In this case, plaintiff Rivera sued insurance brokers including ATLASS Insurance Group of Florida, Inc., alleging they breached duties as brokers and a contract to procure adequate marine insurance for his vessel, which sank in Puerto Rico waters after policy changes went undisclosed. ATLASS moved to dismiss the claims against it for lack of personal jurisdiction in the Puerto Rico federal court. The court granted the motion, finding that ATLASS, a Florida company with its principal place of business there, had no employees, property, offices, tax payments, or authorization to do business in Puerto Rico, and its limited role as an intermediary forwarding requests from a local broker to foreign insurers did not constitute continuous or systematic contacts sufficient for general jurisdiction. The court determined that the plaintiff's allegations and evidence failed to establish the required territorial connections under Puerto Rico's long-arm statute or constitutional due process standards, leading to dismissal without additional discovery.
This case involves the final disposition of unclaimed settlement funds from the San Juan Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire Litigation, a mass tort action stemming from a 1987 hotel fire. After twenty years and multiple attempts to locate missing plaintiffs or their heirs, the court addressed the remaining undistributed funds. The court decided to distribute these funds using the cy pres doctrine to the Animal Legal Defense Fund, a charitable organization focused on animal protection and related legal efforts. The core reasoning is that locating all entitled parties is practically impossible without excessive costs, and courts have broad equitable powers to apply unclaimed funds to the next best public interest uses rather than letting them escheat to the government.
In this employment discrimination case, plaintiff Moridia Camacho Acosta sued her employer Harbor Holdings & Operations, Inc., San Juan Bay Pilots, and several individual defendants, alleging sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related Puerto Rico statutes, along with claims for unjust termination under Law 80, breach of contract, and tort liability under the Puerto Rico Civil Code. Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing there were no genuine issues of material fact. Applying the summary judgment standard under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56, which requires viewing facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and finding no triable issues, the court dismissed all claims against the individual defendants and San Juan Bay Pilots, as well as the sexual harassment, retaliation, unjust termination, breach of contract, and most tort claims. The court left pending only the gender-based pay disparity claim and certain local-law claims not otherwise dismissed.
This case involves three workers who sued Cornell University, its National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, and Spensieri Painting under Puerto Rico tort law for injuries from a 2007 work accident at the Arecibo Observatory. Cornell moved to dismiss under Rules 12(b)(1) and (b)(6), arguing that the Defense Base Act provided the exclusive remedy and granted it immunity because it had secured workers' compensation benefits. Plaintiffs and Spensieri opposed, contending the DBA did not apply because the work was not public work and that factual issues required discovery or further proceedings. The court denied the motion to dismiss, stayed the proceedings on the DBA immunity question, and directed the parties to file a joint status report by December 15, 2009, regarding ongoing DOL and New York proceedings on DBA coverage.
The case concerns a former Puerto Rico police employee who sued the Commonwealth, the Police Department, and two individual officials, alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act for retaliation, constitutional due process and equal protection breaches under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and related Puerto Rico anti-discrimination and tort statutes. The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing there were no genuine issues of material fact. The court granted the motion in part after reviewing the record and applying the Rule 56 standard, dismissing claims including due process and equal protection while allowing certain Title VII retaliation claims based on disciplinary letters and termination, a First Amendment retaliation claim against one individual defendant, and supplemental local-law claims against the individuals to proceed to trial.
In Colon v. Mills, the plaintiff alleged that her two-day suspension and termination from employment resulted from sex discrimination, retaliation, and retaliatory harassment in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The defendant moved for summary judgment, contending there were no genuine issues of material fact. The court granted the motion, applying the Rule 56 standard and finding that the plaintiff failed to present definite, competent, and admissible evidence of discriminatory or retaliatory motive, as her complaints did not constitute protected conduct under Title VII and other claims lacked supporting facts.
