Goines v. Lee Mem'l Health Sys.

DONIA GOINES, Plaintiff, v. LEE MEMORIAL HEALTH SYSTEMand JEOVANNI HECHAVARRIA, Defendants.

Case No: 2:17-cv-656-FtM-29NPM

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA FORT MYERS DIVISION

March 30, 2020

OPINION AND ORDER

This matter comes before the Court on plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment Related to the Criminal Conviction of Defendant, Jeovanni Hechavarria (Doc. #225) filed on March 5, 2020. Defendant Hechavarria filed a Response in Opposition (Doc. #227) on March 10, 2020, and defendant Lee Memorial Health System filed an Opposition (Doc. #228) on March 12, 2020. With the permission of the Court, plaintiff filed a Reply (Doc. #232) on March 17, 2020. The Court heard oral arguments on March 18, 2020.

For the reasons set forth below, the Court will grant plaintiff's oral motion made at the end of oral argument withdrawing the Motion for Summary Judgment Related to the Criminal Conviction of Defendant, Jeovanni Hechavarria (Doc. #225).

I.

The basic facts of this case have been described in detail in a prior Opinion and Order of this Court. (Doc. #150, pp. 2-8); Goines v. Lee Mem'l Health Sys., 2019 WL 497706 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 8, 2019). Briefly stated, plaintiff Donia Goines (plaintiff or Goines) filed suit against defendants Jeovanni Hechavarria (Hechavarria) and Lee Memorial Health System (Lee Memorial) alleging she was sexually assaulted by Hechavarria while she was a patient, and Hechavarria was a nurse, in a hospital operated by Lee Memorial. (Doc. #31.) In October 2019, the Court granted Hechavarria's motion to stay further civil proceedings pending resolution of criminal charges. (Doc. #204.) Hechavarria was convicted of Sexual Battery When Victim Helpless (Sexual Battery), in violation of Section 794.011(4)(a), Florida Statutes, after a jury trial in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit in and for Lee County, Florida. (Doc. #225-2; Doc. #225-3.) Following Hechavarria's conviction, the Court lifted the stay. (Doc. #211.) Hechavarria has now been sentenced to thirty years imprisonment, and his direct appeal is pending.

All parties agree that whether Hechavarria sexually battered plaintiff is an issue in each pending claim. In the current motion, plaintiff requests the Court to make a conclusive factual determination that Hechavarria sexually battered her, and to preclude both defendants from asserting otherwise in the upcomingcivil trial. Plaintiff argues that such a determination and relitigation bar are required by collateral estoppel principles after Hechavarria's criminal conviction. Alternatively, plaintiff requests the Court "take judicial notice of the criminal conviction of Defendant, Hechavarria, and enter a jury instruction/stipulation that Hechavarria is guilty of sexual battering/raping the Plaintiff." (Doc. #225, p. 7.)

II.

The motion essentially seeks a partial summary judgment, or the taking of judicial notice, that a Sexual Battery was committed by Hechavarria against plaintiff. Both avenues seek to preclude both defendants from denying that Hechavarria raped plaintiff in the Lee Memorial hospital and from re-litigating that issue. The Court has set forth the general summary judgment principles in a prior Opinion and Order (Doc. #150, pp. 9-10), which the Court adopts without repeating. As to the request for judicial notice,

The court may judicially notice a fact that is not subject to reasonable dispute because it: (1) is generally known within the trial court's territorial jurisdiction; or (2) can be accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.

Fed. R. Evid. 201(b). "Since the effect of taking judicial notice under Rule 201 is to preclude a party from introducing contrary evidence and in effect, directing a verdict against him as to the fact noticed, the fact must be one that only an unreasonable personwould insist on disputing." United States v. Jones, 29 F.3d 1549, 1553 (11th Cir. 1994).

III.

A. Judicial Notice

Plaintiff requests that the Court take judicial notice of the criminal conviction, instruct the jury that Hechavarria is guilty of Sexual Battery, and preclude either defendant from denying the existence of the Sexual Battery. (Doc. #225, p. 7.) This request must be denied.

If it were permissible for a court to take judicial notice of a fact merely because it has been found to be true in some other action, the doctrine of collateral estoppel would be superfluous. Moreover, to deprive a party of the right to go to the jury with his evidence where the fact was not indisputable would violate the constitutional guarantee of trial by jury.

. . .

Accordingly, a court may take notice of another court's order only for the limited purpose of recognizing the "judicial act" that the order represents or the subject matter of the litigation.

