Romeu v. Housing Inv. Corp., Civ. 78-0743CC.

Citation548 F. Supp. 1312
Decision Date29 September 1982
Docket NumberNo. Civ. 78-0743CC.,Civ. 78-0743CC.
PartiesHector Luis Fuertes ROMEU and Rene Javier Fuertes Romeu, minors, whose appearance is complemented by their guardian William R. Fuertes, William R. Fuertes; Isabel Maria Fuertes, Jaime Fuertes Romeu; Alberto Rafael Fuertes Romeu; Carmen Ana Fuertes Romeu, Magdalena Sofia Fuertes Romeu; Maria Soledad Fuertes Romeu; and Roberto Rafael Fuertes Romeu, Plaintiffs, v. HOUSING INVESTMENT CORPORATION; Chase Manhattan Overseas Banking Corporation; Centro Associates L.P.; Productos Libby's International Inc.; William Salva Matos, personally and as Administrator of the Administration of Regulations and Permits of Puerto Rico; Antonio Joglar Moreno, personally and as Director of the Bayamón Regional Office of the Administration of Regulations and Permits of Puerto Rico; Miguel A. Rivera Rios, personally and as President of the Puerto Rico Planning Board; Luis E. Biaggi and Jose G. Alcala personally and respectively as Vice President and Associate Member of the Puerto Rico Planning Board; Carlos E. Polo, Judge of the Superior Court of Puerto Rico, Bayamón Part; John Doe and Richard Roe as the persons operating the bulldozers over the property of Plaintiffs and the subcontractors or any other persons effectuating any entry into or act upon the property of Plaintiffs contrary to the rights of Plaintiffs, Defendants.
CourtUnited States District Courts. 1st Circuit. District of Puerto Rico

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Luis P. Costas-Elena, Santurce, P.R., Manuel Moreda-Toledo, San Juan, P.R., for plaintiffs.

David Carrión-Fuentes, Pedro A. Del Valle-Ferrer, Federal Litigation Div., Dept. of Justice, Eduardo Estrella, Fiddler, Gonzalez & Rodriguez, San Juan, P.R., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

CEREZO, District Judge.

On April 27, 1978 plaintiffs filed this civil rights action and requested a temporary restraining order to prevent an allegedly unconstitutional interference with their property. Two weeks later Chief Judge Toledo dismissed the complaint on principles of abstention since at that time there was an almost identical lawsuit pending in the Superior Court of Puerto Rico which also sought similar injunctive remedies. The dismissal judgment was appealed and reversed. The action was remanded. On appeal it was resolved that this Court should not have taken action without first giving plaintiffs an opportunity to present opposing arguments to the abstention-based dismissal. It was suggested that plaintiffs' complaint could probably not withstand a motion to dismiss unless amended. After spending almost twelve months ruminating on this advice, plaintiffs on March 27, 1980 decided to request leave to amend the complaint and tendered a sixty page compilation of unnecessary, redundant and, at times, even malign statements that wallow aimlessly among incessant incantations of the word "conspiracy" and all its related derivatives.

Before this sixty page amended complaint was tendered, there were Motions to Dismiss and for Summary Judgment which together with the oppositions to the request for leave to amend must now be examined. This Court, with great difficulty, due to the numerous memoranda filed during four years,1 finds that defendants' motions for dismissal and summary judgment are also related to their opposition to the request for leave to amend in that both essentially urge the failure to state a cause of action. We shall thus review these motions to determine if defendants' fundamental opposition is dispositive of the action.

Plaintiffs are the owners of a 42% interest in two parcels of land (Parcels D & E) of approximately six cuerdas located in an industrial area near San Juan. They inherited this interest from their father, Mr. William Fuertes, while the other 52% interest was acquired by their mother Isabel Romeu, a defendant in this case. On November 20, 1974, Isabel Romeu signed on behalf of her children, the heirs of William Fuertes, a letter addressed to Rafael Alonso Alonso and Adalberto Colón, (President of the Planning Board of Puerto Rico and Director of the Land Division respectively — neither of whom are parties to any of the complaints —) consenting to the use of a provisional access through parcel D by Constructora San Miguel Martinez, Inc. (Constructora) through Capacete, Martin & Associates (Capacete). Constructora had acquired from the Fuertes heirs the adjoining 120 cuerdas lot on which they were preparing an industrial complex of warehouses to be called Centro de Distribución del Norte. On March 19, 1975, Luis Arnaldo San Miguel, Constructora, Capacete and Angel Herrera, as petitioners, obtained from the director of the Bayamón Regional Office of the Administration of Regulations and Permits (ARPE) report # XX-X-XXXX which approved partial construction plans for their warehouse project. This report made the following reference to the consent signed by Isabel Romeu:

By means of communication of November 20, 1974 Mrs. Isabel R. Widow of Fuertes Garzot, has informed to be in conformity that part of her lands be used for a provisional access which will connect the project with Road Number 869, until the works of construction of Las Palmas Avenue are concluded.

