Burgos-Yantin v. Municipality of Juana Diaz
Opinion
This appeal arises from the district court's exercise of ancillary jurisdiction to enforce a resolution, issued by the Puerto Rico Secretary of Justice, directing the Municipality of Juana Díaz to indemnify two municipal police officers found liable under Puerto Rico tort law after a federal jury trial for using excessive force resulting in a death. The Municipality argues that the district court's order stretched federal ancillary enforcement jurisdiction beyond its proper bounds. 1 We disagree and therefore affirm.
I.
Appellee and other family members filed this action after the shooting death of their relative, Miguel Ángel-Burgos, at the hands of the police. They brought federal claims under
*3
In December 2012, Burgos-Yantín filed a Motion for Execution of Judgment
2
asserting that the Municipality was "responsible for the payment of the Judgment" against its officers by operation of a Puerto Rico statute commonly referred to as "Law 9."
See
The Municipality opposed the Motion for Execution of Judgment, arguing that the district court lacked jurisdiction to enforce the Secretary's resolution. The district court rejected this argument, holding that it had "ancillary enforcement jurisdiction" and inviting Burgos-Yantín to move for a writ of execution against the Municipality.
Burgos-Yantin
v.
Municipality of Juana Diaz
, No. 07-1146(JA),
II.
This case turns on the district court's jurisdiction (or lack thereof) to enforce the Secretary's Law 9 resolution against the Municipality. A district court may exercise ancillary jurisdiction for two reasons: "(1) to permit disposition by a single court of claims that are, in varying respects and degrees, factually interdependent; and (2) to enable a court to function successfully, that is, to manage its proceedings, vindicate its authority, and effectuate its decrees."
Peacock
v.
Thomas
,
Enforcement jurisdiction is "a creature of necessity," which grants a federal court the "inherent power to enforce its judgments."
Id.
at 356, 359,
In this appeal, the Municipality argues that Burgos-Yantín's Motion for Execution of Judgment does not fall within the district court's ancillary enforcement jurisdiction because the motion seeks to impose a new obligation on the Municipality to pay the "existing federal judgment" against the two police officers. The Municipality also rejects the validity of the Secretary's Law 9 resolution and, consequently, the indemnification obligation it purports to impose on the Municipality. Burgos-Yantín counters that the resolution is valid and enforceable. Accordingly, she argues, her motion is an appropriate procedural mechanism for enforcing the judgment because, pursuant to the Law 9 resolution, the Secretary has determined the Municipality's obligation to indemnify the judgment rendered against the municipal officers.
A. The Validity of the Law 9 Resolution
The Municipality argues that the Secretary's resolution is invalid because the Municipality was given no opportunity to participate in the administrative process that led to its issuance, an omission that the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico subsequently ruled improper in a different case.
See
Municipio de Fajardo
v.
Secretario de Justicia
,
As the district court's well-reasoned opinion explained, see id. at **2-3, the decision in Fajardo does not help the Municipality in this case. The Municipality has never challenged the Secretary's Law 9 decision in the commonwealth courts. 6 Although the Municipality contends that it had no means of seeking review under Puerto Rico law, the Fajardo decision itself-the result of another municipality's challenge to a Law 9 decision-belies that contention. 7
*5
The Municipality argues that notwithstanding that
Fajardo
was decided in 2012, it applies to this case retroactively. We disagree. The
Fajardo
court had the discretion to give retroactive effect to its decision,
see
Having concluded that the Law 9 resolution is valid, we consider whether the district court had jurisdiction to order the Municipality to make the required payment to Burgos-Yantín.
B. The Applicability of Ancillary Enforcement Jurisdiction
The Supreme Court in
Peacock
cautioned courts against exercising ancillary enforcement jurisdiction "over proceedings that are entirely new and original."
In reversing, the Supreme Court rejected Thomas's contention that his second suit fell within the federal court's ancillary enforcement jurisdiction.
The Municipality maintains that the circumstances here are equivalent to those in
Peacock
because it, like defendant Peacock, was dismissed from the case earlier, and Burgos-Yantín is thus seeking to shift liability to a party "not already liable for that judgment."
We have previously distinguished between collecting on an original judgment and obtaining a new judgment in a separate proceeding against a new party. In
U.S.I. Properties
, we noted that courts routinely have exercised jurisdiction over a "postjudgment claim [that] is simply a mode of execution designed to reach property of the judgment debtor in the hands of a third party."
The Municipality argues that the rationale for allowing enforcement jurisdiction over proceedings seeking garnishment or attachment of a judgment debtor's funds held by a third party does not extend to funds "owed" as a result of an indemnification arrangement. Indeed, we reserved judgment in
U.S.I. Properties
on essentially this scenario: whether the federal courts' enforcement jurisdiction covers proceedings against municipalities that have contractual obligations to pay judgments on behalf of impecunious police officers.
*7
Now directly faced with that question, we conclude that Burgos-Yantín's motion to execute judgment against the Municipality, based on the Municipality's statutory obligation to pay, falls within the district court's enforcement jurisdiction.
8
In practical terms, the jurisdictional inquiry here is largely indistinguishable from that applicable to garnishment or attachment. The Municipality's obligation to pay the damages award won by Burgos-Yantín has been determined with finality under state law, and that debt is not based on the Municipality's own liability for the plaintiff's injury.
9
Moreover, this is also not a situation-like
Peacock
or
U.S.I. Properties
-where the plaintiff asserted a new theory of direct liability.
See
,
e.g.
