe hypotension," "acute renal failure secondary to acute tubular necrosis," and "weakness and paresthesia." He eventually developed complete quadriplegia, which remains to this day. After sixteen days, González-Cabán was discharged from the hospital with several "principal diagnoses," including Guillain-Barré syndrome, cervical myelopathy, and quadriparesis, and several "secondary

48 F.4th 13

diagnoses," including prerenal azotemia and sacral erosion.

These symptoms are consistent with PSP, which humans may contract by consuming food products contaminated with saxitoxin, a naturally occurring substance that can accumulate in the gut or flesh of shellfish and crustaceans and that can "pose a significant food safety risk to humans who eat them, either raw or cooked." Symptoms of PSP may include "numbness or tingling in the face, lips, tongue, and extremitie[s] .... headache, fever, rash, nausea, and vomiting, with impaired coordination, changes in mental status, incoherent speech, and difficulty in swallowing, flaccid paralysis, and respiratory failure in severe cases."

The parties have attempted to trace the origin of the shrimp consumed by González-Cabán in February 2005, and the record evidence supports the following timeline. The shrimp was harvested in freshwater in India, was designated as "size U-5", and was sold by a company named Calcutta Seafoods.¹ In August 2004, the shrimp was received in Newark by Sterling Seafood Corporation. Subsequently, JR Seafood purchased 816 boxes of U-5 freshwater shrimp from Seafood Sales, Inc.² JR Seafood then sold 150 boxes of U-5 freshwater shrimp to Packers Provisions of Puerto Rico, who sold two boxes to GB Trading. GB Trading then sold one box of U-5 shrimp to El Nuevo Amanecer in December 2004, about two months before González-Cabán dined there.³

In 2014, González-Cabán and his family members (hereafter, "González-Cabán") filed an action in federal court against El Nuevo Amanecer and its insurer, Cooperativa de Seguros Múltiples de Puerto Rico; JR Seafood and Packers Provisions, which were both insured by Integrand Assurance Company; and GB Trading.⁴ The complaint alleged that González-Cabán suffered from PSP (also referred to as "saxitoxin intoxication") from consuming shrimp at El Nuevo Amanecer, and that this illness was caused by the defendants' negligent failure to trace the origin of, inspect, or properly clean the shrimp.⁵

After the defendants moved for summary judgment, the district court concluded that González-Cabán had failed to present sufficient evidence to establish that his illness could be connected to an act of or omission by the defendants. The court

48 F.4th 14

therefore granted summary judgment in...