Schneider v. Colegio de Abogados de Puerto Rico

• Citation: 546 F. Supp. 1251
• Decision Date: 13 September 1982
• Docket Number: 82-1532 (TR).,Civ. No. 82-1459,82-1513,82-1514
• Parties: Robert E. SCHNEIDER, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, v. COLEGIO DE ABOGADOS DE PUERTO RICO, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

546 F. Supp. 1251

Robert E. SCHNEIDER, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, v. COLEGIO DE ABOGADOS DE PUERTO RICO, et al., Defendants.

Civ. Nos. 82-1459, 82-1513, 82-1514, 82-1532 (TR).

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

September 13, 1982.

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Robert E. Schneider, Jr., Santurce, P. R., pro se and for plaintiffs.

Salvador Antonetti-Zequeira, Jay Garcia-Gregory, San Juan, P. R., Miriam Naveira de Rodón, Santurce, P. R., José Julián Alvarez González, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, P. R., for Justices of Supreme Court.

Pedro A. del Valle Ferrer, Fed. Lit. Div., Dept. of Justice, San Juan, P. R., for Secretaries of Justice and Treasury.

Harry Anduze Montaño, Santurce, P. R., for Colegio & Fundación de Abogados.

Jorge F. Romany, San Juan, P. R., pro se.

Héctor L. Marquez, Hato Rey, P. R., pro se.

Héctor Urgell Cuebas, San Juan, P. R., pro se.

Jorge Souss Shidrewa, pro se.

Oreste V. Ramos Diaz, Santurce, P. R., pro se.

DECISION AND ORDER

TORRUELLA, District Judge.

The original action in this case, Civil No. 82-1459, is related to issues which gave rise to disbarment proceedings initiated in the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico (hereinafter called the "Puerto Rico Court") against Plaintiffs Robert E. Schneider, Jr. and Héctor R. Ramos Díaz (hereinafter called "Plaintiffs Schneider and Ramos"). Those proceedings were commenced on November 21, 1977 by Codefendant Colegio de Abogados de Puerto Rico (hereinafter called the "Colegio") for the nonpayment of the annual dues owed to the Colegio.¹ At the time of the filing of said proceedings Plaintiff Schneider had refused to pay dues since 1974 and Plaintiff Ramos since 1976. After a series of motions, incidents and proceedings, the Puerto Rico Court rendered its decision on the merits on April 5, 1982 and ordered Plaintiffs Schneider-Ramos to pay the pending Colegio dues or face disbarment. (See Colegio de Abogados de Puerto Rico v. Schneider, et al, 112 D.P.R. ___ (1982), 82 JTS 51). Upon their failure to pay the dues owed, the Puerto Rico Court ordered their disbarment on June 3, 1982.

On June 9, 1982, Plaintiffs Schneider and Ramos filed their present action, purportedly challenging the constitutional validity of Law No. 43 and a companion statute, Law No. 99 of June 29, 1956 (4 LPRA 1001 et seq.), alleging violation of their civil rights pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 et seq. and of the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.²

The complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief as well as damages against the Defendants, whom we will classify for purposes of this decision as follows: (1) the Colegio, (2) Carmen Ana Culpeper, Secretary of the Treasury for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (hereinafter called the "Secretary of the Treasury") and Héctor Reichard de Cardona, Secretary of Justice of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (hereinafter called the "Secretary of Justice"), and (3) José Trías Monge, Carlos V. Dávila, Hiram Torres Rigual, Jorge Díaz Cruz, Carlos Irizarry Yunqué and Antonio S. Negrón, the Chief Justice and Associate Justices, respectively, of the Puerto Rico Court (hereinafter referred to collectively as the "Justices").³

The essence of the allegations contained in Plaintiffs Schneider and Ramos' lengthy complaint can be summarized as follows:

(1) Compulsory membership in the Colegio as required by Law No. 43, and as administered by the Colegio, does not have a reasonable relationship to any permissible legislative objective. The statute is over-broad and "chills" the freedom of expression and association rights of those that dissent from the Colegio's ideological and partisan activities yet are compelled to belong thereto in order to engage in the practice of law. It is claimed that the problem is compounded in forcing these dissenters to financially support these activities by the payment of dues and other monetary contributions required by law.⁴ Thus Law 43 violates the freedom of expression and association clause of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Furthermore, because it raises an irrebuttable presumption to the effect that those who do not pay dues to the Colegio are not qualified to practice law, it is alleged that it also violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment;

(2) It is claimed that the proceedings before the Puerto Rico Court to seek their disbarment did not grant Plaintiffs Schneider and Ramos a full, fair and meaningful opportunity to be heard; and

(3) It is alleged that there existed a conspiracy between the Colegio and the Justices to deprive those plaintiffs of their right to practice law and of their various civil rights.

