Santana de la Rosa v. Santana de la Rosa ( 2024 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 20-1655
JOSÉ A. SANTANA DE LA ROSA; JOSÉ A. ALAGRÍN PABÓN,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
EDWIN SANTANA DE LA ROSA,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Gustavo A. Gelpí, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Howard and Thompson, Circuit Judges,
and Woodcock, District Judge.
Néstor M. Méndez-Gómez, with whom Isabel C. Frau-Nicole and
Pietrantoni Mendez & Alvarez LLC were on brief, for appellants.
Harold D. Vicente-González, with whom Christian A.
Nieves-Rodríguez, Heriberto López-Guzmán, Vicente & Cuebas, and H.
López Law, LLC were on brief, for appellee.
September 25, 2024
 Of the District of Maine, sitting by designation.
HOWARD, Circuit Judge. José Santana De la Rosa ("José")
and José Algarín Pabón ("Algarín") challenge the dismissal of their
action against Edwin Santana De la Rosa ("Edwin") for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction. It is not the first time that these
parties have faced off against each other in a courtroom. The
instant suit involves a claim under Puerto Rico law that Edwin
committed abuse of process when he sued José, his brother, and
Algarín, the executor of their mother's estate, in a Puerto Rico
court over various financial dealings. To get their state law
claim into federal court, José and Algarín asserted that Edwin
changed his domicile from Puerto Rico to New York after Hurricane
Maria in 2017. Following jurisdictional discovery, the district
court disagreed and granted Edwin's motion to dismiss. The
district court's findings were not clearly erroneous; accordingly,
we affirm.
I.
This case commenced in August 2018, when José and Algarín
sued Edwin under P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, § 5141, in U.S. District
Court for the District of Puerto Rico. To establish diversity
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a), José and Algarín claimed
in relevant part that each of them was domiciled in Puerto Rico
and that Edwin was domiciled in New York. Edwin shortly thereafter
moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction. Attached to that motion was an affidavit in which
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Edwin attested, "I am domiciled in Puerto Rico, which is where I
have my true, fixed home and principal establishment, and to which,
whenever I am absent, I have the intention of returning." The
district court subsequently ordered jurisdictional discovery,
which lasted for approximately seven months and generated copious
records detailing the recent life and travels of Edwin. We draw
on those records in summarizing the undisputed facts relevant to
Edwin's domicile.
Edwin is retired and owns residences in both Puerto Rico
and New York City. On the island, he has an apartment that he
purchased for $650,000 in 1992. In the city, he owns a residence
at the Baccarat Hotel, for which he paid $10 million in 2015.1
Edwin has spent substantial sums on improvements for both homes:
approximately $1 million in Puerto Rico and $250,000 in New York.
During the period between the devastating impact of
Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico in September 2017 and the filing of
this lawsuit, Edwin and his family spent a considerable amount of
time in New York. Flight records indicate that the family traveled
to the city in the weeks following the hurricane and that Edwin
flew back and forth between New York and Puerto Rico on various
occasions during the following eleven months. Records from AT&T
1 After buying the Baccarat residence, Edwin sold another
apartment that he had owned in New York for approximately nine
years.
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appear to demonstrate that Edwin used his cell phone in New York
on approximately 250 days between October 2017 and the end of
August 2018, although he kept his phone number with a Puerto Rico
area code.
Discovery painted a picture of the life that Edwin and
his family lived in New York during this time. His daughter -- who
had previously attended school in Puerto Rico and later graduated
from high school there in 2019 -- enrolled in a New York school
for the 2017–18 academic year.2 Edwin owned no vehicles in New
York, but debit card statements from an account in his and his
spouse's names detailed purchases of a variety of everyday items
in the city. These statements were initially sent to Edwin's
apartment in Puerto Rico but in June 2018 began being sent to the
Baccarat residence.
Throughout his time in New York, Edwin maintained ties
to Puerto Rico beyond his residence on the island and travel there.
For instance, he listed his Puerto Rico address on his 2017 and
2018 tax returns, possessed a Puerto Rico driver's license, and
was registered to vote in Puerto Rico.
In arguing to the district court in favor of subject
matter jurisdiction, the plaintiffs asserted that Edwin "was
domiciled in the state of New York starting in October 2017 and
2 Edwin's daughter returned to New York for college after
graduating from high school in Puerto Rico.
