United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 06-1771
DIGNO E. TORRES ET AL.,
Plaintiffs, Appellees,
v.
COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellants.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Jay A. García-Gregory, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Circuit Judge,
Selya, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Lipez, Circuit Judge.
Julio Cesar Alejandro Serrano, with whom Roberto Sanchez
Ramos, Secretary of Justice, Salvador Antonetti Stutts, Solicitor
General, Leticia Casalduc, Auxiliary Solicitor General, Landrón &
Vera, LLP, Eileen Landrón Guardiola, Eduardo Vera Ramírez, and Luis
A. Rodríguez Muñoz were on brief, for appellants.
Jenyfer García-Soto, with whom Delgado & Fernandez, L.L.P. was
on brief, for appellees.
April 4, 2007
SELYA, Senior Circuit Judge. In this case, the district
court eschewed any evaluation of the merits of a potentially
dispositive pretrial motion asserting sovereign and qualified
immunity, instead denying the motion because it had been filed
beyond a clearly communicated deadline. This interlocutory appeal
ensued. After careful consideration, we conclude that we have
jurisdiction to entertain this appeal but that the district court
acted within the encincture of its discretion in denying the
belated motion on temporal grounds. The tale follows.
I. BACKGROUND
In December of 2002, the plaintiffs (Digno E. Torres, his
wife Betzaida Flores, and their daughter Joelly Torres-Flores)
filed a civil action in the United States District Court for the
District of Puerto Rico, in which they alleged that Torres-Flores,
while attending high school, had been sexually harassed by the head
of the school, Reynaldo Burgos. Because the high school operates
under the aegis of the Puerto Rico Department of Education (the
Department), the plaintiffs couched their claims against Burgos in
terms of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. They also named the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico as a defendant. Building on the fact that the high
school receives federal funds, they couched their claims against
the Commonwealth in terms of Title IX of the Education Amendments
of 1972. See 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681-1688. In that regard, they alleged
-2-
that the Department had not taken appropriate action to rectify the
situation following its receipt of an administrative complaint.1
The litigation has proceeded in fits and starts,
primarily because the parties have waged a number of pitched
battles on a wide variety of procedural fronts. We recount here
only as much of this chiaroscuro history as is needed to put this
appeal into perspective.
In May of 2004, the district court denied the defendants'
motions for dismissal of the section 1983 claims and for summary
judgment on the Title IX claims. Torres v. Puerto Rico, No. 02-
2769, slip op. at 13 (D.P.R. May 5, 2004) (unpublished). Because
this ukase rejected the defendants' asserted qualified immunity and
Eleventh Amendment defenses, the defendants prosecuted an
interlocutory appeal. They simultaneously requested a stay of the
district court proceedings pending resolution of the appeal.
Neither the appeal nor the related stay request fared
well in this court. Insofar as the Eleventh Amendment defense was
concerned, we dismissed the appeal without prejudice because the
issue required further factual development and, thus, was not ripe
for interim appellate review. See, e.g., Diaz v. Martinez, 112
F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1997); Stella v. Kelley, 63 F.3d 71, 74 (1st
1
The plaintiffs initially identified Burgos's supervisor and
the Puerto Rico Secretary of Education as additional defendants.
Neither of these parties remains in the case, and we make no
further mention of them.
-3-
Cir. 1995). We allowed Burgos's appeal to proceed on the qualified
immunity issue but refused to stay the district court proceedings
since his appeal seemed unlikely to succeed. Shortly thereafter,
Burgos dropped what remained of the appeal.
Meanwhile, the district court was struggling to keep the
case on track. The court certified the defendants' appeal as "a
frivolous one which is interposed solely for the purpose of delay"
and sanctioned the defendants for their dilatory tactics.2 These
tactics rendered the original discovery deadline impracticable and
forced the district court to vacate the trial date. The court
proceeded to set new deadlines: September 10, 2004, for completion
of discovery and October 8 of the same year for the filing of
dispositive motions. The court unequivocally warned the parties
that "[a]ny further delays or refusals to engage in discovery will
result in the imposition of further sanctions."
Despite this admonition, the parties sought a further
extension of the discovery deadline. Stating that its "patience
[was] at an end," the district court imposed monetary sanctions on
both sides. The record makes it perfectly plain, however, that the
court placed the primary onus on the defendants; it sanctioned them
"[f]or their recalcitrant, defiant, and stubborn attitude and their
repeated and blatant disregard" of court orders, and sanctioned the
2
The defendants filed a separate appeal from this order, which
we dismissed for lack of appellate jurisdiction.
