Gonzalez-Rios v. Hewlett Packard PR Co. ( 2014 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 12-2425
BENNY GONZÁLEZ-RÍOS,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
HEWLETT PACKARD PR COMPANY; HEWLETT PACKARD CARIBE LIMITED
COMPANY; HEWLETT PACKARD CARIBE BV COMPANY; HEWLETT PACKARD
EMPLOYEES DISABILITY PROGRAM; LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF NORTH
AMERICA (LINA); HEWLETT PACKARD CARIBE BV INSURANCE PLAN,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Daniel R. Domínguez, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Baldock,* and Kayatta,
Circuit Judges.
Luis Vivaldi Oliver, on brief for appellant.
Fernando A. Baerga Ibáñez, Carolina Santa Cruz Sadurní, and
Baerga & Quintana Law Offices, on brief, for appellee Hewlett
Packard Caribe BV Company.
Rosa María Cruz-Niemiec and Cruz Niemiec & Vázquez, on brief
for appellees Life Insurance Company of North America (LINA) and
Hewlett Packard Caribe BV Insurance Plan.
April 16, 2014
*
Of the Tenth Circuit, sitting by designation.
BALDOCK, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff Benny González-Ríos
appeals the District of Puerto Rico's dismissal of his lawsuit
seeking disability benefits under the Employee Retirement Income
Security Act (ERISA). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291. Because Plaintiff has committed numerous procedural
errors, thwarting intelligent review, we dismiss the appeal.
I.
In 1983, Hewlett Packard Caribe BV Company (hereinafter
"HP Caribe") hired Plaintiff as an electronics technician.
Beginning in July 2007, Plaintiff was covered by a short-term
disability plan named the "Hewlett Packard Caribe BV Insurance
Plan" (hereinafter "the Plan"). The Life Insurance Company of
North America (hereinafter "LINA") had "the authority, in its
discretion, to interpret the terms of the Plan, to decide questions
of eligibility for coverage or benefits under the Plan, and to make
any related findings of fact."
Plaintiff underwent back surgery in early 2009, and LINA
authorized short-term disability benefits from February 3 to May
15, 2009. On June 2, LINA denied Plaintiff benefits for the first
time. Plaintiff returned to work one month later. He left work
again on July 21, however, never to return. Over the next
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year-and-a-half, LINA repeatedly denied Plaintiff's requests and
appeals for disability benefits.1
In December 2010 Plaintiff sued LINA, HP Caribe, and
several other Hewlett Packard entities in a Puerto Rico court,
seeking review of the benefits denial. In its answer, HP Caribe
asserted it was Plaintiff's sole employer and denied everything in
the complaint regarding the other named HP entities, e.g., "Hewlett
Packard PR Co."2 Plaintiff thereafter moved for default judgment
against the other HP defendants. This motion was denied, and HP
Caribe's answer was deemed sufficient.
Plaintiff did not serve LINA until April 2011. Less than
thirty days later, on May 4, LINA removed the action to the
District of Puerto Rico. HP Caribe consented. One month later,
LINA clarified in its answer the full name of the Plan, as it had
not been named in the original lawsuit. Despite HP Caribe and
LINA's clarifications as to the actual parties involved, Plaintiff
never amended his complaint. Nor did he seek to serve the Plan
properly. Instead, he moved for partial summary judgment and for
1
HP Caribe's answer to Plaintiff's complaint alleged
Plaintiff "enjoyed the benefits of temporary disability from
February 16, 2009 to July 1, 2009" and from "July 21, 2009 to
February 24, 2010." In its brief to us, however, HP Caribe hews
more closely to the dates established in the main text above, dates
which are largely agreed upon by Plaintiff and LINA. Under either
narrative, our conclusion here would remain the same.
2
Plaintiff apparently served process on "Hewlett Packard," in
general, without specifically serving each named HP entity.
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an entry of default, again contending various entities he had sued
had failed to answer the complaint. In response, HP Caribe
asserted the issue had already been ruled on. At the same time,
LINA filed an amended answer stating that, despite not being served
properly, the Plan was voluntarily appearing "to simplify matters
and expedite the proceedings." As such, Defendants argued, all
relevant and operative parties had appeared: the plan administrator
(HP Caribe), the claims administrator (LINA), and the Plan. Nearly
two months later, Plaintiff asked the district court to order HP
Caribe to produce certain documents. Plaintiff also submitted a
document apparently filed with the IRS on behalf of "Hewlett
Packard PR-Death, Weekly Income & Major Medical/Dental Plan," which
Plaintiff asserted was the true name of his plan. LINA moved to
strike this reply, arguing the IRS document had not been
authenticated and all relevant Plan documents had been provided.
