Casas Office Machines v. Mita Copystar Machines, Civ. No. 91-1292 GG.

• Decision Date: 18 November 1993
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 91-1292 GG.
• Citation: 847 F. Supp. 981
• Parties: CASAS OFFICE MACHINES, INC., Plaintiff, v. MITA COPYSTAR MACHINES, INC., et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

847 F. Supp. 981

CASAS OFFICE MACHINES, INC., Plaintiff, v. MITA COPYSTAR MACHINES, INC., et al., Defendants.

Civ. No. 91-1292 GG.

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

November 18, 1993.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Luis A. Melendez Albizu, Sanchez, Betances & Sifre, San Juan, PR, for plaintiff.

Fiddler, Gonzalez & Rodriguez, San Juan, PR, Jose A. Leon Landrau, Caguas, PR, Nilda Cordero De Gomez, Hato Rey, PR, for defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

GIERBOLINI, Chief Judge.

The above-captioned case is rife with acrimonious disagreement due to the fact that the attorneys involved are comporting like badly-behaved small children. Given such behavior, an appropriate sanction such as a spanking used to be administered; however, as the federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction we are circumscribed in terms of the actions we can take. The self-serving and somewhat childish pranks of the lawyers, especially that of plaintiff's counsel, burden this court, serve justice poorly and the clients worse. If the attorneys could only multiply loaves and fishes as well as they multiply paper, the world hunger crisis would be over, and a new era of worldly abundance upon us. Alas, the only abundance presently upon us is one of papers. The forests of the world would weep if only they knew that their destiny lay in providing the fodder for the litigation that is this case! But lawyers beware: we still have Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and 28 U.S.C. § 1927.

The court is currently faced with Mita's Objections to the Report and Recommendation of the Magistrate, Objections which we find unconvincing. We therefore ADOPT the recommendations of the magistrate without exception.

Mita's Objections to the Report and Recommendation of the Magistrate.

I. Background

On September 2, 1993, Magistrate Judge Justo Arenas filed his Report and Recommendation in the above-captioned case and recommended that Mita's Motions to Dismiss (Docket No. 79) and for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 17) be denied, and that plaintiff Casas' Cross-Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Docket No. 27) be granted.

Mita has objected to the Report of the Magistrate, and has also moved that new evidence by considered by this court in its review of the magistrate's decision. Casas has responded to Mita's objections. Under Local Rule 510.2, the Objection is deemed fully submitted.

One would think that, by the name-calling invoked by both sides, that the instant action involved the massacre of innocent children as opposed to the run-of-the-mill business dispute which it is.

Defendant Mita Copystar America, Inc. ("Mita") is a manufacturer of office and photocopying machines. Plaintiff Casas Office Machines, Inc. ("Casas") is a Puerto Rican corporation which, in 1983, signed a contract with Mita to distribute Mita products in Puerto Rico. An earlier commercial dispute between the parties was the subject of state court proceedings in 1988 which were settled.

In 1989, Mita and Casas executed a second Agreement ("1989 Agreement") which granted to Casas exclusive rights to distribute Mita products in the Greater San Juan area. A clause of the 1989 Agreement established that Casas' failure to meet or exceed 85% of a set sales quota would result in termination of the exclusivity provisions of the contract.

Casas did not meet the quota and therefore Mita notified Casas that, pursuant to the contract, its exclusivity provision was terminated. Caguas Copy, Inc., and Oficentro J.P. Inc. were therefore designated as new distributors for the Greater San Juan area. In response Casas sued Mita in state court.

Casas action was removed to this court. Casas claims that (1) Mita's actions constitute an impairment of the exclusivity provision without just cause in violation of Law 75, P.R.Laws Ann. tit. 10, § 278a (1966); (2) Mita and the new distributors have conspired to harm and deprive plaintiff of its right to sell Mita products; and (3) that the distribution contracts between Mita and the new distributors are null and void for illicit consideration since they are contracts executed to damage Casas.

Casas requests pecuniary redress for damages incurred as a result of Mita's impairment of the exclusivity provisions. Casas also seeks a permanent injunction enjoining Mita from impairing the exclusivity provision of the 1989 contract and from designating new distributors. In addition, Casas seeks declaratory relief that Mita lacks just cause to impair the contract and that the new contracts with the distributors are null and void.