-4-
plaintiffs for having "stood idly by" while the defendants
lollygagged.3
Recognizing that discovery remained incomplete, the court
extended the discovery deadline to October 8, 2004, and the
deadline for filing dispositive motions to October 28, 2004. The
court admonished, with conspicuous clarity, that (i) no further
extensions of either deadline would be allowed and (ii) no
dispositive motions would be entertained after the designated date.
After vacating the original trial date, the district
court fixed December 13, 2004, as the new trial date. At a
pretrial conference held on November 30, 2004 — after the discovery
and dispositive motion deadlines had passed — the court informed
the parties that it had to vacate the anticipated trial date due to
its crowded criminal calendar. Withal, the court did not resurrect
or modify the expired discovery and dispositive motion deadlines.
Similarly, the court did not indicate any willingness to entertain
late-filed dispositive motions. And in all events, no one moved
for leave to file dispositive motions out of time.
Notwithstanding this state of affairs, the defendants, on
January 14, 2005, filed a dispositive motion — a motion for
judgment on the pleadings. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c). That filing
occurred well beyond the court-appointed deadline for the filing of
3
Although the court eventually granted both parties' motions
for reconsideration of the monetary sanctions, its order
effectively conveys the tenor of the proceedings at the time.
-5-
dispositive motions.4 The district court's response was curt and
to the point: the court denied the motion, noting "that the
deadline for the filing of dispositive motions ha[d] long passed."
The court also propounded a second basis for denying the motion,
observing that the defendants had "failed to include certified
translations of their exhibits" as required by the court's local
rules. This order forms the basis for the instant appeal — the
defendants' third interlocutory appeal in this case.
II. APPELLATE JURISDICTION
We start with an introspective look at our own
jurisdiction. As a general rule, interlocutory orders are not
immediately appealable because they lack the requisite finality.
See Domegan v. Fair, 859 F.2d 1059, 1061 (1st Cir. 1988); see also
28 U.S.C. § 1291. Like every general rule, however, this rule
admits of certain exceptions. The collateral order doctrine maps
the contours of one such exception.
4
While the district court labeled this deadline as a deadline
for the filing of summary judgment motions, the record makes
manifest both that the court intended the deadline to apply to all
dispositive motions and that the parties knew that to be the case.
To their credit, the defendants have never suggested that they
understood the deadline to be limited to summary judgment motions,
nor have they argued — either here or in the court below — that the
deadline was inapplicable to their motion for judgment on the
pleadings. At any rate, that motion, though captioned as a motion
for judgment on the pleadings, explicitly relied upon deposition
transcripts and other information procured during discovery. It
was, therefore, the functional equivalent of a motion for summary
judgment.
-6-
Under that doctrine, a district court's law-based denial
of a pretrial motion that asserts a qualified immunity defense is
immediately appealable. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530
(1985). This is so, in part, because the defense conveys "an
entitlement not to be forced to litigate." Id. at 527. By like
token — and for much the same reason — the law-based denial of a
pretrial motion that asserts a defense of Eleventh Amendment
immunity is immediately appealable. See P.R. Aqued. & Sewer Auth.
v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 147 (1993). The defendants
contend that, under these principles, we have jurisdiction to
review the challenged order now.
There is, however, another way to look at the matter.
Here, the district court did not deny the defendants' motion on the
merits. Viewed in terms of the district court's rationale, the
order seems to be a routine case-management order — and,
ordinarily, case-management orders are not amenable to immediate
appellate review. See, e.g., In re Recticel Foam Corp., 859 F.2d
1000, 1003 (1st Cir. 1988).
