Alejandro-Ortiz v. P.R. Elec. Power Auth.

• Decision Date: 08 November 2012
• Docket Number: CIV. NO.: 10-1320(SCC)
• Parties: ORLANDO ALEJANDRO-ORTIZ, ET AL., Plaintiffs, v. P.R. ELEC. POWER AUTH., ET AL., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

ORLANDO ALEJANDRO-ORTIZ, ET AL., Plaintiffs,

v.P.R. ELEC. POWER AUTH., ET AL., Defendants.

CIV. NO.: 10-1320(SCC)

UNITED STATES COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

Dated: November 8, 2012

OPINION AND ORDER

Orlando Alejandro-Ortiz, along with his wife and their minor children, sued Defendant Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority ("PREPA") for its alleged negligence in causing the injuries he suffered when he came into contact with a low-hanging power line. At trial, PREPA's defense was that it had not acted negligently and, even if it had, its own liability wasprecluded by Alejandro's superseding negligence,¹ which it said it could not have foreseen. After a jury trial, a verdict was rendered in favor of Plaintiffs. We now take up PREPA's post-judgment motions, which include a consolidated Rule 50 motion for judgment as a matter of law and Rule 59 motion for a new trial, Docket No. 341, and a Rule 60(b) motion for relief from judgment. Docket No. 347.

I. PREPA's motion for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial.

A motion for judgment as a matter of law may be granted if the trial court finds that "a reasonable jury would not have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis" for its verdict. Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a)(1). In reviewing the motion, we interpret the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, and we will grant the motion only if "'the evidence points so strongly and overwhelmingly in favor of the moving party that no reasonable jury could have returned a verdict adverse to that party.'" Marcano-Rivera v. Turabo Med. Ctr. P'ship, 415 F.3d162, 167 (1st Cir. 2005) (quoting Rivera-Castillo v. Autokirey, Inc., 379 F.3d 4, 9 (1st Cir. 2004)); see also id. ("A party seeking to overturn a jury verdict faces an uphill battle."); Crowe v. Bolduc, 334 F.3d 124, 134 (1st Cir. 2003) (noting that review of motions under Rule 50 is "weighted toward preservation of the jury verdict"). If we deny the motion under Rule 50, we may still grant a motion for a new trial under Rule 59. In reviewing the motion for a new trial, we are free to independently weigh the trial evidence, and we will grant the motion if we feel that the jury's "verdict is against the weight of the evidence." Jennings v. Jones, 587 F.3d 430, 436 (1st Cir. 2009). Our decision on this question is a matter of substantial discretion. See Cham v. Station Operators, Inc., 685 F.3d 87, 97 (1st Cir. 2012).

Plaintiff Alejandro suffered an accident and sued PREPA for its alleged negligence in causing the incident. His wife and minor children sued for their own injuries related to Alejandro's accident. PREPA's motion under Rules 50(b) and 59 focus on two separate points, which we address separately: first, PREPA argues that there was legally insufficient evidence to support a verdict in favor of Alejandro;² second, PREPAargues that the claims of Alejandro's wife, Co-Plaintiff Sonia Rodríguez-Jiménez are time barred.

A. Is the jury's verdict in favor of Plaintiff Orlando Alejandro-Ortiz supported by legally sufficient evidence?

What is undisputed in this case is the following: Alejandro, at the time of his accident, was employed by the company that was responsible for garbage collection for the area around Cidra, Puerto Rico. Alejandro worked as a "helper," which meant it was his job to ride on the back of the garbage truck as it did its rounds, moving the trash from the street to the truck. One day, his truck encountered a low-hanging cable blocking its path. Employing a method that he had used in the past under similar circumstances, Alejandro climbed on top of the truck, tied a rope to the low-hanging cable, threw the rope's other end over a higher cable, and attempted to hoist the low cable to a height that would make passage possible. Something went wrong, and Alejandro received a very severe shock that caused permanent damage to his hands and arms.

PREPA's legal sufficiency argument casts the trial evidence as supporting—or, rather, requiring—a finding that Alejandro is solely responsible for his accident and injuries. To this end,PREPA points to evidence showing that Alejandro, by dealing with the low-hanging cable himself, was not following his employer's procedures, as relayed to him through a safety manual and training sessions.³ In particular, PREPA points to the testimony of Miguel Rodríguez, a former colleague of Alejandro, and Annabelle Hernandez, Alejandro's supervisor, both of whom testified that the proper procedure was to allow a smaller pickup truck to collect the trash on parts of the route that the larger garbage truck could not reach.