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all throughout 2018." The district court, however, reasoned that,
although José and Algarín had established that Edwin was physically
present in New York when the lawsuit was filed, they had failed to
sufficiently demonstrate that he intended to remain there
indefinitely. Accordingly, the district court granted Edwin's
motion to dismiss. Unpleased with this result, José and Algarín
filed a motion to alter judgment under Rule 59(e) of the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure. The district court denied that motion,
and José and Algarín timely appealed, requesting that we reverse
the district court's decision to grant Edwin's motion to dismiss
or, in the alternative, remand for an evidentiary hearing.3
II.
A.
Complete diversity among the parties is one of the
requirements of federal diversity jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C.
§ 1332(a)(1); Am. Fiber & Finishing, Inc. v. Tyco Healthcare Grp.,
LP, 362 F.3d 136, 139 (1st Cir. 2004) (citing Strawbridge v.
Curtiss, 7 U.S. (3 Cranch) 267, 267 (1806)). At the time that the
3 Although José and Algarín nominally appealed from both
decisions of the district court, their argument before us is geared
entirely towards establishing that the district court erred in
granting Edwin's motion to dismiss. They do not cite, let alone
attempt to engage, our abuse of discretion standard for reviewing
a district court's denial of a Rule 59(e) motion. See Markel Am.
Ins. Co. v. Diaz-Santiago, 674 F.3d 21, 32 (1st Cir. 2012). We
accordingly hold that José and Algarín have waived any challenge
to the district court's denial of their motion to alter judgment.
See United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990).
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lawsuit is filed in diversity, "no plaintiff may be a citizen of
the same state as any defendant." BRT Mgmt. LLC v. Malden Storage
LLC, 68 F.4th 691, 695 (1st Cir. 2023); see Padilla-Mangual v.
Pavía Hosp., 516 F.3d 29, 31 (1st Cir. 2008).
For diversity purposes, a person is a citizen of the
state in which the person is domiciled. Valentin v. Hosp. Bella
Vista, 254 F.3d 358, 366 (1st Cir. 2001). "A person's domicile
'is the place where he has his true, fixed home and principal
establishment, and to which, whenever he is absent, he has the
intention of returning.'" Aponte-Dávila v. Mun. of Caguas, 828
F.3d 40, 46 (1st Cir. 2016) (quoting Rodriguez-Dais v. Sierra-
Martinez, 853 F.2d 1027, 1029 (1st Cir. 1988)). Domicile and
residence "are not the same thing." Id. "While a person may have
more than one residence, he can have only one domicile." Bank
One, Tex., N.A. v. Montle, 964 F.2d 48, 53 (1st Cir. 1992).
"There is, ordinarily, a presumption of continuing
domicile." Padilla-Mangual, 516 F.3d at 31. In order to change
his domicile, a person must: (1) be present in the new state; and
(2) intend to remain there indefinitely. See Valentin, 254 F.3d
at 366–67. Factors that we have previously stated are "relevant
to determining a party's intent include: 'the place where civil
and political rights are exercised, taxes paid, real and personal
property (such as furniture and automobiles) located, driver's and
other licenses obtained, [and] bank accounts maintained.'"
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Padilla-Mangual, 516 F.3d at 32 (quoting Bank One, 964 F.2d at
50). But we have made clear that these factors are "examples of
indicia of intent" rather than requirements. Id. at 33.
B.
The party invoking the court's diversity jurisdiction
has the burden of proving domicile by a preponderance of the
evidence. Rodríguez v. Señor Frog's de la Isla, Inc., 642 F.3d
28, 32 (1st Cir. 2011). On appeal, a district court's
determination of domicile is reviewed for clear error. Hearts
With Haiti, Inc. v. Kendrick, 856 F.3d 1, 2–3 (1st Cir. 2017)
(citing Bank One, 964 F.2d at 51). "Accordingly, we must accept
the court's findings and the conclusions drawn therefrom unless
the whole of the record leaves us with 'a strong, unyielding belief
that a mistake has been made.'" Valentin, 254 F.3d at 365 (quoting
Cumpiano v. Banco Santander P.R., 902 F.2d 148, 152 (1st Cir.
1990)). "Where there are two permissible views of the evidence,
the factfinder's choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous."
Nevor v. Moneypenny Holdings, LLC, 842 F.3d 113, 117–18 (1st Cir.
