Gonzalez-Oyarzun v. Office of the Courts Administ

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
Nos.14-1954
14-1971
FAUSTINO GONZÁLEZ-OYARZUN,
Plaintiff, Appellee,
v.
CARIBBEAN CITY BUILDERS, INC.; ME SALVE, INC.;
GIB DEVELOPMENT LLC,
Defendants, Appellees,
COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO;
OFFICE OF THE COURTS ADMINISTRATION
Interested Parties, Appellants.
APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Gustavo A. Gelpí, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
Before
Howard, Chief Judge,
Kayatta and Barron, Circuit Judges.
Juan A. Marqués-Díaz and Isabel Torres-Sastre on brief for
appellant, Office of the Courts Administration.
Margarita Mercado-Echegaray, Solicitor General, Andrés
González-Berdecía, Assistant Solicitor General, and Office of the
Solicitor General, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico on brief for
appellant, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Enrique J. Mendoza Méndez and Mendoza Law Offices on brief
for appellee, Faustino González-Oyarzun.
Sergio E. Criado, Correa Acevedo & Abesada Law Offices, Carlos
R. Paula, Jaime E. Picó-Rodríguez and Labor Counsels, LLC on brief
for appellees, Caribbean City Builders, Inc., Me Salve, Inc., and
GIB Development, LLC.
August 17, 2015
PER CURIAM. The district court dismissed this
employment dispute on the basis of a valid forum selection clause.
It simultaneously issued a declaratory judgment stating that the
Seventh Amendment requires Puerto Rico to provide civil litigants
with a jury trial. This latter action was in contravention of
binding Supreme Court precedent. Accordingly, we vacate the
declaratory judgment.
I.
Plaintiff-Appellee Faustino González-Oyarzun brought
suit against his employers in the District of Puerto Rico, alleging
violations of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C.
§ 621, and various Puerto Rico statutes.1 The employers timely
moved to dismiss the complaint; they highlighted González-
Oyarzun's separation agreement which included a forum selection
clause providing exclusive jurisdiction in the Court of First
Instance, San Juan Division. González-Oyarzun attempted to avoid
dismissal by arguing that since the Commonwealth does not provide
jury trials in civil cases, and since he did not affirmatively
waive his Seventh Amendment right, the forum selection clause was
invalid.
1The employer-defendants are: Caribbean City Buildings,
Inc., Me Salve, Inc., and GIB Development, LLC. The briefs suggest
a dispute as to whether all of the corporate defendants can be
considered González-Oyarzun's employer. As that issue has no
bearing on this appeal, we need not resolve it.
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Drawn to González-Oyarzun's argument, the district court
requested supplemental briefing on whether the Seventh Amendment's
jury guarantee applied to the Commonwealth. It simultaneously
ordered the plaintiff to serve a copy of the complaint and the
court's order, on both the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and Puerto
Rico's Office of Courts Administration.2
Ultimately, the district court concluded that the forum
selection clause was valid and thus dismissed the case. Its order,
however, went further. The court ruled that the Fourteenth
Amendment's Due Process Clause incorporated the Seventh
Amendment's jury trial right. Thus, in addition to dismissing the
case without prejudice to allow the plaintiff to re-file in the
proper venue, it entered a declaratory judgment stating "that the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico must afford civil litigants the Seventh
Amendment right to a jury trial."3
2 Both the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Office of the
Courts Administration contend that the district court lacked
personal jurisdiction over them because the plaintiff never served
either of them with process as required under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4.
However, neither affirmatively argued the service issue until
after the district court rendered its decision. Admittedly, this
delay may have resulted from the confusing manner in which the
district court brought the appellants into the case (i.e., they
appear to have been brought in more as amici than as parties
involved in the case). In any event, the appellants' failure to
timely argue why service was improper limits our ability to
consider that argument now. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b).
3 The Appellants raise a Tenth and Eleventh amendment
challenge to the declaratory judgment. The Tenth Amendment
argument goes nowhere since, had the district court's decision
been correct, it would have been doing nothing more than declaring
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The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Office of the
Courts Administration timely appealed; they vigorously challenge
the declaratory judgment. Notably, González-Oyarzun did not
cross-appeal the district court's conclusion respecting the
validity of the forum selection clause, nor did he otherwise appeal
the entry of dismissal.
II.
We review a district court's decision to grant
declaratory relief "under a standard slightly more rigorous than
abuse of discretion." Diaz-Fonseca v. Puerto Rico, 451 F.3d 13,
39 (1st Cir. 2006). While we are inclined to "cede some deference
to the trier, especially as to findings of fact . . . we will not
hesitate to act upon our independent judgment if it appears that
a mistake has been made." Id.
