Remexcel Managerial Consultants, Inc. v. Arlequín

• Decision Date: 01 October 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-1753.,08-1753.
• Citation: 583 F.3d 45
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit
• Parties: REMEXCEL MANAGERIAL CONSULTANTS, INC., María S. Kortright, Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Edgardo ARLEQUÍN, Municipality of Guayanilla, Defendants, Appellants.

583 F.3d 45

REMEXCEL MANAGERIAL CONSULTANTS, INC., María S. Kortright, Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Edgardo ARLEQUÍN, Municipality of Guayanilla, Defendants, Appellants.

No. 08-1753.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard May 4, 2009.

Decided October 1, 2009.

Jorge Martínez-Luciano, with whom Johanna M. Emmanuelli Huertas and Emil Rodríguez-Escudero were on brief, for appellants.

Pedro R. Vázquez III, for appellees.

Before TORRUELLA, TASHIMA,^* and LIPEZ, Circuit Judges.

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

We consider for the second time this political discrimination case, in which plaintiffs claim they were denied payment for services performed on behalf of the municipality of Guayanilla, Puerto Rico, in violation of the First Amendment. In the original appeal, we vacated the district court's dismissal of the case for failure to state a claim, holding that the plaintiffs' complaint adequately pleaded the necessary elements of a political discrimination action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Ramírez v. Arlequín, 447 F.3d 19, 25 (1st Cir.2006). Subsequent to our decision, the district court reinstated the claims and eventually entered a default judgment against defendants, the municipality of Guayanilla, Puerto Rico ("the Municipality"), and its mayor, Edgardo Arlequín, as a result of repeated discovery violations.

In this appeal, defendants argue that: 1) the district court abused its discretion in entering the default judgment, and 2) even in light of the default judgment, the plaintiffs cannot prevail because their complaint does not make out a prima facie case of political discrimination. For reasons we shall explain, we conclude that there was no abuse of discretion in the entry of a default judgment, and that the law of the case doctrine bars defendants' attempt to reargue the adequacy of plaintiffs' complaint. We therefore affirm.

I.

A. Background

Although the background facts of this complaint are described in our earlier decision in this case, id. at 20-22, we will recount them here succinctly. Plaintiff Remexcel Managerial Consultants ("Remexcel") is a company owned by Reinaldo Ramírez. Remexcel entered into a contract with the former mayor of Guayanilla, Ceferino Pacheco Guidicelli ("Mayor Pacheco"), a member of the New Progressive Party ("NPP"), to perform accounting services for the Municipality that would identify residents who owed taxes. Id. at 20-21. Remexcel was to receive ten percent of the money obtained as a result of its services. When Remexcel identified a tax deficiency of $4,444,058.87 owed to the Municipality by Stinnes Interoil, an oil supply company, the Municipality informed Stinnes of that determination, and Stinnes filed a lawsuit against the Municipality in Puerto Rico Superior Court seeking to dispute any outstanding tax liability. See Veba Oil Supply v. Municipality of Guyanilla, Civ. No. JCO 96-003 (Super.Ct.Ponce).

Plaintiff María S. Kortright is a lawyer who was hired by Mayor Pacheco and the Municipality to defend that lawsuit under a contingency arrangement which, like the agreement with Remexcel, would pay her ten percent of the money collected as a result of her work. Ramírez, 447 F.3d at 21. Working on the case until 2000, Kortright filed the summary judgment motions which led to a favorable resolution of the case for the Municipality. Id. After she performed this work, however, defendant Edgardo Arlequín ("Mayor Arlequín") took office, replacing Mayor Pacheco. Mayor Arlequín is a member of the Popular Democratic Party ("PDP"). Id.

The complaint alleges that after taking office, Mayor Arlequín began "a pattern and practice of discrimination by taking adverse action against anyone associated with the prior New Progressive Party administration at any level," and, as a result, refused to continue the Municipality's professional association with the plaintiffs. Kortright was replaced as counsel for the Veba Oil case. According to the complaint, "[t]he new counsel did nothing of record but enter his appearance before the court granted summary judgment for the Municipality in the amount of $4.5 million, based on Kortright's work." Id. The new lawyer then settled the suit for $1.8 million to be paid to the Municipality. Id.