2016) (quoting Reliance Steel Prods. Co. v. Nat'l Fire Ins. Co.,
880 F.2d 575, 576 (1st Cir. 1989)). We nevertheless bear in mind
that "where the district court's result is based entirely on
documentary evidence, 'the presumption that the court reached a
correct result is somewhat lessened relative to findings based on
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oral testimony.'" Aponte-Dávila, 828 F.3d at 46 (quoting Padilla-
Mangual, 516 F.3d at 33–34).
III.
We begin our analysis where the parties agree. No one
disputes that Edwin was domiciled in Puerto Rico when Hurricane
Maria struck the island in September 2017. We thus presume that
he maintained his domicile there unless José and Algarín can
establish by a preponderance of the evidence that Edwin changed
his domicile to New York. Edwin, for his part, concedes that he
was physically present in New York when the lawsuit was filed in
August 2018. Accordingly, the primary issue for us to decide is
whether the district court clearly erred in determining that Edwin
did not then intend to remain in New York indefinitely.
José and Algarín's arguments in favor of reversal come
in two general flavors. First, they claim that the district court
"g[ave] insufficient weight" to evidence that tended to show Edwin
intended to remain indefinitely in New York. Second, they contend
that the district court "plac[ed] too much emphasis on certain
factors it found to favor a Puerto Rico domicile." We consider
and reject each argument and its various hues in turn.
A.
José and Algarín first contend that the district court
erred by disregarding evidence that established New York "as
Edwin['s] home base." They point primarily to flight records that
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showed Edwin traveling to Puerto Rico but returning to New York in
the months following Hurricane Maria and phone records that
indicated Edwin was frequently using his phone in the city.
Relatedly, José and Algarín maintain that the district court
"ignored" the debit card statements that "confirmed a steady, day-
to-day presence in New York."
This line of attack mistakenly equates residence with
domicile. While "residence is relevant to the question of
domicile," we have previously cautioned against "placing
altogether too much emphasis on this factor in light of the
circumstances." Aponte-Dávila, 828 F.3d at 48. Here, the evidence
strongly suggests that New York became Edwin's primary residence,
at least on a temporary basis, in the months leading up to the
filing of this lawsuit. But "[w]hen considered in the context of
[Edwin]'s reason for being in [New York] in the first place," id.,we are not left with a strong, unyielding belief that the district
court erred. Edwin describes this time in New York as "a forced
family relocation caused by the devastation of Hurricane Maria."
There is, of course, no rule that says a person who relocates
following a natural disaster is precluded from effecting a change
in domicile. See Hawes v. Club Ecuestre El Comandante, 598 F.2d
698, 701 (1st Cir. 1979) ("It has long been the rule that motive
for the change in residence is irrelevant in determining
domicile."). But "in light of [Edwin]'s continued ties to [Puerto
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Rico]," Aponte-Dávila, 828 F.3d at 49, the fact that a destructive
hurricane prompted his relocation is particularly salient here.4
4 José and Algarín make no substantive attempt to argue that
the district court misapplied this court's decisions in arguably
analogous cases, where we have several times confronted the issue
of determining the domicile of a party who has relocated in order
to receive medical treatment. See Hawes, 598 F.2d at 699–700;
Valentin, 254 F.3d at 361–62; García Pérez v. Santaella, 364 F.3d
348, 349 (1st Cir. 2004); Aponte-Dávila, 828 F.3d at 42. We have
previously said that, because those cases, "like the case at hand,
were before this court on clear error review, we cannot -- and do
not -- suggest that their outcomes are strictly determinative of
this case." Aponte-Dávila, 828 F.3d at 50. We nevertheless note
that there is far less in this case from which we can discern an
intent on the part of Edwin to remain indefinitely in New York
than in the two cases in which we have reversed a district court's
determination that a party had not changed domicile. In García
Pérez, we held that the district court erred in determining that
two plaintiffs remained domiciled in Puerto Rico after they
relocated to Florida. 364 F.3d at 349. Although the plaintiffs
rented out -- instead of selling -- their home on the island and
derived approximately one-sixth of their income from their
interest in a Puerto Rican restaurant franchise, we found that
those factors were significantly outweighed by their ties to
Florida. Id. at 352. Namely, the plaintiffs registered to vote
in Florida, acquired Florida drivers' licenses, sold their car in
Puerto Rico, and purchased two cars in Florida. Id. Additionally,
one of the plaintiffs studied for and passed the Florida bar exam
and was "spearheading" the opening of a Florida branch office for
his Puerto Rico-based law firm. Id. at 353. In Hawes, we held
that the district court erred in determining that a husband and
wife remained domiciled in Puerto Rico after they relocated to New
York. 598 F.2d at 700–01. The two had left Puerto Rico because
there was no rehabilitation center there that could provide
adequate treatment for the husband following an accident that
turned him "from a normal man into a hopeless cripple." Id. at
699–700. We have called Hawes a "closer case" than García Pérez,
see Aponte-Dávila, 828 F.3d at 50, perhaps because the wife
eventually returned to Puerto Rico, some two years after the filing
of the suit and one year after the death of her husband. See
Hawes, 598 F.2d at 701. Still, the case does not compel us to
reverse the district court here, because "the facts there strongly
suggested an indefinite intention to stay in New York that simply
is not present in this case." Aponte-Dávila, 828 F.3d at 50.
