United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 99-2026
CRUZ ESTHER RAMOS-BAEZ,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
DR. EDWIN BOSSOLO-LOPEZ; IRMA RIVERA-DE-BOSSOLO;
CONYUGAL PARTNERSHIP, BOSSOLO-RIVERA,
EXPRESS EMERGENCY CARE, INC.;
ASHFORD PRESBYTERIAN COMMUNITY HOSPITAL;
AND SINDICATO DE ASEGURADORES DE IMPERICIA MEDICO
HOSPITALARIA,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Juan M. Perez-Gimenez, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Selya, Circuit Judge,
Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Lipez, Circuit Judge.
Mayra Vazquez-Morales for appellant.
Mirta E. Rodriguez-Mora for appellees Dr. Edwin Bossolo-
Lopez; Irma Rivera-de-Bossolo; Conyugal Partnership, Bossolo-
Rivera; Sindicato de Aseguaradores de Impericia Medico
Hospitalaria.
Roberto Marques-Sanchez for appellee Ashford Presbyterian
Community Hospital.
February 15, 2001
COFFIN, Senior Circuit Judge. This is a diversity tort
action, brought in the district court of Puerto Rico, in which
the plaintiff-appellant, who alleged medical malpractice against
a doctor and a hospital, appeals from a grant of summary
judgment for defendants-appellees that dismissed the action as
time barred. We affirm.
After suffering burns on her legs from an oven mishap,
appellant received treatment from appellee, Dr. Bossolo-Lopez,
on November 24, 1988. On the next day, she received further
treatment from appellee, Ashford Presbyterian Community
Hospital. Three days later on November 28th, appellant, still
in pain and unsatisfied, sought further medical help from
another doctor, who told her she had been negligently treated by
both Dr. Bossolo and the hospital.
The law of Puerto Rico, which governs this diversity
case, sets a one-year statute of limitations for tort actions.
31 P.R. Laws Ann. § 5298; see also Daigle v. Maine Med. Ctr.,
Inc., 14 F.3d 684, 689 (1st Cir. 1994) ("A federal court sitting
in diversity jurisdiction and called upon in that role to apply
state law is absolutely bound by a current interpretation of
that law formulated by the state's highest tribunal."). Suit
was brought on July 5, 1990, long after November 29, 1989, when
the one-year period expired. Under Puerto Rico law, however,
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the period of limitation may be tolled by one of three events:
a court action, an acknowledgment of debt by a debtor, or an
extrajudicial claim. 31 P.R. Laws Ann. § 5303. The issue
presented in this case is whether the one-year limitations
period was tolled by subsequent extrajudicial claims.
Five letters, appellant argues, constituted
extrajudicial claims that tolled the statute of limitations.
The first three were considered in a motion for summary
judgment; the latter two were presented in a post-judgment
motion for reconsideration. The district court found that the
first letter, sent on March 21, 1989, by appellant's counsel to
Dr. Bossolo, who acknowledged receipt, met the criteria of an
extrajudicial claim required by Puerto Rico law. This preserved
the cause of action until March 22, 1990, but was of no avail to
appellant, whose suit was not filed until almost four months
later. A second letter from appellant's counsel to Dr.
Bossolo's insurer dated July 5, 1989, enclosed a medical report
diagnosing appellant's allegedly inadequate treatment. The
district court held that this letter lacked the specificity
needed to state an extrajudicial claim. The third letter, dated
November 22, 1989, sent by appellant to the hospital, was found
to meet all of the requirements of an extrajudicial claim, but
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did not toll the statute of limitations because there was no
proof the hospital actually received the letter.
After the court rendered summary judgment for
appellees, appellant moved for reconsideration, seeking to amend
the judgment. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). Appended to that
motion were two letters, dated November 10 and November 17,
1989, in which the hospital purportedly acknowledged appellant's
claim. The court denied the motion in a margin endorsement.
As there is no dispute over the adequacy of the March
21st letter, we begin our analysis with the July 5th letter,
which reportedly submitted a medical report to Dr. Bossolo’s
insurer and indicated that counsel was willing to discuss
settlement. We say "reportedly" because the letter, written in
Spanish, has not been produced in the appendix in an English
translation. Under our local rules, this Court may not consider
non-English documents unless a translation is provided. See 1st
Cir. R. 30.7 (“The court will not receive documents not in the
English language unless translations are furnished.”). In the
past we have refused to consider untranslated documents provided
in an appendix. See United States v. Angueira, 951 F.2d 12, 14
n.1 (1st Cir. 1991).
