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Nature of Suit Code: 445
Nature of Suit: Americans with Disabilities Act - Employment
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

Nos.14-1954 

 14-1971 

FAUSTINO GONZÁLEZ-OYARZUN, 

Plaintiff, Appellee, 

v. 

CARIBBEAN CITY BUILDERS, INC.; ME SALVE, INC.; 

GIB DEVELOPMENT LLC, 

Defendants, Appellees, 

COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO; 

OFFICE OF THE COURTS ADMINISTRATION 

Interested Parties, Appellants. 

APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO 

[Hon. Gustavo A. Gelpí, Jr., U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Howard, Chief Judge, 

Kayatta and Barron, Circuit Judges. 

 Juan A. Marqués-Díaz and Isabel Torres-Sastre on brief for 

appellant, Office of the Courts Administration. 

 Margarita Mercado-Echegaray, Solicitor General, Andrés 

González-Berdecía, Assistant Solicitor General, and Office of the 

Solicitor General, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico on brief for 

appellant, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. 

 Enrique J. Mendoza Méndez and Mendoza Law Offices on brief 

for appellee, Faustino González-Oyarzun. 

Case: 14-1971 Document: 00116876691 Page: 1 Date Filed: 08/17/2015 Entry ID: 5930558
 Sergio E. Criado, Correa Acevedo & Abesada Law Offices, Carlos 

R. Paula, Jaime E. Picó-Rodríguez and Labor Counsels, LLC on brief 

for appellees, Caribbean City Builders, Inc., Me Salve, Inc., and 

GIB Development, LLC. 

August 17, 2015 

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PER CURIAM. The district court dismissed this 

employment dispute on the basis of a valid forum selection clause. 

It simultaneously issued a declaratory judgment stating that the 

Seventh Amendment requires Puerto Rico to provide civil litigants 

with a jury trial. This latter action was in contravention of 

binding Supreme Court precedent. Accordingly, we vacate the 

declaratory judgment. 

I. 

Plaintiff-Appellee Faustino González-Oyarzun brought 

suit against his employers in the District of Puerto Rico, alleging 

violations of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. 

§ 621, and various Puerto Rico statutes.1 The employers timely 

moved to dismiss the complaint; they highlighted GonzálezOyarzun's separation agreement which included a forum selection 

clause providing exclusive jurisdiction in the Court of First 

Instance, San Juan Division. González-Oyarzun attempted to avoid 

dismissal by arguing that since the Commonwealth does not provide 

jury trials in civil cases, and since he did not affirmatively 

waive his Seventh Amendment right, the forum selection clause was 

invalid. 

 1 The employer-defendants are: Caribbean City Buildings, 

Inc., Me Salve, Inc., and GIB Development, LLC. The briefs suggest 

a dispute as to whether all of the corporate defendants can be 

considered González-Oyarzun's employer. As that issue has no 

bearing on this appeal, we need not resolve it. 

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Drawn to González-Oyarzun's argument, the district court 

requested supplemental briefing on whether the Seventh Amendment's 

jury guarantee applied to the Commonwealth. It simultaneously 

ordered the plaintiff to serve a copy of the complaint and the 

court's order, on both the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and Puerto 

Rico's Office of Courts Administration.2

 Ultimately, the district court concluded that the forum 

selection clause was valid and thus dismissed the case. Its order, 

however, went further. The court ruled that the Fourteenth 

Amendment's Due Process Clause incorporated the Seventh 

Amendment's jury trial right. Thus, in addition to dismissing the 

case without prejudice to allow the plaintiff to re-file in the 

proper venue, it entered a declaratory judgment stating "that the 

Commonwealth of Puerto Rico must afford civil litigants the Seventh 

Amendment right to a jury trial."3

 2 Both the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Office of the 

Courts Administration contend that the district court lacked 

personal jurisdiction over them because the plaintiff never served 

either of them with process as required under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4. 

However, neither affirmatively argued the service issue until 

after the district court rendered its decision. Admittedly, this 

delay may have resulted from the confusing manner in which the 

district court brought the appellants into the case (i.e., they 

appear to have been brought in more as amici than as parties 

involved in the case). In any event, the appellants' failure to 

timely argue why service was improper limits our ability to 

consider that argument now. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b). 

3 The Appellants raise a Tenth and Eleventh amendment 

challenge to the declaratory judgment. The Tenth Amendment 

argument goes nowhere since, had the district court's decision 

been correct, it would have been doing nothing more than declaring 

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 The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Office of the 

Courts Administration timely appealed; they vigorously challenge 

the declaratory judgment. Notably, González-Oyarzun did not 

cross-appeal the district court's conclusion respecting the 

validity of the forum selection clause, nor did he otherwise appeal 

the entry of dismissal. 

II. 

 We review a district court's decision to grant 

declaratory relief "under a standard slightly more rigorous than 

abuse of discretion." Diaz-Fonseca v. Puerto Rico, 451 F.3d 13, 

39 (1st Cir. 2006). While we are inclined to "cede some deference 

to the trier, especially as to findings of fact . . . we will not 

hesitate to act upon our independent judgment if it appears that 

a mistake has been made." Id. 