Mita filed two dispositive motions. The first, for summary judgment argued that Mita did not impair the exclusivity provision since said clause was conditioned explicitly on a quota proviso that was not fulfilled by Casas, that there was just cause for impairing the contract, and that Casas is barred by the equitable doctrine of laches from suing. Mita also has moved to dismiss the case alleging that Casas has engaged in fraud on the court. The magistrate recommended that both of these motions be denied.

Casas cross-moved for summary judgment to impose partial judgment against Mita on the Law 75 claim. This motion was granted by the magistrate.

Mita has objected. It has also requested to submit to the reviewing court evidence not before the Magistrate when he made his Report and Recommendation. We find no mistakes of law or fact in the magistrate's recommendation. For the reasons below, Mita's objections are found to be unsupported, its attempts to submit new evidence will not be allowed, and the recommendation of the magistrate is hereby adopted.

II. Motion to Dismiss for Fraud on the Court

Mita charged that Casas is guilty of fraud on the court for altering two documents to attempt to prove that its pre-1989 relationship with Mita was one of exclusive distribution. The magistrate denied Mita's motion to dismiss based on this charge.

Fraud on the court "requires that a litigant and his lawyer concoct some unconscionable scheme calculated to impair the court's ability fairly and impartially to adjudicate a dispute." Sandstrom v. Chemlawn Corp., 904 F.2d 83, 88 (1st Cir.1990). The party seeking dismissal on these grounds must prove that a party has set this unconscionable scheme in motion with specific intent to improperly influence the trier of fact, and must document the existence of such a scheme by clear and convincing evidence. Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir.1989). The magistrate found that Mita failed to prove the existence of such a scheme. (See Report and Recommendation, 5).

In Mita's objection to this finding, it merely stated that it "incorporates and restates by reference all of the arguments contained in its Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion to Dismiss filed on June 4, 1993, and its Reply to Casas' Opposition to Mita's Motion to Dismiss filed on July 29, 1992." (Mita's Objection, 20). This "objection" fails to rise to the standard necessary for an objection.

28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C) provides that a "judge of the district court shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made." However, no review is required of any issue that is not the subject of objection. Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 106 S.Ct. 466, 88 L.Ed.2d 435 (1985); U.S. v. Valencia-Copete, 792 F.2d 4, 6 (1st Cir.1986).

Mita has failed to preserve its objection. It is obvious, given the phenomenal amounts of paper brandished in this case, that Mita's mere recitation of the existence of previous submissions does not suffice to amount to a specific objection. Essentially, Mita is telling this court, "We object, but we do not feel like telling you why. Go look at other things we said before." They cannot seriously expect this court to take that as an objection which deserves respect. A comment or written statement submitted before the issuance of a Magistrate's Report and Recommendation cannot constitute an objection to that same Report.

Failure to file specific objections amounts to a waiver of the right to review. See Fenner v. Moran, 772 F.Supp. 59, 63 (D.R.I. 1991). Mita's "objection" to the denial of its motion to dismiss amounts merely to a general objection, and is insufficient. See also Local Rule 311.2, .4.

Additionally, this court finds ample evidence in the record to support the magistrate's conclusion. Even had Mita made a specific objection, we would have rejected it, for the same reasons that the magistrate cited in his denial of the motion to dismiss. Mita has failed to submit sufficient evidence to show, by the clear and convincing standard, that there was a fraud, or that this alleged fraud, if it existed, was conscious and sentient. After reviewing the documents alluded to in Mita's "objection" we come to the same conclusion: Mita fails to prove fraud on the court. If there is any fraud in this case, it is the lawyers' fraud on the clients, not the court, for their overwhelmingly vituperous, redundant, and excessive submissions.¹ In any event, this lawsuit is concerned with the facts, circumstances, and effects of the 1989 Agreement and the exclusivity provisions therein, not with the 1983 Agreement. Therefore, we agree with the magistrate that the claimed alteration lacks substantial relevance to the 1989 Agreement which is the crux of the instant lawsuit. We therefore DENY Mita's motion to dismiss based on allegations of fraud on the court.

III. Motions for Summary Judgment

The decision whether or not to grant summary judgment rests on a determination as to "whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251-252, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2512, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). Summary judgment is an appropriate remedy "if the pleadings, depositions,...