Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca1-07-02463/USCOURTS-ca1-07-02463-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 791
Nature of Suit: Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

For the First Circuit

No. 07-2463

IVÁN NEGRÓN-FUENTES; MILDRED PÉREZ; the NEGRÓN-PÉREZ CONJUGAL

PARTNERSHIP; YESENIA VERÓNICA NEGRÓN-PÉREZ, minor; IVÁN GABRIEL

NEGRÓN-PÉREZ, minor,

Plaintiffs, Appellants,

v.

UPS SUPPLY CHAIN SOLUTIONS (f/k/a UPS LOGISTICS GROUP),

BROADSPIRE (f/k/a KEMPER NATIONAL SERVICES), UNITED PARCEL

SERVICES OF AMERICA, INC., UPS HEALTHCARE PLAN FOR PUERTO RICO,

PRUDENTIAL INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA,

Defendants, Appellees.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. José Antonio Fusté, U.S. District Judge]

Before

 Lynch, Chief Judge,

Boudin and Lipez, Circuit Judges.

William Santiago Sastre for appellants.

Pedro J. Manzano-Yates with whom María Isabel Rey-Cancio, Ada

Nurie Pagán-Isona and Fiddler González & Rodríguez, PSC were on

brief for appellees UPS Supply Chain Solutions, Broadspire, United

Parcel Services of America, Inc., and UPS Healthcare Plan for

Puerto Rico.

Javier G. Vázquez-Segarra with whom Luis F. Antonetti-Zequeira

and Goldman Antonetti & Córdova, P.S.C. were on brief for appellee

Prudential Insurance Company of America.

June 18, 2008

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At some point, Kemper National Services changed its name to 1

Broadspire, but for clarity we refer to Kemper throughout.

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BOUDIN, Circuit Judge. Ivan Negron-Fuentes worked in

Puerto Rico as a technical services manager for UPS Supply Chain

Solutions ("UPS-SCS"), a wholly owned subsidiary of United Parcel

Service of America. He had previously been employed (continuously

from 1991) by a series of different companies, each of which was

acquired or otherwise absorbed by the next, and ultimately became

a UPS employee in 2001. Negron participated in the UPS Health Care

Plan for Puerto Rico ("the Plan"), established by UPS of America.

In May 2002, Negron was diagnosed with a rare type of

brain tumor; on June 27 of that year, he was granted short-term

disability leave (and benefits) and stopped working. Medical

operations followed and were mostly successful, but Negron soon

began to suffer from severe depression--in part, he says, because

various comments by co-workers and observations made while visiting

the office led him to conclude that UPS-SCS did not want him back.

As the short-term leave period of one year began to reach

its close, Negron was invited by the Plan's third-party claims

administrator (Kemper National Services) to apply for long-term

disability benefits. Negron understood that he faced a choice: 1

seek reinstatement--which had to be done within the short-term

leave period, during which time UPS-SCS was reserving his position-

-or accept the long-term disability benefits and face termination.

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After being informed by Kemper on May 20, 2003, that he was

approved for long-term benefits, Negron chose to proceed with that

alternative. He returned his office keys and was terminated by

UPS-SCS on June 28, 2003, just after his year of short-term leave

expired and never having formally requested reinstatement.

But he never received the benefits. Instead, he was

informed by letter in August 2003 that an error had been made:

Negron had not "vested" in the Plan for purposes of receiving longterm disability benefits. Apparently, there had been some

confusion over whether Negron's pre-2001 tenure with the various

companies acquired by the UPS enterprise counted toward his vesting

requirements. Negron says he then contacted UPS-SCS, his former

employer, but was told it was too late to reclaim his old position.

In June 2004, Negron (along with his wife and children)

filed his first complaint against UPS-SCS, in Puerto Rico Superior

Court; relying on Puerto Rico law, he sought tort damages both for

unjust dismissal and for depression arising from the "error" by his

employer that "left him bereft of long term disability benefits and

without a job." UPS-SCS removed the case to federal court on the

grounds that the latter cause of action was "completely preempted"

by the enforcement provision of ERISA, 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a) (2000),

the federal law governing employee benefit plans, and therefore

stated a removable federal claim. 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b) (2000).