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Furthermore, we note that the record is largely devoid of any
evidence that would allow us to infer that Edwin intended to remain
primarily in New York beyond the time necessary for recovery
efforts to take place in Puerto Rico.
José and Algarín next contend that the district court
erred by disregarding the discrepancy in purchase price between
Edwin's Puerto Rico apartment ($650,000) and his New York residence
at the Baccarat Hotel ($10 million), as well as the approximately
$250,000 that Edwin spent on improvements to the latter. The
implication seems to be that these sums signify Edwin had a greater
commitment to his life in New York than in Puerto Rico at the time
this suit was filed.
The argument is illusory. The apartments were purchased
over two decades apart from each other and are separated by more
than 1,500 miles of ocean; a one-to-one comparison of purchase
price is of hardly any use in gauging whether, in August 2018,
Edwin intended to remain indefinitely in New York. Even if it
was, José and Algarín fail to address the more than $1 million
that Edwin had spent on improvements to his Puerto Rico apartment.
José and Algarín's focus on the purchase of and repairs
to the New York apartment is also inconsistent with their basic
jurisdictional theory of the case -- that Edwin commenced his
domicile in New York after Hurricane Maria. Edwin purchased the
Baccarat residence in 2015, two years before Hurricane Maria, and
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the record indicates that all improvements to the property were
paid for prior to the storm making its landfall on Puerto Rico.
Similarly, Edwin had owned another apartment in New York for
approximately nine years before acquiring the Baccarat residence,
which as the district court noted, works against José and Algarín's
apparent theory that the 2015 purchase was a strong indicator of
Edwin's intent to change his domicile from Puerto Rico to New York.
The attendance of Edwin's daughter at a New York high
school during the 2017–18 academic year is the one remaining piece
of evidence to which José and Algarín believe the district court
gave insufficient weight. We are unpersuaded. The district court
discounted this evidence because Edwin's daughter returned to
school in Puerto Rico the following year. That was clear error,
José and Algarín now tell us, because "Edwin and his wife could
[have] remain[ed] domiciled in New York while their daughter
returned to Puerto Rico to finish high school." See Hawes, 598
F.2d at 704 (citing the age of plaintiffs' eighteen-year-old
daughter in explaining why the court did not "attach much
significance" in the domicile analysis to the fact that the
daughter did not relocate with her parents). But the same
reasoning could be used to justify the district court's decision
that José and Algarín now attack. That is to say that Edwin could
just as conceivably have remained domiciled in Puerto Rico while
his daughter spent a year of high school in New York. Under these
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circumstances, we cannot say that it was clear error for the
district court to afford little weight to where Edwin's daughter
spent her final two years of high school.
B.
In addition to downplaying evidence that they take to
support a finding that Edwin intended to remain indefinitely in
New York, José and Algarín contend that the district court also
"plac[ed] too much emphasis on certain factors it found to favor
a Puerto Rico domicile." Chief among these are Edwin's tax
returns. The district court noted that Edwin filed them in Puerto
Rico in its decision granting his motion to dismiss for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction.
José and Algarín cite García Pérez v. Santaella, where
we guided that "[t]he act of filing [a tax] return is not by itself
evidence of domicile" because "any individual deriving income from
Puerto Rico is required to file a tax return, regardless of
citizenship." 364 F.3d 348, 353 (1st Cir. 2004). We prefaced
that statement, however, by noting that the plaintiffs in the case
had listed their Florida address on their returns, id., which
logically cut against the district court's finding that the
plaintiffs remained domiciled in Puerto Rico. See also supra note
4 (discussing García Pérez further). Here, by contrast, the record
shows that Edwin listed the address of his Puerto Rico apartment
on the tax returns that he filed in 2017 and 2018. We therefore
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cannot say that the district court clearly erred in factoring the
returns into its determination that Edwin had not effected a change
in his domicile to New York.
