United States v. 323 “Quintales” of Green Coffee Beans

• Decision Date: 30 December 2013
• Docket Number: Civil No. 10–1519 MEL.
• Citation: 21 F.Supp.3d 122
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. 323 “QUINTALES” OF GREEN COFFEE BEANS, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

21 F.Supp.3d 122

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff

v.323 “QUINTALES” OF GREEN COFFEE BEANS, et al., Defendants.

Civil No. 10–1519 MEL.

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

Signed Dec. 30, 2013.

Eugenio A. Lomba–Ortiz, Miguel A. Fernandez–Torres, Myriam Y. Fernandez–Gonzalez, United States Attorneys Office, San Juan, PR, for Plaintiff.

Lorenzo J. Palomares–Starbuck, Lorenzo Palomares PSC, San Juan, PR, for Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

MARCOS E. LÓPEZ, United States Magistrate Judge.

I. Procedural History

On June 9, 2010 the United States of America (the “government” or “plaintiff”) filed a complaint along with a statement made under penalty of perjury in support of the same (the “affidavit”) by José I. Cruz Pillich, a special agent for ICE (“Agent Pillich”), to institute a civil in rem action under 18 U.S.C. § 545 and 19 U.S.C. § 1595a(c)(1)(A) and (2)(C) for the forfeiture of 323 “quintales” (approximately 32,300 pounds) of green coffee beans (the “property”). ECF Nos. 1, ¶¶ 1–2; 265, ¶ 2; 279, ¶ 2. The property had been seized by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) agent, pursuant to a search and seizure warrant. ECF No. 265–1. On July 13, 2010, Daniel Omar Torres (“claimant”) filed an answer to the complaint, along with a third party complaint against third party defendant Nelson Colón (“Mr. Colón”), in his personal capacity and official capacity as inspector for the Puerto Rico Department of Agriculture, and against third party defendant Javier Aquino (“Mr. Aquino”), in his individual capacity and official capacity as Secretary of Agriculture for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico at the time the property was seized. ECF No. 9. On May 19, 2011, the court granted third party defendant Mr. Aquino's motion to dismiss plaintiff's third party complaint against him in both capacities, without prejudice. ECF No. 36. On March 30, 2012, the court adopted the Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation (ECF No. 157) and granted third party defendant Mr. Colón's motion to dismiss plaintiff's third party complaint against him in both capacities, with prejudice. ECF Nos. 157; 172 (report and recommendation adopted).

On September 13, 2013, six days prior to the commencement of a jury trial in the case of caption, plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment (ECF No. 238), which the court denied without prejudice on September 20, 2013. ECF No. 263. After a rescheduling of the trial, plaintiff was granted until September 25, 2013 to re-file the motion. Id. Pending before the court are plaintiff's motion for summary judgment (ECF No. 264), and a response in opposition filed by claimant and interested party International Coffee Vendors, Inc. (ECF No. 275). For the reasons set forth below, plaintiff's motion for summary judgment is granted.

II. Uncontested Facts¹

Claimant incorporated International Coffee Vendors, Inc. D/B/A/ Gustos Coffee Co. (“ICV”) as a for-profit corporation under Puerto Rico law on September 17, 2001. ECF Nos. 265, ¶ 10; 279, ¶ 10. Neither claimant nor ICV are involved in growing coffee and neither do they have the processing equipment to process coffee, so that all coffee which was to be roasted once they began the roasting operations had to be purchased from a “beneficiado” who had the necessary equipment to be able to process the coffee. ECF Nos. 265, ¶ 17; 279, ¶ 17. Claimant acknowledges that when coffee is purchased from a coffee processor or “beneficiado” that sells coffee that has been grown by another grower who is different from the “beneficiado,” it is impossible for him to determine from where the coffee originated. ECF Nos. 265, ¶ 18; 279, ¶ 18.

Claimant has a license from the Department of Agriculture to purchase coffee. ECF Nos. 265, ¶ 19; 279, ¶ 19. As a condition of being licensed claimant is required to allow inspectors from the Department of Agriculture to come onto the ICV premises for certain purposes, and the inspectors have the right to do an inventory of the coffee and sample it under certain circumstances. Id. At all pertinent times for the purposes of the pending motion, Mr. Colón was an inspector for the Department of Agriculture of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and taking samples of coffee beans was among his functions as an inspector. ECF Nos. 265, ¶¶ 21–22; 279, ¶¶ 21–22. He was part of the chain of custody of the samples of green coffee beans that he took at the premises of ICV. ECF Nos. 265, ¶ 25; 279, ¶ 25.