The tension between these seemingly contradictory bodies
of authority is more apparent than real. We have held squarely
that because "an asserted right not to stand trial is lost no less
by a court's refusal to entertain a pre-trial immunity claim as by
an erroneous denial of it on the merits," a district court's
refusal to consider the merits of a pretrial motion raising an
-7-
immunity defense — even a refusal couched as a case-management
order — is immediately appealable. Valiente v. Rivera, 966 F.2d
21, 23 (1st Cir. 1992). Since we are bound to adhere to prior
circuit precedent, see, e.g., United States v. Wogan, 938 F.2d
1446, 1449 (1st Cir. 1991), we hold that we have jurisdiction over
this interlocutory appeal to the extent the appeal raises immunity
defenses.5
III. ANALYSIS
Although the nature of the challenged order does not
deprive us of appellate jurisdiction, it does provide the prism
through which we must view the lower court's decision. Typically,
we would review the disposition of a motion for judgment on the
pleadings de novo. See, e.g., Mass. Nurses Ass'n v. N. Adams Reg'l
Hosp., 467 F.3d 27, 31 (1st Cir. 2006). Here, however, the
district court did not reach the merits but, rather, disposed of
the motion as a matter of case management. Thus, a different
5
To the extent that the motion for judgment on the pleadings
rested on other grounds, interlocutory review does not lie. See
Domegan, 859 F.2d at 1061-62. Beyond that, the record reveals one
further anomaly. Both in its brief and at oral argument in this
court, the Commonwealth conceded that, as a condition of receiving
federal funding, it has waived its sovereign immunity from valid
claims under Title IX. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-7(a)(1); see also
Pederson v. La. State Univ., 213 F.3d 858, 875-76 (5th Cir. 2000);
Litman v. George Mason Univ., 186 F.3d 544, 555 (4th Cir. 1999).
Thus, the Commonwealth does not appear to have a colorable legal
argument with respect to its sovereign immunity defense.
Nevertheless, our jurisdiction seems clear as to the rejection of
Burgos's qualified immunity defense to the section 1983 claims, see
Rosario-Diaz v. Gonzalez, 140 F.3d 312, 314-15 (1st Cir. 1998);
Valiente, 966 F.2d at 23, so we see no need to inquire further.
-8-
standard of review obtains: we examine challenged case-management
orders solely for abuse of discretion. See Rosario-Diaz v.
Gonzalez, 140 F.3d 312, 315 (1st Cir. 1998). Accordingly, the
question we must answer is whether the district court abused its
discretion in denying the motion by reason of the defendants'
noncompliance with a court-ordered deadline.6 As we explain below,
that question demands a negative answer.
We begin with bedrock: trial judges have an abiding
responsibility for the efficient management of the cases on their
dockets. To that end, the Civil Rules require a district judge to
issue orders "as soon as practicable" fixing deadlines for the
completion of discovery and the filing of dispositive motions.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b). To help ensure that cases stay on track,
district judges are given express authority to sanction parties who
do not comply with these deadlines. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(f).
"We have made it clear that district courts may punish such
dereliction in a variety of ways, including but not limited to the
preclusion of untimely motions . . . ." Rosario-Diaz, 140 F.3d at
315.
6
To be sure, the district court initially mentioned a second
ground for refusing to entertain the motion: the defendants'
failure to furnish translations of documents accompanying its
motion. That omission was rectified on a motion for
reconsideration, so we assume, favorably to the defendants, that
the challenged order must stand or fall on the ground of
untimeliness.
-9-
Since the district court has first-line authority for
case-management decisions and is intimately familiar with the ebb
and flow of the cases on its docket, an appellate court should
"step softly" when it is asked to set aside a district court's
choice of sanctions for the violation of a case-management order.
United States v. One 1987 BMW 325, 985 F.2d 655, 657 (1st Cir.
1993). It follows inexorably that a party attempting to convince
us that the district court misgauged the situation faces a steep
uphill climb. See id.; see also Vélez v. Awning Windows, Inc., 375
F.3d 35, 42 (1st Cir. 2004).
These principles apply equally when the trial court's
sanctions intrude upon a defendant's ability to assert an immunity
defense before trial. See, e.g., Guzmán-Rivera v. Rivera-Cruz, 98
F.3d 664, 668 (1st Cir. 1996). Although state entities and public
officials enjoy special protection from the vagaries of civil
litigation, this protection is not unlimited. Because immunity
defenses may be raised at several different stages of a case, the
potential for abuse is substantial. For that reason, the right to
assert an immunity defense must be balanced with the district
court's obligation to ensure the "just, speedy, and inexpensive"
resolution of cases. Fed. R. Civ. P. 1. With these considerations
in mind, we have recognized that district courts may be justified
in rebuffing pretrial attempts to assert immunity defenses if those
attempts are not undertaken with a reasonable degree of diligence.