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Once in federal court, Negron amended his complaint in

significant ways. The amended complaint, filed in December 2004,

included four causes of action: a federal claim under the Americans

with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. § 12112 (2000), and three

claims under various Puerto Rico laws. All four alleged wrongful

termination--under the ADA because the motivating factor was

Negron's disability, and under Puerto Rico law because UPS-SCS

allegedly acted without just cause and did not reserve Negron's

position as required by statute. Although the complaint retained

the factual details regarding the long-term disability benefits and

their retraction, it did not seek to collect those benefits.

UPS-SCS filed for summary judgment. In December 2005,

the federal district court granted that motion in part, dismissing

Negron's ADA claim on the merits. The court found, after drawing

inferences in his favor, that Negron was not capable of performing

the essential functions of his job, even with reasonable

accommodation; without such capability, an ADA claim cannot

succeed. Jacques v. Clean-Up Group, Inc., 96 F.3d 506, 511 (1st

Cir. 1996). The supplemental claims under Puerto Rico law were

dismissed without prejudice. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c). We will

refer to this judgment as Negron I.

The litigation then followed a peculiar course. Although

the federal court had dismissed the Puerto Rico claims without

prejudice, Negron (perhaps concerned about statutes of limitations)

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did not re-file them in Puerto Rico Superior Court but instead

sought to "reopen" the original case filed in Puerto Rico Superior

Court and thereafter removed and dismissed by the federal court.

UPS-SCS opposed that maneuver but unsuccessfully; the Puerto Rico

trial and appellate courts allowed the case to be reopened.

Negron filed in August 2006 a new complaint in that

reopened action, stating seven causes of action: 

•the first sought damages for negligence under

article 1802 of the Puerto Rico Civil Code; 

•the second, third and fourth alleged wrongful

termination under three different Puerto Rico

statutes; 

•the fifth alleged wrongful termination in

violation of the Puerto Rico Constitution;

•the sixth argued that UPS-SCS should be

estopped, based on the representations Kemper

had made to Negron, from retracting his longterm disability benefits; and

•the seventh alleged that he was entitled to a

lump-sum payment of some kind from the Plan's

life insurance component.

Once again, the defendants removed the case to federal

district court, arguing that the latter two claims (and possibly

the first claim as well) were "completely preempted" by ERISA and

thus removable, even though the complaint purported to raise only

Puerto Rico law claims. Negron opposed removal and requested a

remand, but the federal court determined that the case had been

properly removed.

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Negron then filed yet another amended complaint in the

newly removed, and now federal, case; the only pertinent change was

an explicit invocation of federal law in claim six, the estoppelbased benefits claim. He also named four additional defendants:

UPS of America (his former employer's parent company, and the

sponsor of the Plan); the Plan itself; Kemper (the third-party

claims administrator for the medical component of the Plan); and

Prudential Life Insurance (the administrator of the Plan's life

insurance component).

Both sides filed motions for summary judgment.

Ultimately, the district court (in a judgment we will call Negron

II) disposed of the claims in the following manner:

•the three claims (two through four) alleging

wrongful termination under Puerto Rico

statutes were dismissed by application of

issue preclusion from the previous federal

judgment;

•the Puerto Rico constitutional claim and the

two benefits claims (claims five through

seven) were dismissed by applying claim

preclusion based on the previous federal

judgment; and

•the first claim, under article 1802 of the

Puerto Rico Civil Code, was dismissed without

prejudice after the court declined to exercise

supplemental jurisdiction.

Negron now appeals from the judgment in Negron II. He

argues first that the federal court never had subject matter

jurisdiction over the case because removal was improper; and second,

that the court was wrong to dismiss his claims based on res

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Res judicata is an umbrella term encompassing both issue 2

preclusion (traditionally known as collateral estoppel) and claim

preclusion (the traditional phrase is merger and bar). AVX Corp.

v. Cabot Corp., 424 F.3d 28, 30 (1st Cir. 2005).

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judicata. We consider his arguments in turn, seeking to untangle 2

an array of claims under different sets of federal and local laws.

Jurisdiction and Removal. The jurisdictional dispute

turns on whether any of the claims in Negron's August 2006 complaint

(his second go-around in Puerto Rico court) were properly removable

to federal court. But before we reach that question, we must

consider whether Negron has waived his right to contest removal.