In this case, the district court, without demur,
accepted the untranslated document, referring to it in the
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summary judgment ruling. It was a letter of only four lines of
text, from which we might accurately divine the essential
message. But overlooking our mandatory rule would raise
difficult questions: Can the district court's generous
accommodation render meaningless our rule governing appellate
presentations? Can we feel free to invoke the rule for
communications we deem complex but ignore the rule for
relatively simple documents we feel competent to interpret? To
answer either of these questions affirmatively would make our
"rule" no more subject to even application than the legendary
chancellor's foot. What might be sensible in the benign arena
of equity is not transferable to a workable rule of procedure.
All counsel, therefore, have the undelegable
responsibility to know and follow the rules applicable to
appeals in this court. That translations may not have been
insisted upon by a district court does not give license to
ignore the appellate rules. Our insistence on adhering to Local
Rule 30.7 arises not from any ideological preference but from a
recognition that loose application leads to uneven, and
therefore unjust, treatment.
We therefore do not consider the July 5th letter, nor
the other untranslated Spanish letters. For whatever balm it is
worth, we do not think appellant is sorely prejudiced by this
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procedural misstep. Puerto Rico law takes a restrictive
approach to recognizing extrajudicial claims. See, e.g.,
Andino-Pastrana v. Municipio De San Juan, 215 F.3d 179, 180 (1st
Cir. 2000); Fernandez v. Chardon, 681 F.2d 42, 54 (1st Cir.
1982) (citing Diaz de Diana v. A.J.A.S. Ins. Co., 110 P.R.R.
602, 607-08 n.1 (1980) ("[A]nything causing an interruption must
be interpreted restrictively.")). The Puerto Rico Supreme
Court's recent application of extrajudicial claim tolling
indicates its limited nature. See De Leon Crespo v. Caparra
Center, 99 TSPR 24 (1999) (trans.).
In De Leon Crespo, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court
construed a letter from a claimant who refused a nominal
settlement and added, "[w]e will promptly file the pertinent
action in the Courts of Puerto Rico." Id., Offic. Trans. at 6.
The court found this language "not a model of perfection, but at
least it met the minimum requirements for an extrajudicial
claim." Id. at 8. It held that the letter tolled the
applicable statute. The letter of July 5th, by contrast, "did
not contain the precision and specificity needed for an
extrajudicial claim." Dist. Ct. Op. at 9. In short, we doubt
the July 5th letter would qualify as an extrajudicial claim.
The third letter, that of November 22, 1989, written
in English, met all extrajudicial claim requirements except for
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proof of receipt by the putative tortfeasor. At oral argument,
counsel for the first time sought to rely on an unidentified
statutory presumption of receipt where letters were properly
addressed and mailed. This argument had never been made in the
district court or briefed to us, and is therefore waived. See,
e.g., Romero v. Colegio De Abogados De Puerto Rico, 204 F.3d
291, 296 n.4 (1st Cir. 2000) (citing United States v. Zannino,
895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990)).
This brings us to the last two letters, which didn't
surface until after summary judgment. Two procedural barriers
bar our consideration of these letters. First, the letters of
November 10th and 17th, like the July 5th letter, were provided
to us only in Spanish. Second, they were first disclosed to the
district court in a post-judgment motion for reconsideration,
without any explanation of why they could not have been
discovered earlier. See Appeal of Sun Pipe Line Co., 831 F.2d
22, 25 (1st Cir. 1987) ("[W]e will not overturn the trial
court's decision on [a motion for reconsideration] unless the
appellant can persuade us that the refusal to grant the motion
was a manifest abuse of discretion."). We find no such abuse.
Finally, we do not reach appellant's argument that a
"relationship of solidarity" between Dr. Bossolo and Ashford
Hospital made them joint tortfeasors such that a claim which
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tolled for one, tolled for the other. This argument founders on
our failure to discern any qualifying extrajudicial claim.
Affirmed.
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