Robert Glen v. Trip Advisor LLC ( 2022 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
_______________
No. 21-1842
_______________
ROBERT M. GLEN,
Appellant
v.
TRIP ADVISOR, LLC; TRIP ADVISOR, INC.; TRIP NETWORK, LLC, d/b/a Cheap
Tickets; ORBITZ, LLC; KAYAK SOFTWARE CORPORATION; BOOKING
HOLDINGS, INC; EXPEDIA, INC.; EXPEDIA GROUP, INC.; HOTELS.COM, LP;
HOTELS.COM GP, LLC; TRAVELSCAPE, LLC, d/b/a Travelocity
_______________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Delaware
(D.C. No. 1:19-cv-01809)
District Judge: Honorable Leonard P. Stark
_______________
No. 21-1843
_______________
ROBERT M. GLEN,
Appellant
v.
VISA, INC.; VISA USA, INC.; VISA INTERNATIONAL SERVICE ASSOCIATION;
MASTERCARD INCORPORATED; MASTERCARD INTERNATIONAL
INCORPORATED
_______________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Delaware
(D.C. No. 1:19-cv-01870)
District Judge: Honorable Leonard P. Stark
_______________
Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
on May 24, 2022.
Before: KRAUSE, BIBAS, and PHIPPS, Circuit Judges
(Filed: August 18, 2022)
_______________
OPINION *
_______________
Krause, Circuit Judge.
Appellant Robert Glen challenges the District Court’s dismissal of his claims against
Visa, Mastercard, and several online travel agencies under the Helms-Burton Act, 22
U.S.C. § 6082(a)(1). For the reasons that follow, we will affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
The Helms-Burton Act empowers United States nationals whose property has been
confiscated by the Castro regime to recover damages from anyone who “traffics” in that
property. § 6082(a)(1)(A). However, the Act limits eligible plaintiffs to those who
“acquire[] ownership of the claim [to the confiscated property] before March 12, 1996.”
§ 6082(a)(4)(B). Glen contends that he satisfies this requirement because his aunt and
mother acquired ownership in two beachfront properties prior to 1996 that the Castro
regime eventually confiscated and developed into hotels. According to Glen, because he
inherited those ownership interests upon the deaths of his aunt and mother in 1999 and
2011, respectively, he should also be the beneficiary of their acquisition dates.
On this theory, Glen filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of
Delaware in September 2019, claiming that Visa, Mastercard, and several online travel
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, under I.O.P. 5.7, is not binding
precedent.
2
agencies violated the Helms-Burton Act by “trafficking” in his confiscated properties
when they facilitated bookings and payments at the hotels. Id. § 6082(a)(1).
But this case was not the only time Glen brought claims on this theory.
Throughout 2019 and 2020, Glen simultaneously litigated a substantively identical suit
against American Airlines in the United States District Court for the Northern District of
Texas, claiming that he “acquire[d] ownership of the claim” to the confiscated properties
before the statutory cut-off date by virtue of his inheritance and that the airline
“traffick[ed]” in those properties by facilitating bookings at the hotels. Glen v. Am.
Airlines, Inc., No. 4:20-CV-482-A, 2020 WL 4464665, at *1, 4 (N.D. Tex. Aug. 3, 2020)
(alteration in Glen) (quoting § 6082(a)(4)(B)). The District Court for the Northern
District of Texas dismissed Glen’s case, holding both that he lacked Article III standing
and that he was ineligible to sue under the Helms-Burton Act because he acquired his
claim to the properties when he inherited them, after March 12, 1996. Id. at *2–4.
Affirming the dismissal, the Fifth Circuit held that Glen actually did have Article III
standing but agreed with the District Court that his acquisition date was the date of his
inheritance, rendering him ineligible for relief under § 6082(a)(4)(B). Glen v. Am.
Airlines, Inc., 7 F.4th 331, 336 (5th Cir. 2021). Glen then filed a petition for certiorari,
which the United States Supreme Court denied. 142 S. Ct. 863 (2022).
In the meantime, in the underlying case here, the United States District Court for
the District of Delaware also dismissed Glen’s case against Visa, Mastercard, and the
travel agencies. In March 2021, before the Fifth Circuit issued its opinion, the District
Court likewise ruled that Glen had standing, but that he acquired his ownership interests
3
upon inheriting them, i.e., after the statutory cut-off. Glen then filed this timely appeal.
II. DISCUSSION 1
Before we can address Glen’s claims under the Helms-Burton Act, we must first
assure ourselves that he satisfies “the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing,”
Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992), which requires, as relevant here, that
he allege a sufficiently “concrete” injury in fact. In TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141
S. Ct. 2190 (2021), the Supreme Court explained that intangible injuries, like the loss of a
property right, are sufficiently concrete if they bear “a close relationship to harms
traditionally recognized as providing a basis for lawsuits in American courts.” Id. at
2204 (citing Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 340–41 (2016)).
Here, we agree with the Fifth Circuit that the harm Glen alleges—namely,
Appellees’ wrongfully profiting from his usurped properties—“bears a close relationship
to unjust enrichment, which has indisputable common-law roots.” Glen, 7 F.4th at 334.
As our sister circuit observed, “[t]he Congressional findings of the Helms-Burton Act
recognize as much, stating that the international judicial system ‘lacks fully effective
remedies for the wrongful confiscation of property and for unjust enrichment from the
use of wrongfully confiscated property.’” Id. (quoting 22 U.S.C. § 6081(8)); see also N.
