Libertad v. Sanchez

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit

No. 99-1914

LYDIA LIBERTAD; EMILIA EMANCIPACION; GRUPO PRO DERECHOS
REPRODUCTIVOS; MARY RIVERA; SOCIEDAD INSTITUTO GINECO-
QUIRURGICO; ANA E. GONZALEZ-DAVILA; DR. RAFAEL CASTRO; LADIES
MEDICAL CENTER,

Plaintiffs, Appellants,

v.

CARLOS SANCHEZ,

Defendant, Appellee.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. Jose Antonio Fuste, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Selya, Circuit Judge,
Cyr, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Stahl, Circuit Judge.

Bonnie Scott Jones, with whom Simon Heller and Center for
Reproductive Law & Policy were on brief, for appellants.

June 23, 2000
 STAHL, Circuit Judge. This appeal results from a

lawsuit brought against a number of anti-abortion activists by

a women’s rights organization, three facilities that perform

abortions in Puerto Rico (together with their directors), and

two women who, as a result of defendants’ conduct, failed to

secure desired medical treatment at the facilities. The

district court initially granted defendants summary judgment on

all claims, but we reversed that decision in large part and

remanded for a trial. See Libertad v. Welch, 53 F.3d 428 (1st

Cir. 1995).

Following our remand, defendant-appellee Carlos Sanchez

refused to participate further in the proceedings, and in June

1996, the district court entered a default judgment against him

on plaintiffs’ claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) and pendent

Puerto Rico tort law. Eventually, in 1998, plaintiffs

negotiated a settlement with the other defendants, but sought,

inter alia, an award of damages and attorney’s fees against

Sanchez, who took no part in the negotiations leading to the

settlement agreement. In May 1999, the district court denied

plaintiffs' request for damages and fees, stating that it based

its judgment “upon the same analysis we employed when [in

connection with the settlement agreement] we entered judgment

against [another defendant]” and cross-referencing three

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documents which the court believed would explain its ratio

decidendi.

Having read the cross-referenced documents and other

relevant portions of the record, we find ourselves unable to

understand the district court’s reasoning. Moreover, the record

as a whole would seem to support plaintiffs’ claimed entitlement

to both damages and an attorney fee award. With respect to

damages, the default judgment requires that plaintiffs’

allegations of fact against Sanchez “be taken as true and . . .

be considered established as a matter of law.” Brockton Sav.

Bank v. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., 771 F.2d 5, 13 (1st Cir.

1985); see also Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 52 (1983) (“[O]nce

liability is found, the [factfinder] is required to award

compensatory damages in an amount appropriate to compensate the

plaintiff for his loss.” (Emphasis supplied)). Plaintiffs’

allegations, when credited as they must be, certainly seem to

establish that plaintiffs suffered a number of harms compensable

under § 1985(3) and Puerto Rico tort law. Moreover, insofar as

the allegations establish that Sanchez acted intentionally and

out of hostility towards women, they also seem sufficient to put

the question of punitive damages into play. See Smith, 461 U.S.

at 51; Hobson v. Wilson, 737 F.2d 1, 63 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (noting

that punitive damages can be awarded pursuant to § 1985(3)).

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 Similarly, with respect to attorney’s fees, we note

that (1) such fees are to be awarded to "prevailing parties"

under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (making fees available to claimants who

prevail under § 1985) except in "special circumstances," see

Williams v. Hanover Hous. Auth., 113 F.3d 1294, 1300-01 (1st Cir.

1997); (2) plaintiffs would seem to have “prevailed” in their §

1985(3) claims against Sanchez;1 (3) no special circumstances

making a fee award inappropriate are manifest in the record; and

(4) the absence of a fee award against the settling defendants

(per the terms of the settlement agreement) would not seem

relevant to the question of Sanchez's fee liability, cf. id. at

1301-02 (emphasizing that fee liability under § 1988 turns not

on a defendant's conduct or circumstances but "on the harm

suffered by the plaintiffs and the relief obtained through their

lawsuit").

All that said, we are reluctant to remand with

directions that damages and fees be awarded without first giving

the district court, which presided over this case for years, an

opportunity to set forth any basis for its decision that we may

have overlooked. We therefore vacate the judgment denying

1
Irrespective of damages, plaintiffs have obtained from the
district court an injunction permanently banning Sanchez from
disrupting the operation of the three facilities that perform
abortions which have prosecuted this lawsuit.

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plaintiffs damages and fees and remand to the district court

with instructions that it either award plaintiffs damages and

fees or explain why, despite the authority we have cited, an

award of damages and/or fees is not warranted.

Vacated and remanded. Costs to appellants.

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