On February 10, 2012, in an opinion and order, the
district court: (1) ruled the IRS document could not be considered
because it had not been authenticated; (2) declined to order the
production of any documents; (3) denied Plaintiff summary judgment
on Defendants' alleged failure to pay disability benefits; (4)
declined to grant default judgment because "all relevant parties"
had effectively made an appearance; and (5) ordered Plaintiff to
use the Plan name attested to by HP Caribe, LINA, and the Plan.
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Around the same time, LINA moved for judgment on the
administrative record, asking the court to affirm the benefits
denial. Similarly, HP Caribe moved for dismissal, arguing the
complaint was factually insufficient to sustain a claim against it.
In the alternative, HP Caribe moved for summary judgment. The
court referred both motions to a magistrate judge, who recommended
dismissal of Plaintiff's complaint in its entirety, with prejudice.
On September 30, 2012, the district court issued an
opinion and order in which it adopted the magistrate's report and
recommendation. The court approved of the magistrate's use of the
arbitrary and capricious standard to review LINA's decision to deny
benefits, and it found LINA's decision was not arbitrary and
capricious because Plaintiff failed to produce sufficient medical
evidence of disability. The court also agreed with the magistrate
that Plaintiff's only claim against HP Caribe was for a failure to
provide documents. The court dismissed this claim because
Plaintiff failed to plead it with specificity.3 Both the order and
subsequent judgment were entered on the docket on October 5, 2012.
On November 2, 2012, Plaintiff submitted a notice stating
he was appealing the district court's "Order and Final judgment
entered on November 5, 2012." On February 23, 2013, Plaintiff
filed his brief on appeal. In it, Plaintiff did not refer to any
3
The court declined to treat HP Caribe's motion as a motion
for summary judgment, although it noted that under a summary
judgment analysis "the case would have ended in the same place."
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medical documents or give any explicit reason why he was entitled
to benefits. Rather, he argued the court erred by using the
arbitrary and capricious standard of review. De novo review should
have been applied, he contended, because of two procedural
irregularities: (1) Defendants did not provide him with a copy of
the Plan rules; and (2) LINA denied his claim even though it was
not delegated or granted the legal authority to act on behalf of
the Plan administrator, HP Caribe. Further, Plaintiff contended,
the court erred by determining the Plan's voluntary appearance was
valid. The Plan, Plaintiff asserted, was actually in default
because no one had appeared on its behalf.
Three days later, on February 26, we ordered Plaintiff to
include the Plan in his caption because without this his brief was
not in compliance with Fed. R. App. P. 32(a)(2)(C).4 On February
28, Plaintiff moved for relief from this order, arguing the Plan's
voluntary appearance was invalid. LINA opposed this motion. On
March 11, before we could rule on the motion, Plaintiff re-filed
his brief, naming "Hewlett Packard Caribe BV Insurance Program" in
the caption. The next day, on March 12, we ordered Plaintiff to
file an appendix by March 26 or face dismissal for lack of
prosecution. Two days later, on March 14, we officially denied
Plaintiff's motion for relief, which we construed as a motion to
4
Rule 32(a)(2)(C) requires the front cover of a brief to
contain the correct title of the case.
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amend the caption. After receiving an extension of time, Plaintiff
filed an appendix on April 2. He never re-amended his caption.
In mid-April, LINA and HP Caribe moved to dismiss the
appeal, arguing Plaintiff failed to include required documents in
his appendix and the documents he included pertained only to the
February 10 order. In the alternative, LINA requested time to
respond to any amended appendix Plaintiff might file to correct his
first appendix's flaws. Plaintiff, however, did not amend his
appendix. Rather, he insisted he had "complied with the rules of
the procedure" because he had provided us with sufficient
documentation "to reach a reasoned determination on the merit of
the appeal." In reply, LINA maintained the appendix was still
utterly lacking in material relevant to the denial of benefits.
