USCA1 Opinion
April 19, 1994 [NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
[NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
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No. 93-2219
ERIC APONTE, ET AL.,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
PUERTO RICO MARINE MANAGEMENT, INC.,
Defendant, Appellee.
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APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Jaime Pieras, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
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Before
Breyer, Chief Judge,
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Torruella and Selya, Circuit Judges.
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Harry Anduze Montano for appellants.
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Rafael Cuevas Kuinlam with whom Antonio Cuevas Delgado and
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Cuevas, Kuinlam & Bermudez were on brief, for appellee.
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Per Curiam. This case appears before us for a second
Per Curiam.
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time. In the earlier proceeding, we vacated the district court's
order dismissing plaintiffs' libel claim. See Aponte v. Puerto
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Rico Marine Mgmt., Inc., No. 92-2056 (1st Cir. Mar. 16, 1993)
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(unpublished). On remand, defendant moved for summary judgment
on the libel claim. The district court, in a thoughtful opinion,
found that the uncontradicted evidence showed that the
publication of the allegedly defamatory comments was quite
limited and fell comfortably within the scope of the qualified
privilege recognized by the Puerto Rico Supreme Court in Porto v.
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Bentley Puerto Rico, Inc., No. RE-89-123 (P.R. Dec. 23, 1992).
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See Aponte v. Puerto Rico Marine Mgmt., Inc., No. 91-2222(JP),
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(D.P.R. Aug. 27, 1993). Plaintiffs appeal. We affirm.
As we have indicated before, when a district court
produces a well-reasoned opinion that reaches the correct result,
a reviewing tribunal should not rush to write at length merely to
put matters in its own words. See, e.g., In re San Juan Dupont
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Plaza Hotel Fire Litig., 989 F.2d 36, 38 (1st Cir. 1993). So it
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is here. We agree with the court below that, in this case, the
summary judgment record contains no evidence that defendant's
publication of the alleged libel fell outside the scope of the
qualified privilege available under Puerto Rico law. We,
therefore, summarily affirm the judgment below, for substantially
the reasons articulated in the district court's rescript. We add
only that, in all events, we are hard-pressed to see how the
communication in question canplausibly be classified as libelous.
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We need go no further. The judgment of the district
court is
Affirmed. See 1st Cir. Loc. R. 27.1.
Affirmed. See 1st Cir. Loc. R. 27.1.
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