The plaintiffs brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging, inter alia, that their First Amendment associational rights were violated because Mayor Arlequín and the Municipality refused to pay them money they were rightfully owed solely because of their association with Mayor Pacheco. Defendants moved in the district court to dismiss the suit for failure to state a claim. The district court granted the motion, concluding that, pursuant to the Supreme Court's decisions in Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976), and Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980), plaintiffs' jobs were not entitled to protection from political discrimination because they involved policymaking positions. Ramírez, 447 F.3d at 21-22.¹

In the appeal brought by plaintiffs, we were "called upon to decide whether a deliberate executive decision by a state actor, based only on a partisan political change of administration, to deprive independent contractors of a payment to which they are legally entitled, violates the contractors' First Amendment rights." Id. at 20. Ruling favorably for the plaintiffs, we concluded that the Elrod/Branti doctrine's exemption of policymakers from protection against political affiliation discrimination does not apply "to someone who is neither a government employee nor seeks a continuing relationship with the government, but who merely asks to be paid in accordance with a contract which that person has already performed." Id. at 23. We wrote that, "[a]lthough we must always be concerned about constitutionalizing traditional common law claims, we see no theoretical bar to the First Amendment claim that is alleged here." Id. We went on to say that "Remexcel and Kortright must plead that they engaged in protected association, that they were entitled to payment under their contracts, and that the Municipality denied the payment in retaliation for their exercise of associational rights. These elements are adequately pleaded in the complaint." Id. at 25 (citation omitted). Hence we reversed the district court's dismissal of Remexcel's and Kortright's First Amendment retaliation claims.

B. The Renewed Proceedings in the District Court

1. Defendants' motion for judgment on the pleadings

In light of our decision, the district court re-opened the case on June 22, 2006. Approximately two months later, on August 30, 2006, the Municipality filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that "plaintiffs failed to state a theory of political discrimination that, even with evidentiary support, would constitute a violation of said parties' First Amendment rights." See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c). Plaintiffs opposed the motion and asked the court to impose sanctions pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1927, because of defendants' unreasonable and vexatious multiplication of proceedings.²

On December 1, 2006, the district court denied the Municipality's motion for judgment on the pleadings, noting our ruling in the first appeal that the complaint adequately pleaded a First Amendment retaliation claim. It also granted plaintiffs' motion for sanctions because we had already decided that defendants' arguments lacked merit.³ Quoting our decision in Cruz v. Savage, 896 F.2d 626, 632 (1st Cir. 1990), it noted that "[t]his is the type of multiplying of proceedings that § 1927 is designed to avoid.... Counsel for the Municipality acted `in disregard of whether his conduct constitute[d] harassment ... thus displaying a serious and studied disregard for the orderly process of justice.'" The court went on to say:

Filing a motion for judgment on the pleadings, based in arguments already rejected by a court of higher level is clearly vexatious conduct that disregards the orderly process of justice and must be sanctioned.... If the Municipality, or its Counsel, disagreed with the First Circuit's decision, it should have filed a [petition for] certiorari before the United States Supreme Court.⁴

The district court ordered the defendants to pay $2,000 to the plaintiffs "in satisfaction of excess costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees they reasonably incurred in relitigating an issues previously ruled on by a higher court."

2. Discovery violations

On September 18, 2006, October 11, 2006, and January 9, 2007, plaintiffs moved to compel the production of requested discovery and for sanctions based on defendants' consistent failure to provide discovery, as well as their alleged failures to appear at scheduled depositions and to respond to a subpoena duces tecum. Defendants opposed the motions, arguing, inter alia, that they had not answered the discovery requests because they had objected to them.

On April 19, 2007, the district court granted plaintiffs' motions to compel and denied their motions for sanctions. Because the response to plaintiffs' motions to compel depended on the merits of defendants' objections to the requests for discovery, the court painstakingly addressed each of defendants' objections. Before compelling the production of any of the objected-to materials, it explained why it disagreed with the defendants that the requested information was either irrelevant or privileged.

In rejecting plaintiffs' request for sanctions, the court explained that it did not fault the defendants for refusing to produce the objected-to documents until the court had ruled on those objections. It did, however, admonish the defendants for not producing other documents to which it had not objected. It went on:

We refuse ... to make an account here of each document requested and produced, and those which remain to be produced. Defendants are to make such an exercise and comply with this order by the time provided below.... Should counsel continue...