Together with the complaint, Plaintiffs Schneider and Ramos filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction. An order to show cause issued setting the matter for a hearing on June 21, 1982. At the hearing, which resulted in the denial of the preliminary injunction sought, the Justices filed the Motion to Dismiss and/or Motion For Summary Judgment which is the principal subject matter of the present decision.

At the hearing also, three other individual Plaintiffs, Jorge F. Romany (Civil Number 82-1513), Jorge Sous Schidrewa, (Civil Number 82-1514), and Oreste V. Ramos Díaz (Civil Number 82-1532), hereinafter referred to as Plaintiffs Romany, Sous and Oreste Ramos, respectively filed complaints similar to the one filed by Plaintiffs Schneider-Ramos against the Justices, the Colegio and the Secretaries of Justice and Treasury. However, these new complaints contain some important differences from the Schneider-Ramos allegations. Plaintiffs Romany, Sous and Oreste Ramos do not allege that they have been disbarred. They in fact have been paying their Colegio dues. They claim, however, the right to declaratory and injunctive relief from continued mandatory dues payment and Colegio membership by reason of the alleged unconstitutionality of Law No. 43, as per allegations similar to the Schneider-Ramos complaint, as previously summarized. They also make a claim for damages. Plaintiff Oreste Ramos' complaint also alleges that he attempted without success to pay the 1982 Colegio dues, with a limit as to the ideological activities for which these dues could be used, but that this procedure was rejected by the Colegio. Lastly, Plaintiffs Romany, Sous and Oreste Ramos make no conspiracy allegations. These cases were consolidated with the original Schneider-Ramos suit (Civil No. 82-1459).

The issues raised by Defendant Justices in the referred Motions⁵ are as follows:

(1) That the complaints fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted;

(2) That this Court lacks jurisdiction in that this is an attempt to review a judgment of the Puerto Rico Court, which may only be done by the Supreme Court of the United States;

(3) That the actions are barred by res judicata-collateral estoppel principles;⁶

(4) That this Court has been asked to intervene in an ongoing judicial proceeding in violation of Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 639 (1971);

(5) That the Justices are protected by judicial immunity;

(6) That these actions seek to enjoin the collection of taxes, in violation of the Butler Act (48 U.S.C. § 872).

The Colegio filed a Motion to Dismiss similar to the Justices. The Secretary of Justice and Treasury also filed a Motion to Dismiss, but limited to the issues raised by the Tax Injunction Act and the Butler Act.

The starting point to a discussion of the issues raised in the present cases is an understanding of the Puerto Rico Court's decision in Colegio v. Schneider et al, supra.

I. THE PUERTO RICO COURT'S DECISION

The opinion in Colegio v. Schneider, et al, supra,⁷ is as revealing for what it fails to decide as for what it does decide.

At the outset, the Puerto Rico Court clearly establishes the premises upon which it renders the opinion. To begin with, it indicates that its decision concerns only those attorneys who, out of an original total of ninety-nine lawyers against whom a complaint was filed by the Colegio, still refuse to pay the dues owed. In this respect it specifically mentions only Plaintiffs Schneider and Ramos, whom the Puerto Rico Court indicates, contend that the order to show cause issued by that Court concerning their possible separation from the practice of law for failure to pay the Colegio dues, "is at variance with the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico" (emphasis supplied). Id. at p. 1. In this respect the Court reduces their contentions to four points, which are:

"... 1st, that the Legislature lacks the power to regulate the practice of law, inasmuch as this power is within the province of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico; 2nd. that they cannot be forced to become members of the Bar; 3rd. that the provisions of Act No. 43 of May 14, 1932 (4 LPRA 771 et seq.) establishing the payment of dues, is void because it violates the freedom of speech and association; and 4th, that the amounts collected by virtue of the dues required as a condition to practice the legal profession, as well as those received from the compulsory purchase of notarial and bar stamps, are impermissibly used for purposes foreign to the Bar's duties." (Id. at pp. 1-2).

The discussion of the first issue contains both matters of direct and of tangential interest to the present case. In it the Puerto Rico Court considers the historical background of the Colegio, founded originally by Royal Decree in 1840 and "suppressed by ... the United States Military Government on the Island", which established in its place the Bar Association of Puerto Rico, "... a colorless entity, which was voluntary and which led a precarious life until the present Colegio was created by Act No. 43..." Id. at p. 3. It confirms that the Colegio's funds come mainly from the annual dues and from the proceeds of the aforementioned "forensic" and notarial stamps. Id. at p. 4. In affirming...