Finally, on May 14, we issued the following order:
Defendants-appellees' motions to dismiss the
appeal are denied without prejudice to
reconsideration by the panel which decides
this appeal. We do not now decide whether or
not the appendix is adequate, but merely note
that plaintiff-appellant bears a risk if the
appendix does not provide the documents needed
to decide the appeal, particularly here where,
in response to appellees' objections,
appellant has not offered to file a new
appendix.
The parties subsequently completed their briefing, with HP Caribe
and LINA filing separate briefs and the Plan joining LINA's brief.
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II.
Defendants first renew their argument that we should
dismiss Plaintiff's appeal on procedural grounds. We agree. Under
our case law, minor infringements of procedural rules "typically
will not warrant Draconian consequences" so long as they "neither
create unfairness to one's adversary nor impair the court's ability
to comprehend and scrutinize a party's papers." Rodríguez-Machado
v. Shinseki, 700 F.3d 48, 50 (1st Cir. 2012) (internal marks
omitted) (quoting Reyes-Garcia v. Rodriguez & Del Valle, Inc., 82
F.3d 11, 15 (1st Cir. 1996)). Knowing and persistent procedural
breaches, however, call for more severe decrees, especially when
they "cripple any attempt to review the issues intelligently." Id.
(internal marks omitted) (quoting Reyes-Garcia, 82 F.3d at 15); see
also Reyes-Garcia, 82 F.3d at 15 ("[A] party's persistent
noncompliance with appellate rules, in and of itself, constitutes
sufficient cause to dismiss its appeal."). Plaintiff's submissions
here, from start to finish, are rife with procedural errors,
confusion, and contradiction, most of which he has refused to
correct even when given an opportunity (or an order) to do so.
To begin with, Plaintiff did not appeal from a valid
order. Rule 3(c)(1)(B) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure
requires a notice of appeal to "designate the judgment, order, or
part thereof being appealed." Plaintiff's notice of appeal,
however, indicated he was appealing the district court's "Order and
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Final judgment entered on November 5, 2012." No such order
existed, nor could it have existed as Plaintiff's notice of appeal
was filed on November 2. True, Plaintiff likely meant to appeal
from the district court's order and judgment entered on October 5;
Plaintiff, however, has never directly moved to correct the
mistake, despite ample notice and opportunity.
Again, refusing to correct a flaw is a recurring trend
for Plaintiff. Plaintiff's various errors have been pointed out to
him--by us and by Defendants--and he has either failed to fix them
or haphazardly attempted to do so. For example, as noted above, we
ordered Plaintiff to include the Plan in his caption per Fed. R.
App. P. 32(a)(2)(C). The caption on Plaintiff's brief, we stated,
did not match the caption used by us because it did not include
"Defendant-appellee HEWLETT PACKARD CARIBE BV INSURANCE PLAN."
(emphasis in original). Rather than immediately comply with this
straightforward order, he moved to avoid having to obey it. He
then added the following name to the cover of his brief: "Hewlett
Packard Caribe BV Insurance Program." (underline added). Thus,
Plaintiff did not do what we asked--on an exceedingly simple
task--and he made no subsequent effort to fix the mistake.
To give another example, we also ordered Plaintiff to
file an appendix or face dismissal. Even though he received
extended time to comply, the appendix Plaintiff eventually filed
was incomplete. Under Fed. R. App. P. 30(a)(1), an appellant
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must prepare and file an appendix to the
briefs containing: (A) the relevant docket
entries in the proceeding below; (B) the
relevant portions of the pleadings, charge,
findings, or opinion; (C) the judgment, order,
or decision in question; and (D) other parts
of the record to which the parties wish to
direct the court's attention.
Similarly, Local Rule 30(c) requires an appendix to "include any
relevant portions of the pleadings, transcripts, exhibits, or other
parts of the record referred to in the briefs as may be necessary
to understand the issues on appeal and to preserve context." Here,
Plaintiff omitted at least one required item in the appendix--the
magistrate's recommendation. This recommendation is both highly
relevant and part of the "judgment, order, or decision in
question." Fed. R. App. P. 30(a)(1)(C); cf. Local Rule 28(a)(1)
(requiring "a recommended decision by a magistrate judge" to be
included in appellant's brief as part of the "judgments, decisions,
rulings, or orders appealed from"). Admittedly, the recommendation
can be found rather easily by looking on the district court docket.
