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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