Defendants say that when Negron last amended his

complaint--after the district court had satisfied itself that the

second removal was proper and denied the motion to remand--he

himself invoked federal jurisdiction and thereby cured any defect,

waiving his objection to being in federal court. Negron did, in

fact, amend his complaint to clarify that his estoppel claim rested

in part on federal law. But we think the waiver argument is

unpersuasive on these facts.

We did hold, in Brough v. United Steelworkers of America,

437 F.2d 748 (1st Cir. 1971), where a plaintiff added an additional

federal claim to his complaint after his remand motion was denied,

that one could not "invoke the jurisdiction of the federal court,

and then disclaim it when he loses." Id. at 750. That amendment

in effect remedied any jurisdictional flaw because it stated a new

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claim that "obviously" arose under federal law and thus provided a

distinct, uncontested basis for federal jurisdiction. Id.

But Negron did not add any distinct federal claims; he

amended his complaint only to conform to a determination (described

below) already reached by the district court--that claim 6 of his

complaint was actually a federal claim in disguise. The amendment

made no difference because when a purportedly state law claim is

"completely preempted" and therefore federal in substance, the case

can proceed on that theory without amendment. Fitzgerald v. Codex

Corp., 882 F.2d 586, 589 (1st Cir. 1989); accord Bartholet v.

Reishauer A.G., 953 F.2d 1073, 1078 (7th Cir. 1992).

The amendment had no effect (and conferred no benefit on

Negron), so we do not take it as a purposeful invocation of federal

jurisdiction as in Brough. Indeed, Negron may have feared that the

district court would dismiss the case if he did not make the

conforming amendment--as is the practice in some other circuits,

e.g., Stewart v. U.S. Bancorp, 297 F.3d 953, 959 (9th Cir. 2002).

And, if amendment were required, treating it as a waiver would force

the party to forego his objection or face dismissal and then a res

judicata bar if that objection failed on appeal.

The issue, then, is whether UPS-SCS was entitled to remove

the reopened case. The ordinary rule is that the plaintiff is

master of his complaint and that a case cannot be removed if the

complaint's allegations are premised only on local law. Hotz v.

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28 U.S.C. § 1441(b); Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Constr. 3

Laborers Vacation Trust for S. Cal., 463 U.S. 1, 9-10 (1983);

Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co. v. Mottley, 211 U.S. 149 (1908).

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Blue Cross, 292 F.3d 57, 59 (1st Cir. 2002). The well-pleaded

complaint rule holds that such a case does not arise under federal

law for purposes of federal question jurisdiction and so cannot be

removed even if the defendant's defense is rooted in federal law.3

But, as usual, there are qualifications.

Pertinently, certain state claims are subject to removal,

even if they purport to rest only on state law, because the subject

matter is powerfully preempted by federal law, which offers some

"substitute" cause of action. Metro. Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481

U.S. 58, 66-67 (1987); Avco Corp. v. Aero Lodge No. 735, 390 U.S.

557, 559-60 (1968). The articulation--theory is too kind a term--is

that these are federal claims in state law clothing and, to defeat

artful pleading, the district court can simply "recharacterize" them

to reveal their true basis. The phrase "complete preemption" is

sometimes used to describe this doctrine.

None of the claims in Negron's August 2006 complaint

mentioned any federal statute; all purported to be based on Puerto

Rico law. But UPS-SCS argued that some of the claims fell within

the scope of section 502(a)(1)(B) of ERISA, which creates a cause

of action for a participant in an employee benefit plan governed by

ERISA "to recover benefits due to him under the terms of his plan."

29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B). And the Supreme Court has held that this

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Defendants say that the claim seeks ERISA benefits from an 4

ERISA plan on behalf of an ERISA plan participant and, therefore,

duplicates section 502(a); Negron that the benefits are merely tort

damages due for the misrepresentations. Compare Felix v. Lucent

Techs., Inc., 387 F.3d 1146, 1162 (10th Cir. 2004), cert. denied,

545 U.S. 1149 (2005), with Law v. Ernst & Young, 956 F.2d 364, 370

n.9 (1st Cir. 1992).

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provision does displace related state law causes of action,

triggering complete preemption and allowing for removal. Metro.

Life, 481 U.S. at 66.