This, however, does not change the fact that Plaintiff failed to
comply with Rule 30, even though we explicitly ordered him to do so
and gave him plenty of extra time to obey that order.
Defendants also point out--and Plaintiff openly admits--
that only one document in the entire appendix actually concerns the
order and judgment entered by the district court on October 5.
This ties in to the next procedural snafu, which is probably the
most significant. A party's submissions to us often include
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material concerning past orders from a district court, as a notice
of appeal stating a "final judgment" is being appealed encompasses
all previous interlocutory orders. See Martínez-Serrano v. Quality
Health Servs. of P.R., 568 F.3d 278, 283 (1st Cir. 2009). Here,
Plaintiff explicitly appealed a "Final judgment," and he also
stated in his brief that his appeal included "the Court's [February
10] decision denying entry of default against the Plan." So far,
so good. In LINA's motion to dismiss the appeal, however, it
contended Plaintiff was arguing issues not on appeal by contesting
the February 10 order. In response, Plaintiff seemingly accepted
this characterization, disavowed any intent to appeal earlier
orders in this case, and urged us to accept the disavowal:
As indicated by LINA, the only Order and
Opinion appealed is the District Court 's
[sic] Order and Opinion of October 5, 2012 and
the final Judgment of the case. For that
reason, [Plaintiff] requests this Honorable
Appellate Court to only consider the Opinion
and Order of February 10, 2012 . . . as a
supporting document and as part of the record
referred to in the Brief, necessary to
understand the issues on appeal in this case.
(emphasis added).
This situation can be read in multiple ways, none of
which is favorable to Plaintiff. For example, we could easily hold
the above response is a controlling concession by Plaintiff. And
this concession would mean Plaintiff has persistently argued issues
here that are not on appeal at all. True, Plaintiff asserts he is
just pointing out "procedural irregularities" leading to a less
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deferential standard of review. These alleged irregularities,
however, were all definitively addressed by the district court in
the February 10 order, which Plaintiff (under this view) concedes
he is not appealing. The case would therefore be closed on those
issues; yet, the vast majority of Plaintiff's submissions here
concern them. Even if we did not view the above response as a
definitively controlling concession–-perhaps, for instance, due to
the presence of the phrase "final Judgment"—-we are still stuck
with an intractable problem because Plaintiff has made utterly
convoluted statements on the fundamental question of what is or is
not on appeal. This greatly frustrates our review.5
We could detail more errors and missteps. For instance,
as alluded to above, not only did Plaintiff violate Fed. R. App. P.
30 by not including the magistrate's recommendation in his
appendix, but he also violated Local Rule 28 by not including it in
the addendum to his brief. But we need not belabor the point. In
conclusion, we emphasize that several of the above errors, taken
individually, could be overlooked. Viewed together, however, they
indicate an apparently cavalier disregard of court orders and
procedural rules, and they create an incoherent record that
"hamstring[s]" our ability to review the issues intelligently.
5
To be clear, while this situation best exemplifies the
incomprehensibility of Plaintiff's submissions to us, it is by no
means the only example. Rather, Plaintiff's materials here are
chock full of incoherency and unintelligibility. We can make
neither heads nor tails of many of Plaintiff's assertions.
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Reyes-Garcia, 82 F.3d at 15; see also Rodríguez-Machado, 700 F.3d
at 50. This invites dismissal on purely procedural grounds.
Plaintiff would likely fare no better on the merits. As
we warned, Plaintiff bore the risk of not providing us with the
information necessary to decide this appeal. Yet, Plaintiff's
appellate brief and appendix ironically focus almost entirely on
matters of process, persisting in arguing over the standard of
review and who the proper defendant is even though the Plan and its
insurer acknowledge responsibility for paying any benefits that
might be due. Plaintiff has submitted no medical evidence to us,
nor does he argue the merits of his benefits denial. Thus, even if
we ignored plaintiff's procedural defalcations, we would almost
certainly arrive at the same result, finding no adequately
persuasive basis for concluding Plaintiff was disabled within the
meaning of the Plan. Furthermore, Plaintiff makes no arguments
concerning his complaint's language. This dooms his claim against
HP Caribe, which the district court dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6).
Accordingly, we DISMISS Plaintiff's appeal.
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