Sometime in the month of January 1978 plaintiffs noticed that some trucks and construction vehicles were trespassing on their property and decided to fence it off to discourage the intrusion. Defendant Housing Investment Corporation (Housing), by letter dated February 18, 1978, informed plaintiffs that they had acquired the 120 cuerdas property from the previous owners and were going to enter and utilize plaintiffs' property pursuant to the consent given by Mrs. Romeu and Report XX-X-XXXX from ARPE. Since plaintiffs did not remove the newly erected fence, Housing filed a complaint in the Superior Court of Puerto Rico, Bayamón Part, Civil 78-804, against plaintiffs herein, Isabel Romeu and Land Investment Trust Co. Ltd.2 seeking injunctive relief to prevent them from interfering with Housing's use of the access road. Plaintiffs responded with a counterclaim and in turn the Bayamón Court granted them injunctive relief preventing Housing from interfering with their property rights. At the same time that plaintiffs were answering and counterclaiming in the local case, and undaunted by their lack of success in obtaining removal to this forum,3 they filed this action seeking five million dollars in damages, injunctive relief, and other remedies due to an alleged conspiracy to deprive them of their civil rights as guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1983, 1985 and 1986. Jurisdiction is premised on 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1331. It should be noted that plaintiffs have continued filing claims related to the property in dispute in the courts of Puerto Rico, to wit: Children of William Fuertes v. Constructora San Miguel, et al., filed December 21, 1979 (79-7989); Héctor L. Fuertes Romeu (minor) by William Fuertes, et al. v. Constructora San Miguel et al., filed July 16, 1980 (80-2685).4 Both of these cases have been consolidated with Civil 78-804 in the local court. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico has also filed an expropriation proceeding against plaintiffs and Isabel Romeu (and Bay Properties, Inc., Levitt & Sons Inc.) The impact of the final judgment of the expropriation case on the present proceedings will be discussed further on.

Mindful of the difficulty of discerning the usually concealed elements of a conspiracy, we take to the task of "sifting the facts" to see if, allowing the proper inferences and giving the consideration owed a party opposing a summary judgment, the ugly contours of a conspiracy and the involvement of the state surface from the myriad allegations and memoranda of plaintiffs. See: Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970); Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715, 81 S.Ct. 856, 6 L.Ed.2d 45 (1961).

We must first review the allegations of the original verified complaint which in essence state the following: William Salva Matos (Administrator of ARPE), Antonio Joglar Moreno (Director of ARPE's Bayamón Regional Office), Luis E. Biaggi, Miguel A. Rivera Rios, José G. Alcala (members of the Planning Board of Puerto Rico) allegedly conspired with Housing, Chase Manhattan Overseas Banking Corporation (Housing's parent corporation, "Overseas") Centro Associates L.P. (CALP) and Productos Libby's International Inc. (Libby's) to deprive plaintiffs of the use of part of their land without compensation or due process. Plaintiffs contend that ARPE's Report XX-X-XXXX was based on an illegal consent since, according to Article 159 of the Civil Code of Puerto Rico, P.R. Laws Ann. Tit. 31 Sec. 616, the consent of the minor Fuertes heirs had to be obtained at that time by judicial authorization. It is also contended that the report was obtained without ever notifying plaintiffs of any of the proceedings before the Planning Board or the Regional Office. Based on this allegedly invalid permit, Housing started constructing an access road through plaintiffs' land and utilized the permit as a "badge of authority," together with the letter of consent, to justify its use of the access. Housing is also charged with violating plaintiffs' privacy rights by making threatening phone calls.

Plaintiffs do not mention the role that Libby's and CALP played in the conspiracy aside from the fact that they allegedly owned and/or rented some of the warehouses in the adjoining lot. Neither do they allege how defendant Carlos E. Polo, a Superior Court Judge, got involved in the conspiracy other than the bare assertion that he was the presiding judge in case 78-804.5 A puzzling omission in this verified complaint is the absence of any allegation connecting plaintiffs' mother, defendant Isabel Romeu, with the conspiracy. The only allegation as to her part in these events is her failure to obtain the proper judicial authorization as to her minor...

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2 cases
  • Begg v. Moffitt
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois
    • February 7, 1983
    ...Koch v. Schneider, 550 F.Supp. 846 (N.D.Ill.1982); Juncker v. Tinney, 549 F.Supp. 574 (D.Md.1982); Romeu v. Housing Investment Corp., 548 F.Supp. 1312, 1326-27 (D.P.R.1982); Moore v. Gluckstern, 548 F.Supp. 165 (D.Md.1982); Liotta v. Rent Guidelines Board, 547 F.Supp. 800 (S.D.N.Y. 1982); A......
  • Romeu v. Housing Inv. Corp.
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit
    • March 7, 1984

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