,
We thus conclude that the execution of judgment sought by Burgos-Yantín bears a much stronger resemblance to the supplemental proceedings that the Court in
Peacock
identified as enforcement mechanisms than to the new action it rejected as impermissible. To reiterate our observation in
U.S.I. Properties
, "[f]ederal courts have drawn a distinction between postjudgment proceedings that simply present a mode of execution to collect an existing judgment and proceedings that raise an independent controversy with a new party, attempting to shift liability."
The Municipality argues that, even if ancillary enforcement jurisdiction is appropriate based on an indemnification theory, it is not proper here because Law 9 makes the indemnification obligation discretionary rather than mandatory. We fail to see any significance in that distinction on the facts of this case. Before Burgos-Yantín filed her motion for execution, the Secretary had exercised his discretion under Law 9 in concluding that the Municipality must indemnify the defendant officers. As discussed above, the Municipality failed to challenge the Secretary's resolution either administratively or through appeal to the Commonwealth courts. Accordingly, at this point, the resolution is final, and it imposes a mandatory obligation on the Municipality to pay the judgment on behalf of the officers.
To be sure, in some cases, factual disputes or unresolved issues of state law may counsel against assuming ancillary enforcement jurisdiction over post-judgment proceedings based on indemnification. As noted above,
see
supra
note 8, we acknowledge that a proceeding that involves "so many new issues that it is functionally a separate case," may be outside the scope of a court's enforcement jurisdiction.
Yang
v.
City of Chicago
,
Here, we have no unresolved questions of law or fact concerning indemnification. We have a final determination by the Secretary of Justice directing the Municipality to indemnify the two officers. Burgos-Yantín's motion simply asks the federal court to enforce her judgment by ordering the Municipality to follow the Secretary's Law 9 determination, thus properly invoking the court's ancillary enforcement jurisdiction.
C. Order for Execution of Judgment
Having determined that the district court properly exercised jurisdiction over Burgos-Yantín's motion, we must consider whether the district court's order
*9
to enforce the judgment against the Municipality complies with Puerto Rico law. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 69, state law governs "not only the parties' substantive rights [concerning execution of a judgment] but also the procedure to be followed."
Whitfield
v.
Municipality of Fajardo
,
We now conclude it is unnecessary to reach that question. As we previously have noted, Puerto Rico law provides that the funds needed by a municipality to pay a court judgment must be allocated in the municipality's budget.
13
See
Acevedo-Garcia
v.
Vera-Monroig
,
Consistent with our precedent, and the law of Puerto Rico, the district court should enter an order directing the Municipality of Juana Díaz to allocate funds in its budget for the next fiscal year providing for the payment of the judgment at issue in this case. To the extent that there are any issues concerning the timing of the preparation of the next municipal budget, or the way in which that allocation of funds to pay the judgment should be set forth in the budget, the district court should work out those details with the parties.
So ordered. Costs to appellee.
Consistent with our precedent, we use the terms "ancillary enforcement jurisdiction" and "enforcement jurisdiction" to refer to the inherent power of federal courts to exercise jurisdiction by enforcing judgments "in certain situations where jurisdiction would otherwise be lacking."
Futura Dev. of P.R., Inc.
v.
Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico
,
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 69, "[a] money judgment is enforced by a writ of execution, unless the court directs otherwise." Fed. R. Civ. P. 69(a)(1).
The resolution itself is not in the record.
These principles apply both when the plaintiff invokes enforcement jurisdiction in a second lawsuit, as occurred in
Peacock
, and in the context of supplemental proceedings brought in the original lawsuit under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 69.
See
U.S.I.
,
A certified translation of the Fajardo decision, originally submitted to the district court, is included in appellants' appendix. See App'x at pp. 138-46.
The Municipality claims that it challenged the Secretary's decision by filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in the Fajardo case. This argument is meritless. The Municipality's expression of support for a legal argument asserted by a different municipality in a different case does not preserve that argument in its own proceeding.
The municipality in Fajardo challenged the Secretary's decision by filing a declaratory judgment action pursuant to Puerto Rico Civil Procedure Rule 59.
As we elaborate
infra
, we are not concluding that postjudgment proceedings based on indemnification will always fall within the court's ancillary enforcement jurisdiction. As the Seventh Circuit observed, such jurisdiction may be inappropriate where "the additional proceeding ... inject[s] so many new issues that it is functionally a separate case."
Yang
v.
City of Chicago
,
To be sure, garnishment and attachment are not identical to the indemnification procedure in this case. Unlike the garnishment and attachment contexts, the funds at issue here were never the municipal officers' property, and, indeed, the Municipality must itself generate those proceeds. However, this factor does not outweigh the similarities between the indemnification here and the enforcement procedures listed in Peacock that the Supreme Court viewed as within the federal courts' enforcement jurisdiction.
Indeed, the Supreme Court in
Peacock
appeared to recognize this distinction when it described two prior cases as consistent with its holding because "[i]n those cases, we permitted a judgment creditor to mandamus county officials to force them to levy a tax for payment of an existing judgment."
The court in
Hudson
also noted that the plaintiff's "newly presented indemnity principle" was premised on "hold[ing] the City individually liable under the indemnity clause for the full amount of the Officers' settlement."
This order mirrored the plaintiff's request to the court.
Law 9 also provides that if the municipality does not have enough funds to pay the judgment, the balance is paid by the Commonwealth.
See
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Carmen D. BURGOS-YANTÍN, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. MUNICIPALITY OF JUANA DÍAZ, Et Al., Defendants, Appellants.
- Cited By
- 15 cases
- Status
- Published