Removability thus turns on whether any of Negron's claims-

-the sixth or seventh, in particular--are in substance duplicated

or supplanted by the ERISA cause of action (in which case removal

based on complete preemption is proper) or instead whether all are

directed at violation of a "legal duty . . . independent of ERISA

or the plan terms," Aetna Health Inc. v. Davila, 542 U.S. 200, 210

(2004), thus defeating removal. Answering this question for

Negron's sixth claim, which demands that disability benefits be paid

because of "estoppel" principles, might not be straightforward. 

4

But any of Negron's claims, if completely preempted, can

support removal of the entire action: the rest can be removed as

provisionally within a federal court's supplemental jurisdiction.

28 U.S.C. §§ 1367(a), 1441(c). And his seventh claim, which

asserted entitlement to a lump-sum payment from the Plan, fell

squarely within the scope of ERISA's enforcement provision because

it directly sought "to recover benefits due to him under the terms

of his plan."

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Negron insists that the seventh claim does not raise

substantial questions of federal law, but that is not the test. Any

claim replicating section 502(a) is a federal claim for

jurisdictional purposes, whether substantial or not. Cf. Am. Well

Works Co. v. Layne & Bowler Co., 241 U.S. 257, 260 (1916). Nor does

it matter that state courts have concurrent jurisdiction over ERISA

claims; choice of forum where federal jurisdiction can attach to a

case filed in state court belongs to the defendant, who here elected

to remove. So removal here was proper and we turn to the district

court's disposition.

Issue Preclusion. The district court in its Negron II

judgment dismissed three of Negron's claims (claims 2, 3 and 4)--all

based on Puerto Rico employment statutes--by giving issue preclusive

effect to two findings of fact from Negron I: that Negron was unable

to perform the essential functions of his job, and that UPS-SCS

reserved his position for one year. Negron now mounts a series of

attacks on the application of issue preclusion to this case.

In general terms and with various exceptions, issue

preclusion renders conclusive the determinations reached in previous

law suits between the same (and, sometimes, different) parties. See

generally 18 Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice & Procedure:

Jurisdiction 2d § 4401 et seq. (2002). Federal common law governs

the application of issue preclusion here, because it is an earlier

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federal judgment's preclusive effect at stake. Hoult v. Hoult, 157

F.3d 29, 31 (1st Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 527 U.S. 1022 (1999).

Negron first argues that because his original Puerto Rico

case was reopened, the judgment in Negron I was not "prior" to the

current litigation and therefore lacks preclusive effect here. This

is wrong. Whatever the merits of Negron's position that his claims

in the instant case somehow relate back to his original complaint,

filing dates are irrelevant for purposes of issue preclusion. A

final judgment, as in Negron I, has preclusive effect on any pending

(or yet-unfiled) suits, regardless of the order of filing. 18

Wright, Miller & Cooper, supra, § 4404.

Negron does not make--and we would not accept--any

suggestion that because the Puerto Rico courts reopened his case

after removal and dismissal, the earlier federal judgment was not

"final" for preclusion purposes. A judgment is normally final if

it disposes of all claims against all parties, AVX Corp. v. Cabot

Corp., 424 F.3d 28, 31 (1st Cir. 2005), as Negron I did. Whether

or not the subsequent reopening was valid under Puerto Rico law, for

our purposes Negron I was a final judgment on the merits that could

govern in future litigation, including Negron II.

Next, Negron says that UPS-SCS should be barred by the

equitable doctrine of "unclean hands" from invoking issue preclusion

because (allegedly) the factual findings in Negron I were based on

false assertions by UPS-SCS. But this is just a collateral attack

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on Negron I--precisely what issue preclusion is designed to avoid.

Negron had a fair opportunity to litigate in the prior case, did not

appeal the adverse determination despite an opportunity to do so,

and no new information has since come to light.

Negron also invokes the decision of the district judge in

Negron I to dismiss without prejudice at least some of those same

claims. Dismissal without prejudice implies that litigation can

continue, Negron says, so how could the judge's own findings have

barred the claims? But the dismissal was merely a refusal to

exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the claims and implies

nothing about whether any defenses--including issue preclusion based

on what was adjudicated on other claims--might bar them if pursued

in further litigation.