On January 26, 2010, Mr. Colón visited the ICV premises. ECF Nos. 265 ¶ 26; 279 ¶ 26.² Mr. Colón provided a sample of coffee beans taken from the ICV premises to Senior Special Agent for ICE, Antonio Illas (“Agent Illas”). ECF Nos. 265 ¶ 45; 279 ¶ 45. On or about February 3, 2010, Agent Illas provided the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) Laboratory samples of the property for “country of origin” analysis, which indicated a greater than 99% probability match with the green coffee beans in the CBP Savannah Laboratory database from the Dominican Republic. Id. Mr. Colón had to return to the ICV premises because the coffee beans samples that he initially took from the premises tested positive for not being coffee from Puerto Rico, and he placed a hold on the property there. ECF Nos. 265, ¶¶ 30, 38, 29; 279, ¶¶ 30, 38, 39. Pursuant to the search and seizure warrant issued on February 11, 2010, the property ICE agents seized the property on or around February 16, 2010. ECF Nos. 265, ¶¶ 3–4; 279, ¶¶ 3–4. The ICE agents seized the property from a warehouse of ICV, where the property had been stored. ECF Nos. 265, ¶ 5; 279, ¶ 5. Once the property had been seized, CBP conducted subsequent sampling and laboratory tests under the laboratory report number SV20100184. ECF Nos. 265, ¶ 46; 279, ¶ 46. A total of thirty-three additional coffee samples were taken at random, thirty-two of which yielded a positive result for coffee beans with originating from the Dominican Republic, and the CBP chemist deemed the result for one sample as inconclusive. Id. The samples taken for CBP testing and the 323 Quintales of coffee beans seized by federal law enforcement agents were composed of exclusively unroasted coffee beans.³

III. Legal Standard

The purpose of summary judgment “is to pierce the boilerplate of the pleadings and assay the parties' proof in order to determine whether trial is actually required.” Wynne v. Tufts Univ. Sch. of Med., 976 F.2d 791, 794 (1st Cir.1992). Summary judgment is granted when the record shows that “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). “ ‘A dispute is genuine if the evidence about the fact is such that a reasonable jury could resolve the point in the favor of the non-moving party. A fact is material if it has the potential of determining the outcome of the litigation.’ ” Farmers Ins. Exch. v. RNK, Inc., 632 F.3d 777, 782 (1st Cir.2011) (quoting Rodríguez–Rivera v. Federico Trilla Reg'l Hosp., 532 F.3d 28, 30 (1st Cir.2008) ).

The party moving for summary judgment bears the burden of showing the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). Once the movant presents a properly focused motion “averring ‘an absence of evidence to support the nonmoving party's case[,]’ [t]he burden then shifts to the nonmovant to establish the existence of at least one fact issue which is both ‘genuine’ and ‘material.’ ” Griggs–Ryan v. Smith, 904 F.2d 112, 115 (1st Cir.1990) (quoting Garside v. Osco Drug., Inc., 895 F.2d 46, 48 (1st Cir.1990) ). For issues where the nonmoving party bears the ultimate burden of proof, that party cannot merely “rely on the absence of competent evidence, but must affirmatively point to specific facts” in the record “that demonstrate the existence of an authentic dispute.” McCarthy v. Nw. Airlines, Inc., 56 F.3d 313, 315 (1st Cir.1995). The plaintiff need not, however, “rely on uncontradicted evidence.... So long as the plaintiff's evidence is both cognizable and sufficiently strong to support a verdict in her favor, the factfinder must be allowed to determine which version of the facts is most compelling.” Calero–Cerezo v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 355 F.3d 6, 19 (1st Cir.2004) (emphasis in original).

In assessing a motion for summary judgment, the court “must view the entire record in the light most hospitable to the party opposing summary judgment, indulging all reasonable inferences in that party's favor.” Griggs–Ryan, 904 F.2d at 115 (citations omitted). The court may safely ignore “conclusory allegations, improbable inferences, and unsupported speculation.” Medina–Muñoz v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 896 F.2d 5, 8 (1st Cir.1990) (citations omitted). However, there is “no room for credibility determinations, no room for the measured weighing of conflicting evidence such as the trial process entails, [and] no room for the judge to superimpose his own ideas of probability and likelihood (no matter how reasonable those ideas may be).” Greenburg v. P.R. Mar. Shipping Auth., 835 F.2d 932, 936 (1st Cir.1987).

IV. Legal Analysis

A. 18 U.S.C. § 545

In the case of caption, plaintiff is pursuing civil forfeiture under two statutes: 18 U.S.C. § 545 (“§ 545 ”) and 19 U.S.C. § 1595a (“§ 1595a ”).⁴ Before the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (“CAFRA”), Pub.L. No. 106–185, 114 Stat. 202 (2000), in a civil forfeiture action, the government needed only to establish probable cause that the property was subject to forfeiture; upon the government's showing, the burden would shift to the claimant. See 19 U.S.C. § 1615. CAFRA, however, “ ‘heighten[ed] the government's evidentiary burden in civil forfeitures.’ ” United States v. $21,510.00 in U.S. Currency, 144 Fed.Appx. 888, 889 (1st Cir.2005) (quoting United States v. Funds in Amount of Thirty Thousand Six Hundred Seventy Dollars, 403 F.3d 448, 454 (7th Cir.2005) ). Under CAFRA, “the burden of proof is on the...