Comité Fiestas De La Calle San Sebastián, Inc. v. Soto

925 F.3d 528

COMITÉ FIESTAS DE LA CALLE SAN SEBASTIÁN, INC., Plaintiff, Appellant,

v.Carmen Yulín Cruz SOTO, in her official and personal capacities; Municipality of San Juan, Defendants, Appellees,Spanish Broadcasting System of Puerto Rico, Inc.; Alfredo Carrasquillo, Defendants.

No. 17-1723

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

May 29, 2019

Jane A. Becker Whitaker, with whom Law Offices of Jane Becker Whitaker was on brief, for appellant.

Héctor Benítez Arraiza and Patricia Rivera MacMurray, with whom Quiñones, Arobona & Candelario, PSC, Giselle M. Martínez-Velázquez, and Raul S. Mariani-Franco, San Juan, PR, were on brief, for appellees.

Before Howard, Chief Judge, Thompson and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.

KAYATTA, Circuit Judge.

The Comité Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián, Inc. ("the Comité") is a non-profit corporation that promotes and helps run the Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián festival in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This lawsuit arises from the Comité's unhappiness with its diminished assigned role as vendor and presenter at the 2015 Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián celebration. After discovery, the district court granted summary judgment for San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz and the municipality of San Juan on the Comité's trademark-infringement and First Amendment retaliation, political discrimination, and religious discrimination claims. We now affirm.

I.

We first survey the pertinent facts. The Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián is a four-day festival held in Old San Juan. The Comité takes part in organizing and running the festival in conjunction with the municipality of San Juan and likens its role to that of the New York Road Runners in planning and orchestrating the New York City Marathon. Specifically, it "promote[s] traditional Puerto Rican music and culture, particularly the celebration of Saint [Sebastián]" at the festival. The Comité purports to be the successor organization of an older group, the Vecinos de la Calle San Sebastián, which revitalized the festival.

In 2014, the Comité -- which considers itself an apolitical entity -- publicly criticized Mayor Cruz for deemphasizing the religious and traditional aspects of the celebration and for "turning historic Old San Juan into a big bar with contests to see who could drink the most." The Comité alleges that the municipality and Mayor Cruz, who is a member of the Popular Democratic Party, retaliated against the Comité in various ways in response to this criticism. Specifically, the Comité claims that the municipality awarded it a less advantageous vendor contract than in previous years; imposed upon the Comité onerous certification requirements that it did not enforce against two other vendors with connections to the Popular Democratic Party; and granted a coveted entertainment timeslot, during which the Comité had previously presented traditional Puerto Rican music, to a donor of the Popular Democratic Party.

The Comité brought First Amendment political discrimination, retaliation, and religious discrimination claims as well as counts for trademark infringement, alleging that the Comité owns the "Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián" mark. After discovery, the district court granted summary judgment for Cruz and the municipality on all counts. Comité Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián, Inc. v. Cruz, 207 F. Supp. 3d 129, 148 (D.P.R. 2016). The Comité then filed a Rule 59(e) motion for reconsideration. The Comité's accompanying memorandum reasserted its position that the record precluded summary judgment on the Comité's political discrimination, trademark, and libel claims. In support of its trademark-infringement claims, the Comité also brought new evidence from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) in the form of a preliminary authorization to publish the "Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián" mark. Comité Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián, Inc. v. Cruz, No. 14-1929 (FAB), 2017 WL 6888519, at *1 (D.P.R. May 19, 2017). The district court denied the motion, id. at *2, and this appeal followed.

II.

A.

We first address our jurisdiction to consider the Comité's timely appeal. Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(c)(1)(B) requires that a notice of appeal "designate the judgment, order, or part thereof being appealed." While "[c]ourts will liberally construe the requirements of Rule 3," its strictures "are jurisdictional in nature, and their satisfaction is a prerequisite to appellate review." Smith v. Barry, 502 U.S. 244, 248, 112 S.Ct. 678, 116 L.Ed.2d 678 (1992).

The Comité's notice of appeal references only the district court's denial of its Rule 59(e) motion for reconsideration. The Comité's opening brief on appeal, however, solely challenges portions of the underlying summary judgment order. The government defendants argue that this misalignment strips us of our ability to reach the merits of the district court's summary judgment order.