PREPA's theory, then, is that Alejandro's own negligence caused his accident. The problem with this theory—and in our opinion it's an insurmountable one—is that the jury did find that Alejandro had been negligent, but it found that PREPA had been significantly more so. Indeed, the jury found that PREPA had proved that Alejandro had acted negligently, but in balancing the parties' negligence it assigned 90% responsibil-ity to PREPA and only 10% to Alejandro. See Jury Verdict Form, Docket No. 318, at 2. Thus, for PREPA to prevail on its motion, we must find that Alejandro's actions were so abnormal or unforeseeable that PREPA, by exercising the proper degree of care, could not have acted to avoid them. See Woods-Leber v. Hyatt Hotels of P.R., Inc., 124 F.3d 47, 50-51 (1st Cir. 1997) (holding that a plaintiff must prove that his injury "was reasonably foreseeable (and, thus, could have been prevented had the defendant acted with due care)" (citing Coyne v. Taber Partners I, 53 F.3d 454, 459 (1st Cir. 1995))).

In addressing the foreseeability of Alejandro's injuries, we keep in mind the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico's repeated holding that PREPA is required to "exercise the highest degree of care considering the inherently dangerous character" of its business. Mendez-Purcell v. Water Res. Auth. of P.R., 10 P.R. Offic. Trans. 161, 167 (1980); see also Martinez-de Jesus v. P.R. Elec. Power Auth., 256 F. Supp. 2d 122, 125 (D.P.R. 2003) ("[T]he Supreme Court of Puerto Rico has repeatedly recognized that PREPA, as an entity that produces and distributes electricity, has the duty to exercise the highest degree of care, due to the inherently dangerous nature of the product that it markets."). This duty extends to the installation, maintenance, andoperation of its equipment, and PREPA is "obliged to carry out adequate inspections of its electrical units in order to discover defects and dangerous conditions that could place the public's safety in jeopardy." Martinez, 256 F. Supp. 2d at 125 (citing Ramos v. Autoridad de Fuentes Fluviales de P.R., 86 P.R. Dec. 603, 609 (1962)). What this means is that PREPA, as a electrical utility, must foresee more than a typical actor. Moreover, when we speak of foreseeability, it is not required that the defendant have been able to "anticipate the very injury complained of or anticipated that it would have happened in the exact manner in which it did." In re N-500L Cases, 517 F. Supp. 825, 833 (D.P.R. 1981) (citing Gines v. P.R. Aqueduct & Sewer Auth., 86 P.R.R. 490, 496-97 (1962)) (emphasis added). Instead, the defendant may be liable for "anything which, after the injury is complete, appears to have been a natural and probable consequence of the [defendant's] act or omission." Id. As the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico has held, the "essential factor is to be under a duty to foresee, in a general way, consequences of a particular type. It is no defense to allege that the precise course or the full extent of the consequences could not be foreseen, the consequences being of such kind, which in fact happened." Gines, 86 P.R.R. at 496 (citing 2 F. HARPER & F.JAMES, THE LAW OF TORTS 1147 (1956)).⁴ And "[a]mong the 'consequences of a particular type' for which a negligent actor is legally responsible are those consequences attributed to reasonably foreseeable intervening forces, including the acts of third parties." Marshall v. Perez-Arzuaga, 828 F.2d 845, 848 (1st Cir. 1987) (citing Widow of Andino v. Autoridad de Fuentes Fluviales de P.R., 93 P.R.R. 168, 178 (1966)). But see id. ("An 'unforeseen or abnormal' intervention . . . 'breaks the chain of causality,' thus shielding the defendant from liability." (quoting Widow of Andino, 93 P.R.R. at 178)).

Here, there was evidence to support a finding that PREPA's electrical cables were low-hanging and poorly maintained.⁵ An entity with a duty of care as high as PREPA's must, in cases where it allows its lines to languish in such a fashion, be charged with foreseeing that those lines may come into contact with persons or vehicles. Here, the line was apparently lowenough that the truck could not clear it, and Alejandro testified that he felt, despite the fact of the smaller pickup truck, obligated to continue on his route and that it was a common practice to move the lines when they hung low (and he testified, moreover, that he had previously had to move this particular line). We find, therefore, that it is easily foreseeable that PREPA's allowing a cable to hang low enough to block vehicles' passage—even if only large vehicles—could result in individuals attempting to move the cables themselves, and thus continue on their way, even if such conduct was itself negligent.

In this conclusion, we are guided by the Puerto Rico Supreme Court's opinion in Mendez-Purcell.⁶ In that case, theplaintiff, with a friend, was attempting to put a 16-foot aluminum mast on his sailboat, which was on a trailer and parked on a public road. See Mendez-Purcell, 10 P.R. Offic. Trans. at 163. Together, the boat and mast were some twenty feet tall. See id. at 163-64. The plaintiff was performing this operation near the water authority's high voltage lines, which, at eighteen feet tall, were at least four feet lower than they should have been. See id. at 163, 166. The finder of fact found that the plaintiff "had noticed the nearness of the wires and ...