José and Algarín also fault the district court for
failing to consider that "there was at least the possibility that
[Edwin] had to file as a New York resident for tax year 2018
pursuant to the New York Tax Code." This argument has not been
preserved for appeal. See Thomas v. Rhode Island, 542 F.3d 944,
949 (1st Cir. 2008) ("Appellants cannot raise an argument on appeal
that was not 'squarely and timely raised in the trial court.'"
(quoting Iverson v. City of Boston, 452 F.3d 94, 102 (1st Cir.
2006))). José and Algarín did not offer this argument to the
district court in their post-discovery memo in favor of subject
matter jurisdiction. Instead, they developed it for the first
time in their Rule 59(e) motion to alter judgment.5 Since they
have waived any challenge to the denial of that post-judgment
motion on appeal, see supra note 3, it would be improper for us to
5 José and Algarín asserted in their Rule 59(e) motion that
they had previously argued that Edwin should have filed tax returns
in New York. As evidence, they cited a single page from a filing
that they made while discovery was still ongoing. That page,
buried in a reply to Edwin's opposition to a motion for sanctions
filed by José and Algarín, is not enough for us to say José and
Algarín's argument that Edwin was legally obligated in 2018 to
file taxes in New York was "squarely and timely raised" for the
district court to consider in its domicile analysis. See Iverson,
452 F.3d at 102.
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consider the argument in determining whether the district court
clearly erred in granting Edwin's motion to dismiss.
Finally, José and Algarín take issue with the district
court considering in its calculus that Edwin maintained a cell
phone number with a Puerto Rico area code and did not own any
vehicles in New York. But even supposing that José and Algarín are
correct in arguing that these factors should carry relatively
little weight in the domicile analysis, we see no indication that
the district court excessively relied on them here. Instead, it
appears that the district court trained its focus primarily on
Edwin's real property.
C.
The burden was ultimately on José and Algarín to
establish that Edwin effected a change in domicile from Puerto
Rico to New York. The record demonstrates that, despite relocating
himself and his family to New York in the wake of Hurricane Maria,
Edwin continued to own his apartment in Puerto Rico and repeatedly
returned to the island prior to the commencement of this action.
Given those factors and considering the other indicia of intent in
the record -- the listed residence on Edwin's tax returns, his
Puerto Rico voter registration, and his Puerto Rico driver's
license to name just a few -- we cannot say that the district court
clearly erred in concluding that José and Algarín failed to clear
the bar.
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IV.
There is one loose end to tie up. José and Algarín
request in the alternative that we remand to the district court
for an evidentiary hearing "to fully assess Edwin['s] credibility
and to resolve the discrepancies in the record." We decline to do
so. As an initial matter, there is no indication in its decision
that the district court relied on the affidavit that Edwin attached
to his motion to dismiss in which he averred that Puerto Rico was
his domicile. Instead, the district court sufficiently weighed
the evidence that was uncovered during the extensive
jurisdictional discovery that followed the filing of that
affidavit.
Furthermore, José and Algarín failed to timely request
an evidentiary hearing below. While their initial motion for
jurisdictional discovery briefly mentioned that the district court
should "if necessary, subsequent[ to discovery] hold an
evidentiary hearing," their post-discovery memo in favor of
subject matter jurisdiction made no reference to such a hearing.
Instead, José and Algarín argued in that memo that "[t]he evidence
[was] clear" that Edwin was domiciled in New York and asked the
district court to simply deny Edwin's motion to dismiss. We
therefore cannot fault the district court for believing that José
and Algarín had decided, with the benefit of discovery, that an
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evidentiary hearing was not needed.6 Cf. Alicea v. Machete Music,
744 F.3d 773, 788 (1st Cir. 2014) ("[H]aving failed to adequately
raise this claim before the district court, the plaintiffs cannot
now raise it on appeal.").
***
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the
district court.
6 Like their argument that the district court should have
considered whether Edwin was legally obligated to file a New York
tax return in 2018, José and Algarín did not develop their request
for an evidentiary hearing until their Rule 59(e) motion to alter
judgment. We once again note therefore that José and Algarín have
waived any challenge to the district court's denial of that motion.
See supra note 3.
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