Our circuit's Rule 3(c)(1)(B) precedents certainly accommodate a robust application of waiver in circumstances such as this one. We have several times ruled that we do not have jurisdiction to review an underlying judgment when the notice of appeal designates only the district court's denial of a motion for reconsideration. See Zukowski v. St. Lukes Home Care Program, 326 F.3d 278, 282 (1st Cir. 2003) ; Mariani-Girón v. Acevedo-Ruiz, 945 F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1991) ; see also Wright & Miller, Fed. Practice & Procedure § 3949.4 (4th ed. 2018). However, our case law also has some looseness in its joints. We have recognized, for instance, that "courts have some latitude to consider other grounds originally urged against the underlying dismissal, especially where the issues on original dismissal and the reconsideration order overlap or are intertwined." Díaz Aviation Corp. v. Airport Aviation Servs., Inc., 716 F.3d 256, 262 (1st Cir. 2013) (quoting McKenna v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 693 F.3d 207, 213 (1st Cir. 2012) ); see generally Wright & Miller, supra, § 3949.4 ("[C]ourts have often been willing to rescue such appellants by inferring that they meant to appeal from the underlying judgment ....").

Accordingly, in Díaz Aviation, we considered the merits of a district court's underlying judgment when the notice of appeal only referenced the court's denial of a motion for reconsideration because the "motion for reconsideration largely rehashed the arguments ... made in opposition to the original judgment." 716 F.3d at 262. Under similar circumstances, in Town of Norwood v. New England Power Company, we addressed a challenge to the district court's motion-to-dismiss order because the appellant's motion for reconsideration "cover[ed] ... more or less the same points ... earlier made to the district court" on the motion to dismiss. 202 F.3d 408, 415 (1st Cir. 2000).

Here, as in Díaz Aviation and Town of Norwood, the Comité's Rule 59(e) motion (with the sole exception of the reference to new evidence on the trademark claim) raised "mere[ ] elaborations of claims already presented." Comité Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián, Inc., 2017 WL 6888519, at *1 n.2. Specifically, the Comité largely rehashed the same arguments as to its political discrimination and trademark claims that it raised in its opposition to summary judgment and that it now seeks to raise before us on appeal. And, as far as these claims are concerned, a challenge to the denial of its motion for reconsideration and a challenge to the entry of summary judgment for the government defendants turn on the same issue of law -- that is, whether a de novo review of the record supported the district court's conclusions that there is no genuine issue of material fact and the government defendants are entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See, e.g., Best Auto Repair Shop, Inc. v. Universal Insur. Grp., 875 F.3d 733, 737 (1st Cir. 2017) ("We ‘normally review a district court's decision to grant or deny a motion for reconsideration for abuse of discretion.’ But here, as ‘the parties' arguments [are] directed to the underlying substantive issue (the propriety vel non of summary judgment) rather than the procedural issue (the desirability vel non of reconsideration),’ we review de novo the summary judgment ruling." (citation omitted) (quoting Santiago v. Puerto Rico, 655 F.3d 61, 67 (1st Cir. 2011) )), cert. denied, ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 119, 202 L.Ed.2d 31 (2018).

Additionally -- and importantly -- deeming the notice of appeal sufficient to preserve for appellate review the overlapping issues of law raised by the summary judgment ruling and the Rule 59(e) ruling will cause no unfair prejudice to the appellees in this case or to the administration of the appeal. The appellees were timely apprised of the Comité's appeal. They point to no reliance of any type on the substance of the notice. And both parties have fully briefed the merits in ordinary course. As the Supreme Court has observed, "[i]t is too late in the day and entirely contrary to the spirit of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure" to favor dispositions based on "mere technicalities." Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 181, 83 S.Ct. 227, 9 L.Ed.2d 222 (1962) ; see also Chamorro v. Puerto Rican Cars, Inc., 304 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2002) ("[B]oth sides have fully briefed the merits, and undertaking appellate review of the original order of dismissal would not unfairly prejudice [appellee]."). Moreover, had the notice more wisely appealed the "final judgment," the defendants would have learned exactly which orders the Comité wished to challenge in its appeal no sooner than they did here. See Denault v. Ahern, 857 F.3d 76, 81–82 (1st Cir. 2017) (explaining that an appeal of the final judgment also appeals all interlocutory orders).

That the Comité's Rule 59(e) motion also included new argumentation as to its trademark claim should not strip us of our jurisdiction over these other, preserved arguments. In Biltcliffe v. CitiMortgage, Inc., we found that we lacked jurisdiction over a plaintiff's challenge to the...