In the context of constitutional questions, our review
of a declaratory judgment is even more searching. We have noted
that a federal constitutional right is enforceable against the
states. See, e.g., Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968).
Meanwhile, the Eleventh Amendment issue is filled with
wrinkles (including questions about whether the government
entities were technically joined as defendants in the suit such
that the Eleventh Amendment would be implicated; whether it was
proper for the court to add the government entities rather than
government officials; and whether the declaratory relief was
proper). Our circuit law permits us to bypass an Eleventh
Amendment question where the case presents an easily resolved
merits issue, and we choose to do so here. See Parella v. Ret.
Bd. of R.I. Employees' Ret. Sys., 173 F.3d 46, 53-57 (1st Cir.
1999).
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that "declaratory judgments concerning the constitutionality of
government conduct will almost always be inappropriate when the .
. . underlying grievance can be remedied for the time being without
gratuitous exploration of . . . constitutional terrain." El Dia,
Inc. v. Hernandez Colon, 963 F.2d 488, 494 (1st Cir. 1992).
Indeed, we have warned that "courts should withhold declaratory
relief as a matter of discretion if such redress is unlikely to
palliate, or [is] not needed to palliate, the fancied injury."
Id.; cf. Pub. Affairs Assocs., Inc. v. Rickover, 369 U.S. 111, 112
(1962); Ernst & Young v. Depositors Econ. Prot. Corp., 45 F.3d
530, 535 (1st Cir. 1995).
In this case, it is at least arguable that the district
court abused its discretion when it issued a declaratory judgment
on a constitutional issue not directly before it (one, we further
note, that neither party requested).4 In any event, we vacate the
judgment for a different reason: it conflicts with binding Supreme
Court precedent. The Supreme Court has consistently held that
states are not constitutionally required to provide a jury trial
4 The plain language of the Declaratory Judgment Act suggests
that a district court can only enter a declaratory judgment when
a party explicitly requests one. See 28 U.S.C. § 2201 (permitting
a declaratory judgment where an "interested party seek[s] such [a]
declaration" and "upon the filing of an appropriate pleading").
We have found no case law addressing that issue nor have the
parties briefed it. In light of our disposition, we save the
question for another day.
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in civil cases. See City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at
Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687, 719 (1999); Gasperini v. Ctr. for
Humanities, Inc., 518 U.S. 415, 432 (1996); Wagner Elec. Mfg. Co.
v. Lyndon, 262 U.S. 226, 232 (1923); Chicago, R.I. & P.R. Co. v.
Cole, 251 U.S. 54, 56 (1919); N.Y. Cent. R.R. Co. v. White, 243
U.S. 188, 208 (1917); Minneapolis & St. Louis R.R. Co. v. Bombolis,
241 U.S. 211, 217 (1916); cf. Pearson v. Yewdall, 95 U.S. 294, 296
(1877); Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U.S. 90, 92-93 (1875). Nor, despite
the district court's insinuation otherwise, did the Supreme Court
expressly overrule that precedent in McDonald v. City of Chicago,
561 U.S. 742 (2010). See Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am.
Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484 (1989) ("If a precedent of this
Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on
reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of
Appeals should follow the case which directly controls.") Indeed,
neither time the McDonald court referenced the Seventh Amendment
did it purport to overrule any prior case.
The Court first considered the Seventh Amendment issue
in McDonald by benignly stating: "[o]nly a handful of the Bill of
Rights protections remain unincorporated." McDonald, 561 U.S. at
765. Admittedly, the footnote attached to that statement remarked
"[o]ur governing decisions regarding . . . the Seventh Amendment's
civil jury requirement long predate the era of selective
incorporation." Id. at 765 n.13. However, such a purely factual
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statement does not compel the conclusion that the precedent is
somehow overruled.
The Court's second reference to the Seventh Amendment is
perhaps more telling. In discussing its trend towards a "total
incorporation" theory, it noted that a fundamental right will be
fully binding on the states "unless stare decisis counsels
otherwise." Id. at 784. The Court inserted a footnote at the end
of that statement, wherein it explicitly referenced the grand jury
clause of the Fifth Amendment and the civil jury requirement of
the Seventh Amendment. Id. at 784 n.30. Although the Court
acknowledged a trend of expanding the scope of incorporated rights,
it also clarified -- by referencing the principle of stare decisis
-- that its Seventh Amendment incorporation cases are still
binding.
As such, the district court erred in suggesting that
McDonald overruled the prior Seventh Amendment decisions. And,
given those previous cases, the district court's declaratory
judgment was manifestly improper.
III.
We therefore vacate the portion of the district court's
judgment declaring that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico must afford
civil litigants a jury trial, and we remand solely for the district
court to enter an amended judgment consistent with this opinion.
Each party shall bear its own costs of appeal.
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