Am. Sugar Indus. Inc. v. Xinjiang Goldwind Sci. & Tech. Co., No. 20-CV-22471, 2021
1
The District Court had subject matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331, and we have
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review the District Court’s determination of
standing de novo where, as here, that determination depended on the Court’s resolution of
a legal, rather than factual, issue. Blunt v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 767 F.3d 247, 266
(3d Cir. 2014). We review the District Court’s dismissal of Glen’s complaint for failure
to state a claim de novo. Trzaska v. L’Oreal USA, Inc., 865 F.3d 155, 159 (3d Cir. 2017).
4
WL 3741647, at *4 (S.D. Fla. Aug. 24, 2021) (same). Glen’s alleged injury is therefore
sufficiently concrete to confer standing. 2
On the merits, Glen contests the District Court’s interpretation of the Helms-
Burton Act, but we do not reach his statutory arguments because the doctrine of collateral
estoppel precludes him from relitigating them here. Collateral estoppel, also known as
issue preclusion, prohibits “parties from relitigating an issue that has already been
actually litigated” when the following criteria are met: “(1) the issue sought to be
precluded [is] the same as that involved in the prior action; (2) that issue [was] actually
litigated; (3) it [was] determined by a final and valid judgment; and (4) the determination
[was] essential to the prior judgment.” Peloro v. United States, 488 F.3d 163, 174–75 (3d
Cir. 2007) (alterations in Peloro) (quoting Burlington N. R.R. Co. v. Hyundai Merch.
Marine Co., 63 F.3d 1227, 1231–32 (3d Cir. 1995)). The estopped party must also have
been “fully represented in the prior action.” United States v. 5 Unlabeled Boxes, 572
F.3d 169, 173 (3d Cir. 2009) (quoting Jean Alexander Cosmetics, Inc. v. L’Oreal USA,
Inc., 458 F.3d 244, 249 (3d Cir. 2006)). Where, as here, the prior litigation involved
different parties and a defendant seeks to invoke issue preclusion against a plaintiff, we
require in addition that “the party to be precluded must have had a ‘full and fair’
opportunity to litigate the issue in the first action.” Peloro, 488 F.3d at 175 (citing
Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 328, 332 (1979)).
2
Judge Bibas would have found that Glen lacked standing because his harm does not
bear a close relationship to any of the kinds of harms that have historically given rise to a
claim for unjust enrichment.
5
Glen’s prior lawsuit against American Airlines satisfies all of these elements.
First, Glen raises the same statutory issue in this appeal that he litigated before the Fifth
Circuit—that one does not “acquire” property within the meaning of the Helms-Burton
Act through inheritance, but rather succeeds to the testator’s acquisition date. Compare
Opening Br. 2 (characterizing the issue presented for review as whether “the District
Court err[ed] in holding that Glen cannot assert an action under the Helms-Burton Act
because he inherited his claim to confiscated property after March 12, 1996”), with Glen,
7 F.4th at 336 (observing that “Glen argues that the word ‘acquires’ . . . does not include
inheritance”). Second, Glen “actually litigated” this statutory issue before the Fifth
Circuit, which rejected his arguments. Peloro, 488 F.3d at 175; see Glen, 7 F.4th at 336.
Third, the Fifth Circuit did so in a final and valid judgment. Glen, 7 F.4th at 337.
Fourth, the resolution of that issue was essential to, and indeed the sole basis for, the
Fifth Circuit’s judgment. Id. Fifth, Glen was fully represented by counsel in that case.
See id. at 332. Finally, Glen enjoyed a “full and fair opportunity” to litigate the statutory
issue, Peloro, 488 F.3d at 176, because he was the sole plaintiff in the suit against
American Airlines and exhausted all avenues of appeal, up to and including the United
States Supreme Court.
Glen objects that “[c]ourts disfavor applying non-mutual issue preclusion to pure
questions of law.” Opening Br. 36. But under our precedent, collateral estoppel
nonetheless applies where, as here, the prior case was not “so unrelated . . . that
relitigation of the issue is warranted.” Burlington N. R.R. Co., 63 F.3d at 1238; see Nat’l
R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Pa. Pub. Util. Comm’n, 288 F.3d 519, 530 (3d Cir. 2002). Nor
6
has Glen identified “any intervening change in the applicable legal context which would
warrant new consideration,” Burlington N. R.R. Co., 63 F.3d at 1238; cf. Duvall v. Att’y
Gen., 436 F.3d 382, 391 (3d Cir. 2006) (declining to apply collateral estoppel when doing
so would frustrate “several recent overhauls” of the applicable statute), or offered a
plausible rationale for why estoppel would be “inequitable” in this case. Burlington N.
R.R. Co., 63 F.3d at 1238. And contrary to Glen’s assertions, Burlington Northern
Railroad Co. is not limited to the context of forum shopping. Rather, in subsequent
decisions, we have applied Burlington Northern Railroad Co. to pure questions of law
even outside that context. See Nat’l R.R., 288 F.3d at 530 (citing Burlington N. R.R. Co.,
63 F.3d at 1237).
Because Glen’s statutory argument is collaterally estopped, his claims under the
Helms-Burton Act fail on the merits and must be dismissed.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the judgment of
7