Jones, 29 F.3d at 1553 (citations omitted). The jury's verdict in the criminal case is not being offered to establish a "judicial act," but to establish the factual existence of the Sexual Battery. The Court declines to take judicial notice of the Sexual Battery by Hechavarria against plaintiff for this purpose.

B. Collateral Estoppel

The crux of the motion, and of the legal disputes among the parties, relate to the application of collateral estoppel. "Collateral estoppel, also known as estoppel by judgment, serves as a bar to relitigation of an issue which has already been determined by a valid judgment." Stogniew v. McQueen, 656 So. 2d 917, 919 (Fla. 1995).

(1) Florida or Federal Law?

The first issue is whether the Court should apply federal collateral estoppel principles or Florida collateral estoppel principles. Plaintiff's motion relies primarily on federal law (Doc. #225, pp. 4-10), while defendants assert Florida principles govern. (Doc. #227, p. 2; Doc. #228, p. 3.) If federal law is controlling, Hechavarria would be estopped from denying the Sexual Battery after having been convicted of it in state court. United States v. Jean-Baptiste, 395 F.3d 1190, 1194 (11th Cir. 2005); Matter of Raiford, 695 F.2d 521, 523-24 (11th Cir. 1983).

It is clear, however, that federal law does not control the collateral estoppel issues in this case. Brown v. City of Hialeah, 30 F.3d 1433, 1437 (11th Cir. 1994) ("Federal courts considering whether to give preclusive effect to state court judgments must apply the State's law of collateral estoppel under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution." (citation omitted)); Tillman v. Orange Cty., Fla., 519 Fed. App'x 632, 637(11th Cir. 2013) ("In considering whether to give preclusive effect to a Florida judgment, we apply Florida's law of collateral estoppel."). A federal court gives

preclusive effect to the judgment of a state court provided that two conditions are met:

(1) the courts of the state from which the judgment emerged would do so themselves; and

(2) the litigants had a full and fair opportunity to litigate their claims and the prior state proceedings otherwise satisfied the applicable requirements of due process.

Quinn v. Monroe Cty., 330 F.3d 1320, 1329 (11th Cir. 2003). There is no dispute that Hechavarria had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the existence of the Sexual Battery in the criminal proceedings, or that those state proceedings otherwise satisfied the applicable requirements of due process. The only issue is whether, and to what extent, Florida courts would give preclusive effect to the Sexual Battery conviction in a subsequent civil trial.

(2) Florida Collateral Estoppel Principles

"Under Florida law, collateral estoppel applies if (1) an identical issue, (2) has been fully litigated, (3) by the same parties or their privies, and (4) a final decision has been rendered by a court or component jurisdiction." Id. The requirement that the prior litigation involve "the same parties or their privies" is referred to as the mutuality of parties doctrine, Ball v. Roar III, LLC, 773 Fed. App'x 546, 549 (11th Cir. 2019),and is the only element of collateral estoppel in dispute in this case.

In contrast to federal law, the Florida Supreme Court has steadfastly and repeatedly declined to recede from the mutuality of parties requirement. Trucking Emps. of N. Jersey Welfare Fund, Inc. v. Romano, 450 So. 2d 843, 845 (Fla. 1984) ("However, the well established rule in Florida has been and continues to be that collateral estoppel may be asserted only when the identical issue has been litigated between the same parties or their privies."); Stogniew v. McQueen, 656 So. 2d 917, 919 (Fla. 1995) ("Florida has traditionally required that there be a mutuality of parties in order for the doctrine to apply. Thus, unless both parties are bound by the prior judgment, neither may use it in a subsequent action." (citations omitted)); Gentile v. Bauder, 718 So. 2d 781, 783 (Fla. 1998) ("Under Florida law, collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion, applies when 'the identical issue has been litigated between the same parties or their privies.'"); E.C. v. Katz, 731 So. 2d 1268, 1270 n.1 (Fla. 1999) ("This Court expressly parted with federal law on this issue . . . . We reaffirm our stated rationale for the departure from federal law . . . ."); Kumar v. Patel, 227 So. 3d 557, 560 (Fla. 2017) ("And, even where a criminal immunity determination is made prior to the filing of a civil suit, that determination cannot bind a potential civil plaintiff who is not a party to the criminal proceeding . . . .").

Plaintiff argues that she comes within the Florida general rule because privity existed with the parties in the criminal case. Hechavarria was obviously a party as the Defendant in the criminal trial. Plaintiff asserts that Lee Memorial was in privity to the State of Florida because it "has asserted that it is a sovereign hospital which is a branch of the State of Florida." (Doc. #225, p. 6.) Plaintiff also argues that she was in privity to the State of Florida in the criminal case because of her interest in the outcome of the case, i.e., her receiving...