Negron counters that issue preclusion cannot bar his

claims because there were still disputed issues of fact. But as the

district court explained, Negron I's factual findings entitled to

preclusive effect legally doomed these three claims, regardless of

whatever other, un-precluded facts might have been presented at

trial. Negron says that the findings do not "automatically" bar

other suits because "different entities and laws properly utilize

different criteria" to evaluate, e.g., inability to work. But he

fails to show or even argue that Puerto Rico uses different criteria

here in any way that undermines the district court's analysis.

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Claim Preclusion. The district court also dismissed three

of Negron's claims--claim five, under the Puerto Rico Constitution,

and claims six and seven, the arguable "ERISA claims"--under the

claim preclusion branch of res judicata. Claim preclusion

traditionally aimed to prevent plaintiffs from "splitting" causes

of action, but now also operates as a kind of common-law compulsory

joinder requirement, promoting judicial economy through the

consolidation of related claims. AVX Corp., 424 F.3d at 31. The

district court held that Negron should have brought these three

claims in his first suit, Negron I, and, by failing to do so

forfeited them.

One of Negron's objections to these dismissals has force,

but first we clear away some underbrush. Negron says that UPS-SCS

waived its claim preclusion arguments by not raising them in the

litigation in Puerto Rico courts over his "reopening" of his

original Superior Court suit; that the Puerto Rico courts actually

rejected the claim preclusion arguments, a decision itself entitled

to issue-preclusive effect; and that raising the claim preclusion

arguments in federal court violates the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. 

We disagree. The Superior Court litigation over whether

Negron could reopen the removed and dismissed case did not turn on

conventional res judicata principles at all, but rather on whether

the federal dismissal without prejudice allowed for the Puerto Rico

court to re-acquire jurisdiction over the removed case or whether

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Negron makes much of a single reference to res judicata in a 5

UPS-SCS motion for an extension of time to file a response to

Negron's motion to reopen the case. But the reference was not on

point, and neither UPS-SCS nor the court pursued it.

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Negron was instead required to start afresh with a new action. At 5

that stage of the proceedings, there was no reason (or basis) for

UPS-SCS to assert its claim preclusion defenses; its failure to do

so was therefore not a waiver. And before anything more happened,

the case was removed.

The same history confirms that the Puerto Rico court's

judgment allowing reopening did not reject the claim preclusion

argument now made by UPS-SCS which, as Negron himself admits, was

never raised by UPS-SCS in the Puerto Rico court. For the same

reason, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, which prevents litigants from

asking "the District Court to overturn an injurious state-court

judgment," Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S.

280, 292 (2005), is not remotely implicated.

On the "merits" of the district court ruling, Negron

focuses on the two ERISA claims. In the district court, he argued

that the Puerto Rico constitutional claim should not fall victim to

claim preclusion because the court in Negron I would have dismissed

it without prejudice anyway, as it did the other claims based on

Puerto Rico law. That argument is not without some support, see

Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 25, cmt. e, ill. 10 (1982);

Sattler v. Bailey, 400 S.E.2d 220, 226-27 (W. Va. 1990); but see

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The circuits have divided in applying this fact-intensive 6

test to similar cases. Compare King v. Union Oil Co. of Cal., 117

F.3d 443, 447 (10th Cir. 1997) (benefits claim and wrongful

termination claim sufficiently related), with Herrmann v. Cencom

Cable Assocs., Inc., 999 F.2d 223, 227 (7th Cir. 1993)

(insufficient overlap between such claims to justify preclusion).

In a supplemental brief, defendants object that Negron waived 7

this point by failing to raise it on appeal, but Negron's brief

does argue that he "did not have a full and fair opportunity to

litigate" the ERISA claims, in part because Kemper, the Plan,

Prudential and UPS of America "are indispensable parties" and had

not been joined. 

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Federated Dep't Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U.S. 394, 404 (1981)

(Blackmun, J., concurring), but we do not consider it or decide the

issue because Negron has not pressed it on appeal.

However, applying claim preclusion to bar the two ERISA

claims (one only arguably so but we will return to this later) is

contested by Negron and here we think the district court erred.

