Carrizosa v. Chiquita Brands Int'l, Inc.
| Decision Date | 06 September 2022 |
| Docket Number | 19-13926 |
| Parties | ANTONIO GONZALEZ CARRIZOSA, et al., Plaintiffs, v. CHIQUITA BRANDS INTERNATIONAL, INC., Defendant-Appellee Cross-Appellant, DOE 378, LUDY RIVAS BORJA, as daughter and successor to DOE 840 (deceased), ANA OFELIA TORRES TORRES, PASTORA DURANGO, GLORIA EUGENIA MUNOZ, JOSE LOPEZ 339, JUANA DOE 11 and MINOR DOE 11A, JUANA PEREZ 43A, JANE DOE 7, JOHN DOE 7, individually and as representative of his deceased son JOHN DOE 8, JUVENAL ENRIGUE FONTALVO CAMARGO, NANCY MORA LUMUS, SARA MATILDE MANJARRES, Plaintiffs-Appellants Cross-Appellees, CHIQUITA FRESH NORTH AMERICA LLC., a Delaware Corporation, et al., Defendants, KEITH E. LINDNER, CHARLES KEISER, CARLA A. HILLS, as representative of the Estate of RODERICK M. HILLS, SR., CYRUS FRIEDMAN, ROBERT F. KISTINGER, ROBERT W. OLSON, WILLIAM A. TSACALIS, Defendants-Appellees Cross-Appellants. DOES 1 THROUGH 976, et al., Plaintiffs, DOE 378, LUDY RIVAS BORJA as daughter and successor to DOE 840 (deceased), Plaintiffs-Appellants, Cross-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No 0:08-md-01916-KAM
Before JORDAN, NEWSOM, and ED CARNES, Circuit Judges.
This appeal arises from a massive and complex multi-district litigation proceeding based on claims-brought in part under the Torture Victim Protection Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note, and Colombian law-that Chiquita Brands International and some of its executives provided financial support to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, which murdered thousands of persons in Colombia. In a dozen bellwether cases, the district court issued a comprehensive order granting summary judgment in favor of the defendants. After excluding some of the plaintiffs' evidence, the court ultimately concluded that the plaintiffs "fail[ed] to identify any admissible evidence" in support of their allegations that the AUC had killed their respective decedents. See D.E. 2551 at 71.
On appeal, the plaintiffs argue that the district court abused its discretion in excluding much of their evidence and that genuine issues of material fact precluded summary judgment on their claims. The individual defendants cross-appeal (1) the order denying their motion to dismiss the plaintiffs' TVPA claims, and (2) the ruling that one individual defendant, Carla Hills (as personal representative of the Estate of Roderick Hills), waived her personal jurisdiction argument. As to the TVPA claims, the individual defendants argue that the allegations in the complaint were insufficient under Rule 12(b)(6). Ms. Hills, for her part, contends that she timely raised her personal jurisdiction objection.
Following oral argument and a review of the extensive record, we affirm in part, vacate in part, reverse in part, and dismiss in part. With respect to the evidentiary rulings, we conclude that the district court got some right and some wrong. As to the merits, we hold that most of the bellwether plaintiffs presented sufficient evidence to withstand summary judgment with respect to whether the AUC was responsible for the deaths of their decedents. On the cross-appeals, we do not reach the arguments presented by the individual defendants and Ms. Hills.[1]
I[2]
Between 1997 and 2004, Chiquita Brands International paid over $1.7 million to the AUC, a paramilitary group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States Secretary of State. During this time, Colombia was in the midst of a civil war between paramilitary groups, like the AUC, and guerillas. "[T]he AUC was closely aligned-and even intertwined-with the Colombian [government] through its ideologies and practices that revolved around their shared goals of eliminating the 'subversive' threat posed by guerrilla groups." D.E. 2346-5 at 1. See also D.E. 2346-1 at 2. The AUC "controll[ed] territory by terror," App. 8531, and was well known for perpetrating violence not just against guerrilla fighters, but also against innocent civilians. See D.E. 23461 at 2; D.E. 2348-4 at 19-20.
Eventually, the United States learned of Chiquita's payments to the AUC and charged the company with engaging in transactions with a specially-designated global terrorist organization. Chiquita pled guilty to the charge in 2007. See Plea Agreement, D.E. 11, United States v. Chiquita Brands Int'l, Case No. 07-CR-00055-RCL (D.D.C. Mar. 19, 2007).
