Ramos v. Roman

• Decision Date: 31 January 2000
• Docket Number: No. CIV. 93-2416(DRD).,CIV. 93-2416(DRD).
• Parties: Carlos Rivera RAMOS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Julio Cesar ROMAN, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

83 F.Supp.2d 233

Carlos Rivera RAMOS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Julio Cesar ROMAN, et al., Defendants.

No. CIV. 93-2416(DRD).

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

January 31, 2000.

Charles S. Hey-Maestre, San Juan, PR, for plaintiff.

Russell A. Del-Toro, Del Toro & Santana, San Juan, PR, Orlando Duran-Medero, San Juan, PR,John M. Garcia-Nokonechna, Garcia & Fernandez Law Offices, Hato Rey, PR, Jose R. Gaztambide-Aneses, Gaztambide & Plaza, Hato Rey, PR, Alex Gonzalez, Old San Juan, PR, Israel Roldan-Gonzalez, Aguadilla, PR, Roberto E. Ruiz-Comas, San Juan, PR, for defendants.

ORDER

DOMINGUEZ, District Judge.

Pending before the Court is a litany of Co-defendants', Julio César Román ("César"), Luis Torres Massa ("Torres"), Juan del Valle ("Valle"), and César Soto ("Soto"), motions for summary judgment (Docket No. 220, 221, 222, & 223), requesting the dismissal of this case pursuant to the applicable statute of limitations. Plaintiffs, Carlos Rivera Ramos, Armando Rivera Tirado, and Rivera & Rivera, Inc. (collectively "Riveras"), opposed. (Docket No. 229). For the reasons that follow Co-defendants' motions are GRANTED and Plaintiffs' federal claims are hereby DISMISSED and the Plaintiffs' Puerto Rico law causes of action are DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.

I. FACTS

Although the facts of this case are pivotal to the present Order, they are well expressed in the First Circuit's Opinion, see Rivera-Ramos v. Roman, 156 F.3d 276 (1st Cir.1998), and this Court's previous Order, (Docket No. 198), and are thus reiterated here without citation only to the extent necessary to resolve the pending statute of limitations issue.

The present suit was brought in October 1993 by two individual plaintiffs — Carlos Rivera Ramos and Armando Rivera Tirado— and their company, Rivera & Rivera, Inc., which was in turn owned by both of them and by their fathers (who were brothers). According to the Amended Complaint, Rivera & Rivera owned a hardware store in the municipality of Aguada, Puerto Rico, which was licensed in 1969 by the Puerto Rico Treasury Department to legally engage in the commerce of firearms. Named as defendants, among others, were the municipality of Aguada; Julio Cesar Roman, mayor of Aguada in 1969; Lieutenant Cesar Soto, then a police officer and the director for the western area of Puerto Rico of the Office of Intelligence of the Puerto Rico Police Department Commander Juan del Valle, then director and in overall charge of the same intelligence division; and Luis Torres Massa, then superintendent of the Puerto Rico Police Department. All others originally named as defendants have been dismissed.

The gravamen of the Amended Complaint was that before and during 1969-70, the Puerto Rico Police Department's intelligence division engaged in a practice, later held unlawful under Puerto Rico law, of spying on and keeping dossiers ("carpetas") on citizens of Puerto Rico who supported independence for Puerto Rico; that during 1969, an investigation of the two individual plaintiffs was conducted by the intelligence division; that following the investigation the Treasury Department revoked Rivera & Rivera's license to sell firearms and refused an application for a new license; that the police, in late 1969 or early 1970, raided the hardware store and confiscated firearms and ammunition; and that the defendants were responsible for these events. At all relevant times concerning the Amended Complaint, Plaintiffs Carlos Rivera Ramos and Armando Rivera Tirado have believed in and been vocal advocates for the independence of Puerto Rico and were members of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP).¹ The Police Department maintained dossiers on the plaintiffs since 1962. Plaintiff Carlos Rivera received his dossier from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico on or about December 1992. Plaintiff Armando Rivera received his dossier on or about February 1993.

As a first cause of action, plaintiffs sought relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, urging that the conduct alleged violated plaintiffs' federal constitutional rights of free speech and free association and due process of law. In the second cause of action, the same conduct was described as a violation of the Puerto Rico Constitution and the Puerto Rico Civil Code. The plaintiffs sought compensatory damages for loss of income and emotional pain and suffering "in excess" of $2 million and punitive damages "in excess" of $1 million. Plaintiffs demanded a jury trial.