This is so even assuming dubitante--because Negron does not dispute

the assumption--that the ERISA claims are sufficiently factually

connected to the ADA claim from Negron I to satisfy the

"relatedness" predicate for compulsory joinder (i.e., that all arose

from the same "transaction, or series of connected transactions,"

Restatement (Second) of Judgments, supra, § 24).6

The problem begins with the fact that Negron's original

suit was against only his employer, not the Plan or UPS of America

or Kemper or Prudential. While it is unclear here which (one or 7

more) of these latter parties is the proper defendant in an ERISA

suit--usually either the plan or the party who controls its

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administration can be sued, Terry v. Bayer Corp., 145 F.3d 28, 35-36

(1st Cir. 1998)--UPS-SCS is indisputably not a plan administrator,

sponsor or fiduciary. And an employer who is not an administrator

is not otherwise a proper defendant in an ERISA benefits action.

Beegan v. Assoc. Press, 43 F. Supp. 2d 70, 73 (D. Me. 1999).

Negron did not pursue his ERISA claims in his original

action against UPS-SCS and could not properly have included them in

his complaint against UPS-SCS. It would markedly extend claim

preclusion to hold nevertheless that the resolution of Negron's ADA

claim against UPS-SCS precluded his later assertion of ERISA claims

against legitimate defendants not sued in the original action. Cf.

Adams v. IBM Personal Pension Plan, 533 F. Supp. 2d 342, 344

(S.D.N.Y. 2008) (claim preclusion applied in new action where ERISA

claim was previously asserted against improper party who

successfully defended on the merits).

Admittedly, claim preclusion can sometimes operate in

favor of a party--e.g., one in privity with or closely related to

a defendant from the original action--who was not named in the

previous law suit. See In re El San Juan Hotel Corp., 841 F.2d 6,

10 (1st Cir. 1988). For example: where some alleged conspirators

are sued in the first (unsuccessful) action and the remainder in a

second suit based on the same allegations, Gambocz v. Yelencsics,

468 F.2d 837, 841-42 (3d Cir. 1972), or when a government is sued

first (unsuccessfully) and officers in their personal capacities

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sued afterwards on the same theory, Mandarino v. Pollard, 718 F.2d

845, 850 (7th Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 830 (1984). But,

again, this has usually occurred where the claims were or could have

been brought against the original defendant in the original suit.

Neither condition is satisfied here.

The judicial expansion of claim preclusion doctrine,

especially along its party dimension, is still a work in progress.

See 18A Wright, Miller & Cooper, supra, § 4464.1. Yet it has not

gone unchecked. E.g., Taylor v. Sturgell, No. 07-371, slip op.

(U.S. June 12, 2008). And compulsory claim or party joinder rules,

created by courts outside the framework of the Federal Rules of

Civil Procedure, have dangers as well as advantages. It is enough

to say here that the ERISA claims were not brought and could not

properly have been brought against the only defendant in Negron I.

Exactly who among the defendants is the proper defendant

(or defendants) for any ERISA claim is for the district court to

work out on remand, along with the merits. But we affirm the

dismissal of the ERISA claims against UPS-SCS because (as explained)

it is not the proper defendant and we can affirm on any ground

manifest in the record. Plymouth Sav. Bank v. IRS, 187 F.3d 203,

209 (1st Cir. 1999).

In this discussion of res judicata we have referred to

claims 6 and 7 as the "ERISA claims" even though we above declined

to decide whether claim 6 was necessarily a "completely preempted"

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claim under ERISA. See note 4, above. To the extent that claim 6

is simply a state law claim, the district court did not err by

dismissing it as precluded. So we are concerned with it only to the

extent that it states an ERISA claim and that is how we (and the

district court on remand) should treat it.

To spell this out, the district court must decide whether

a claim of the kind described in count 6--namely, for benefits

mistakenly promised by a plan's claims administrator--can

successfully be made out under ERISA on these facts. See Livick v.

Gillette Co., 524 F.3d 24, 31 (1st Cir. 2008); Green v. Exxonmobil

Corp., 470 F.3d 415, 420 (1st Cir. 2006). If so, such a claim is

properly preserved and now before the district court on remand.

The dismissals of claims two, three and four are affirmed;

the dismissals of claims six and seven are vacated except as against

UPS-SCS; the dismissal of claim one is also vacated (because now

that two federal claims are being remanded the district court may

wish to reconsider its decision as to supplemental jurisdiction);

and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with

this decision. Each side shall bear its own costs on appeal. 

It is so ordered.

Case: 07-2463 Document: 001171083 Page: 19 Date Filed: 06/18/2008 Entry ID: 5254551