In response, many people who suspected the AUC of killing their family members and loved ones sued a number of defendants, including Chiquita and some of its executives. As relevant here, the bellwether plaintiffs asserted tort claims under Colombian law and federal claims under the Torture Victim Protection Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note, alleging that the defendants' financial support of the AUC led to the group's murder of their family members and loved ones. The plaintiffs conceded that to prevail on their claims they had to "show, as a factual predicate for all of their claims, that the AUC was responsible for the murder of each decedent." D.E. 2551 at 4.[3] An MDL panel consolidated the plaintiffs' cases for pretrial proceedings in the Southern District of Florida. A dozen of those cases were then selected as bellwether cases. As relevant here, the district court denied the individual defendants' motion to dismiss the TVPA claims and ruled that Ms. Hill had waived her personal jurisdiction argument.
Chiquita and the individual defendants then moved for summary judgment on multiple grounds. The district court concluded that the plaintiffs had not presented sufficient admissible evidence demonstrating that the AUC was involved in the death of their family members and loved ones and therefore could not show the existence of a genuine issue of material fact for an essential element of their claims.
The district court therefore granted summary judgment in favor of all the defendants with respect to the claims of the bellwether plaintiffs. It ruled that (1) the plaintiffs' documentary evidence was comprised mostly of inadmissible hearsay, "and even if accepted for its substantive content, [would not] support the inferences urged by laintiffs"; (2) the testimonial evidence constituted inadmissible hearsay, and the plaintiffs did not lay the foundation for any hearsay exceptions; (3) the "circumstantial evidence, standing alone, [was] too speculative to support a reasonable inference that the AUC more likely than not was responsible for the death of each bellwether victim, and would be insufficient to withstand a directed verdict at trial"; and (4) the ultimate expert opinions regarding AUC involvement in the deaths of the bellwether decedents were inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 in part because they "[did] not involve the application of reliable methodologies or principles." D.E. 2551 at 71. Based on these determinations, the court concluded that the plaintiffs could not withstand summary judgment on their claims because they did not have "any admissible evidence supporting their foundational allegation that the AUC killed their decedents." Id.[4]
II
Two sets of bellwether plaintiffs-whom we'll call the Wolf plaintiffs (based on the name of their attorney) and the Non-Wolf plaintiffs where necessary-challenge a number of evidentiary rulings by the district court. We generally review those rulings for an abuse of discretion. See Fid. Interior Constr., Inc. v. S.E. Carpenters Reg'l Council, 675 F.3d 1250, 1258 (11th Cir. 2012). "[T]he abuse of discretion standard allows 'a range of choice for the district court, so long as that choice does not constitute a clear error of judgment.'" United States v. Frazier, 387 F.3d 1244, 1259 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc) (quoting In re Rasbury, 24 F.3d 159, 168 (11th Cir. 1994)). A district court "necessarily abuse[s] its discretion" if it bases a ruling "on an erroneous view of the law" or "on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence." Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 405 (1990). So when we conclude that the district court erred, we mean to say that the district court abused its discretion in one of these ways.
With this standard in mind, we turn to the contested evidentiary rulings.[5]
The Non-Wolf plaintiffs argued below that several pieces of evidence-the indictment of AUC leader Raul Hasbun and several letters from Colombian prosecutors-were admissible under the business record and public record exceptions to the hearsay rule. See Fed.R.Evid. 803(6), 803(8). The Wolf plaintiffs made the same argument as to certain letters from prosecutors. The district court excluded the evidence from both sets of plaintiffs. We conclude that the Hasbun indictment was admissible under both exceptions, that the Non-Wolf plaintiffs' letters must be reconsidered under Rule 803(8) on remand, and that the Wolf plaintiffs' letters were properly excluded.
A document is admissible as a business record under Rule 803(6) if (1) it was made at or near the time of an event by someone with knowledge, (2) it was kept in the regular course of business, (3) it was the organization's regular practice to make such a record, (4) a qualified witness is able to testify to these facts, and (5) the opponent of the document does not show a lack of trustworthiness. See Fed.R.Evid. 803(6); Equity Lifestyle Props., Inc. v. Fla. Mowing & Landscape Serv., Inc., 556 F.3d 1232, 1243 (11th Cir. 2009). "The touchstone of admissibility under [Rule 803(6)] is reliability[.]" United States v. Bueno-Sierra, 99 F.3d 375, 378 (11th Cir. 1996).
Under Rule 803(8), a document is admissible in a civil case as a public record if it is "[a] record or statement of a public office" that "sets out . . . factual findings from a...
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