II. SUMMARY JUDGMENT STANDARD

A court should grant summary judgment "if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact ..." FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c). "In applying this formulation, a fact is `material' if it potentially affects the outcome of the case," Vega-Rodriguez v. Puerto Rico Tel. Co., 110 F.3d 174, 178 (1st Cir.1997), and "`genuine' if a reasonable factfinder, examining the evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences helpful to the party resisting summary judgment, could resolve the dispute in that party's favor." Cortés-Irizarry v. Corporación Insular De Seguros, 111 F.3d 184, 187 (1st Cir.1997). The court should "`look at the record ... in the light most favorable to ... the party opposing ... the motion' ... [and] indulge all inferences favorable to the party opposing the motion." Hahn v. Sargent, 523 F.2d 461, 464 (1st Cir.1975) (quoting Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting System, 368 U.S. 464, 82 S.Ct. 486, 7 L.Ed.2d 458 (1962)) (citations omitted). However, the nonmovant must "present definite, competent evidence to rebut the motion." Mesnick v. General Electric Co., 950 F.2d 816, 822 (1st Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 504 U.S. 985, 112 S.Ct. 2965, 119 L.Ed.2d 586 (1992). "The court may consider any material that would be admissible or usable at trial." See 10A CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT, ARTHUR R. MILLER, MARY KAY KANE, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 2721, at 361 (3d ed.1998). "But the court should do no more than this in reviewing the quality of the evidence. Most critically, it must never `weigh the evidence and determine the truth of the matter....'" Lipsett v. University of P.R., 864 F.2d 881, 895 (1st Cir.1988) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2511, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)). Furthermore, "[n]o credibility assessment may be resolved in favor of the party seeking summary judgment." Woodman v. Haemonetics Corp., 51 F.3d 1087, 1091 (1st Cir.1995) (citations omitted). "Summary judgment may be appropriate if the nonmoving party rests merely upon conclusory allegations, improbable inferences, and unsupported speculation." Medina-Muñoz v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 896 F.2d 5, 8 (1st Cir.1990).

III. DISCUSSION

The First Circuit, in Rivera-Ramos v. Roman, 156 F.3d 276, 282-283 (1st Cir. 1998), invited this District Court to revisit the statute of limitations issue before tackling anew the qualified immunity defense. Although the Court has previously ruled on this issue twice, the First Circuit's invitation is heeded. Once, on September 8, 1994, in a terse Order,² the Court denied a Motion To Dismiss (Docket No. 13) on the limitations issue. (Docket No. 26). The second was contained in the same Order denying the motions for summary judgment (Docket No. 198), which precipitated the abovementioned interlocutory appeal on the issue of qualified immunity.

In a Scheduling Conference, the Court ordered the Defendants to draft motions squarely presenting the issue of limitations and the Plaintiffs to oppose. (Docket No. 217). The parties have duly complied.

As an initial concern, the Plaintiffs assert that the Court is precluded from entertaining this issue for a third time, regardless of the guidance provided by the First Circuit. The Court disagrees.

The first motion on the issue of the statute of limitations was a motion to dismiss not a motion for summary judgment, and whose abrupt denial lends nothing to the refiling of a summary judgment motion. (Docket No. 26). See Perez-Ruiz v. Crespo-Guillen, 25 F.3d 40, 42 (1st Cir. 1994) ("Interlocutory orders, including denials of motions to dismiss, remain open to trial court reconsideration, and do not constitute the law of the case.") (citations omitted); see also Commerce Oil Refining Corp. v. Miner, 303 F.2d 125, 128 (1st Cir.1962) ("a ruling denying a motion to dismiss is not the law of the case, and is not final even in the district court"). The second motion was a motion for summary judgment, which was denied. (Docket No. 198). Although the interlocutory appeal could not deal with the prescription issue, see Rivera-Ramos v. Roman, 156 F.3d at 282, the First Circuit had sufficient documentation before it to make, at least, a preliminary determination that the issue may have been improperly decided by the Court and graciously provided said forecast.³ Further, on a separate occasion the First Circuit has ventured to opine on the particular issue of the "law of the case" doctrine as follows:

Appellants first challenge the dismissal order on the ground that the earlier district court ruling denying the motion to dismiss in the Lopez action became the "law of the case" in the consolidated action. Appellants misapprehend the "law of the case" doctrine. Interlocutory orders, including denials of motions to dismiss, remain open to trial court reconsideration, and do not constitute the law of the case. Union Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Chrysler Corp., 793 F.2d 1, 15 (1st Cir.1986) (citing 1B James W. Moore et al., Moore's Federal Practice ¶ 0.404[4.1], at 124 n. 4 ("[U]ntil entry of judgment, [interlocutory orders] remain subject to change at any time. The doctrine of law of the case does not limit the power of the court in this respect.") (emphasis added) (2d ed.1993)); see also Commerce Oil Refining Corp. v. Miner, 303 F.2d 125, 128 (1st Cir.1962) ("a ruling denying a motion to dismiss is not the law of the...