 In the context of constitutional questions, our review 

of a declaratory judgment is even more searching. We have noted 

 

that a federal constitutional right is enforceable against the 

states. See, e.g., Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968). 

 Meanwhile, the Eleventh Amendment issue is filled with 

wrinkles (including questions about whether the government 

entities were technically joined as defendants in the suit such 

that the Eleventh Amendment would be implicated; whether it was 

proper for the court to add the government entities rather than 

government officials; and whether the declaratory relief was 

proper). Our circuit law permits us to bypass an Eleventh 

Amendment question where the case presents an easily resolved 

merits issue, and we choose to do so here. See Parella v. Ret. 

Bd. of R.I. Employees' Ret. Sys., 173 F.3d 46, 53-57 (1st Cir. 

1999). 

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that "declaratory judgments concerning the constitutionality of 

government conduct will almost always be inappropriate when the . 

. . underlying grievance can be remedied for the time being without 

gratuitous exploration of . . . constitutional terrain." El Dia, 

Inc. v. Hernandez Colon, 963 F.2d 488, 494 (1st Cir. 1992). 

Indeed, we have warned that "courts should withhold declaratory 

relief as a matter of discretion if such redress is unlikely to 

palliate, or [is] not needed to palliate, the fancied injury." 

Id.; cf. Pub. Affairs Assocs., Inc. v. Rickover, 369 U.S. 111, 112 

(1962); Ernst & Young v. Depositors Econ. Prot. Corp., 45 F.3d 

530, 535 (1st Cir. 1995). 

 In this case, it is at least arguable that the district 

court abused its discretion when it issued a declaratory judgment 

on a constitutional issue not directly before it (one, we further 

note, that neither party requested).4 In any event, we vacate the 

judgment for a different reason: it conflicts with binding Supreme 

Court precedent. The Supreme Court has consistently held that 

states are not constitutionally required to provide a jury trial 

 4 The plain language of the Declaratory Judgment Act suggests 

that a district court can only enter a declaratory judgment when 

a party explicitly requests one. See 28 U.S.C. § 2201 (permitting 

a declaratory judgment where an "interested party seek[s] such [a] 

declaration" and "upon the filing of an appropriate pleading"). 

We have found no case law addressing that issue nor have the 

parties briefed it. In light of our disposition, we save the 

question for another day. 

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in civil cases. See City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at 

Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687, 719 (1999); Gasperini v. Ctr. for 

Humanities, Inc., 518 U.S. 415, 432 (1996); Wagner Elec. Mfg. Co. 

v. Lyndon, 262 U.S. 226, 232 (1923); Chicago, R.I. & P.R. Co. v. 

Cole, 251 U.S. 54, 56 (1919); N.Y. Cent. R.R. Co. v. White, 243 

U.S. 188, 208 (1917); Minneapolis & St. Louis R.R. Co. v. Bombolis, 

241 U.S. 211, 217 (1916); cf. Pearson v. Yewdall, 95 U.S. 294, 296 

(1877); Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U.S. 90, 92-93 (1875). Nor, despite 

the district court's insinuation otherwise, did the Supreme Court 

expressly overrule that precedent in McDonald v. City of Chicago, 

561 U.S. 742 (2010). See Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. 

Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484 (1989) ("If a precedent of this 

Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on 

reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of 

Appeals should follow the case which directly controls.") Indeed, 

neither time the McDonald court referenced the Seventh Amendment 

did it purport to overrule any prior case. 

The Court first considered the Seventh Amendment issue 

in McDonald by benignly stating: "[o]nly a handful of the Bill of 

Rights protections remain unincorporated." McDonald, 561 U.S. at 

765. Admittedly, the footnote attached to that statement remarked 

"[o]ur governing decisions regarding . . . the Seventh Amendment's 

civil jury requirement long predate the era of selective 

incorporation." Id. at 765 n.13. However, such a purely factual 

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statement does not compel the conclusion that the precedent is 

somehow overruled. 

 The Court's second reference to the Seventh Amendment is 

perhaps more telling. In discussing its trend towards a "total 

incorporation" theory, it noted that a fundamental right will be 

fully binding on the states "unless stare decisis counsels 

otherwise." Id. at 784. The Court inserted a footnote at the end 

of that statement, wherein it explicitly referenced the grand jury 

clause of the Fifth Amendment and the civil jury requirement of 

the Seventh Amendment. Id. at 784 n.30. Although the Court 

acknowledged a trend of expanding the scope of incorporated rights, 

it also clarified -- by referencing the principle of stare decisis 

-- that its Seventh Amendment incorporation cases are still 

binding. 

As such, the district court erred in suggesting that 

McDonald overruled the prior Seventh Amendment decisions. And, 

given those previous cases, the district court's declaratory 

judgment was manifestly improper. 

III. 

We therefore vacate the portion of the district court's 

judgment declaring that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico must afford 

civil litigants a jury trial, and we remand solely for the district 

court to enter an amended judgment consistent with this opinion. 

Each party shall bear its own costs of appeal. 

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