-10-
See Guzmán-Rivera, 98 F.3d at 668; see also Ungar v. PLO, 402 F.3d
274, 293 (1st Cir. 2005).
In this instance, we discern no basis for faulting the
district court's calibration of the decisional scales. After all,
the defendants filed their motion a full eleven weeks after the
expiration of the court's extended deadline. In setting that
deadline, the court had stated explicitly that no further
extensions would be given. To make a bad situation worse, the
defendants did not even mention their planned course of action at
the pretrial conference, nor did they deign to seek leave of court
before filing a motion that clearly violated the scheduling order.
It is difficult to imagine any circumstances in which a
court should be expected to tolerate so brazen a flouting of its
case-management authority. The circumstances here are particularly
unattractive: the defendants' actions were taken against a backdrop
that included an earlier finding that they had engaged in "repeated
and blatant disregard" for the court's orders. Under the doctrine
of just desserts, a party who engages in a pattern of intransigent
conduct is hard-put to complain when the court enforces its orders
according to their tenor.
The defendants attempt to blunt the force of this
reasoning by noting the absence of a definite trial date (when it
vacated the December 2004 trial date, the district court did not
set a new one). We rejected a virtually identical argument in an
-11-
earlier case where, as here, the district court did not predicate
its denial of the motion on the imminence of trial but, rather, on
the need to sanction noncompliance with court orders. See Rosario-
Diaz, 140 F.3d at 316 (explaining that "[l]itigants could
complicate exponentially the efficacious management of crowded
dockets if left free to engage in the kind of dilatory behavior
exhibited by the appellants as long as no firm trial date was in
prospect"). We see no reason to alter our stance today.7
The defendants also suggest that they were unable to meet
the deadline for filing dispositive motions because their path to
immunity was not clear until the parties reached certain
stipulations while preparing for the pretrial conference.8 This
argument is unsupported by the record. The district court denied
the defendants' earlier dispositive motions based primarily on the
need for the trier of fact to determine whether or not Burgos's
acts "were sufficiently severe to compromise the victim's
educational opportunities and create a hostile environment."
Torres, supra, slip op. at 10. There are no stipulations in the
record that can fairly be read to resolve this factual dispute. In
7
The defendants' reliance on Valiente, 966 F.2d at 23, is
misplaced. In Valiente, unlike in this case, the district court
predicated its refusal to consider the defendants' dispositive
motion specifically on the imminence of the impending trial. See
id.
8
The defendants make no persuasive explanation of why they
waited a full six weeks after the pretrial conference to file their
motion.
-12-
all events, the defendants concede that the parties' contentions
about two of the incidents at issue — incidents involving Burgos
and Torres-Flores — "did differ substantially." Appellants' Br. at
12.
Even if the freshly minted stipulations were as important
as the defendants suggest, our conclusion would be the same. The
district court was in the best position to assess the validity of
the proffered excuse for the untimely filing. The defendants could
have, but did not, ask that court to validate their excuse and
extend the dispositive motion deadline on that basis. Their
failure to do so speaks loudly about the insubstantiality of the
excuse.
We add a coda. Whatever the merits of the excuse, trial
courts are not required to accept at face value litigants' reasons
for their failure to meet deadlines. See Cordero-Soto v. Island
Finance, Inc., 418 F.3d 114, 117-18 (1st Cir. 2005); Jones v.
Winnepesaukee Realty, 990 F.2d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 1993). That is
particularly true where, as here, the parties offering the
explanation have exhibited a pattern of dilatory conduct. Cf.
Spiller v. U.S.V. Labs., Inc., 842 F.2d 535, 537 (1st Cir. 1988)
(affirming sanctions when "the history of foot-dragging evident in
the record" made it "difficult to draw any other inference but that
[the sanctioned party] did not intend to comply unless absolutely
forced to do so").
-13-
IV. CONCLUSION
We need go no further. Although we recognize the
importance of defendants' rights to assert immunity defenses before
trial, those rights are not sacrosanct. District courts have wide
discretion to set reasonable deadlines for asserting such defenses,
and they may impose condign sanctions on parties who do not comply.
The sanction imposed here — effectively, disregard of a belated
motion — was not an abuse of discretion. We therefore uphold the
district court's order. The defendants, of course, remain free to
assert their immunity defenses at trial.
Affirmed. Costs are to be taxed in favor of the appellees.
-14-