United States Court of Appeals

For the First Circuit

No. 21-1702

MEDTRONIC MEDICAL CR SRL,

Plaintiff, Appellant,

v.

ELIESER FELICIANO-SOTO; INNOVATIVE ENGINEERING CORP.; INNOVATIVE 

ENGINEERING, LLC; JOSÉ ENRIQUE SANTANA-CRIADO,

Defendants, Appellees.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. Daniel R. Domínguez, U.S. District Judge] 

Before

Kayatta, Thompson, and Gelpí,

Circuit Judges.

Yaakov M. Roth, with whom Ana Maria Cristina Pérez Soto, Marco 

P. Basile, and Jones Day were on brief, for appellant.

Raúl S. Mariani Franco, with whom Mariani Franco Law, PSC was 

on brief, for appellee Elieser Feliciano-Soto.

Luis G. Rullán-Marín, with whom Law Offices of Luis G. Rullán, 

PSC was on brief, for appellees Innovative Engineering Corp., 

Innovative Engineering, LLC, and José Enrique Santana-Criado.
January 18, 2023
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THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. This appeal asks us to weigh 

in on the propriety of the district court's dismissal of the 

complaint filed below by Appellant, Medtronic Medical CR SRL 

("Medtronic"). We write primarily for the parties, assuming their

familiarity with the facts underlying Medtronic's complaint, the 

district court's reasoning in dismissing it based on the doctrine 

of forum non conveniens, the various appellate issues presented, 

and the assorted arguments made before us. We'll lay out only the 

information and context necessary to explain our reasoning and the 

next steps dictated by that reasoning. As we will explain, we 

remand this matter to the district court for further review

consistent with this opinion.

Medtronic, a Costa Rica limited liability company, filed 

its suit under the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt 

Organizations Act ("RICO"). The case arises from what Medtronic 

says were fraudulent schemes orchestrated by Puerto Rico residents 

Elieser Feliciano-Soto ("Feliciano") and José Enrique SantanaCriado ("Santana," and, collectively, "Appellees").1 Appellees 

successfully moved to dismiss based on the doctrine of forum non 

1 There are other individuals named in the complaint, but our 

disposition of this appeal presently eliminates any need to 

consider the significance, if any, of that fact. In addition, the 

Santana-and-Feliciano-operated Innovative Engineering Corp. and 

Innovative Engineering, LLC, alleged to be part of the enterprise 

that stole from and defrauded Medtronic, are named defendants and 

also appellees before us.
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conveniens, urging that Costa Rica was an adequate alternative 

forum and the private and public interest factors to be considered 

weighed in favor of dismissal. Based on the facts as they stood 

at the time the motions to dismiss were before it, the district 

court concluded, inter alia: Costa Rica was an adequate 

alternative forum, Medtronic Med. CR SRL v. Soto, No. 20-1165,

2021 WL 4192105, at *11 (D.P.R. July 27, 2021); the private 

interest factors weighed in favor of Costa Rica as the forum since 

"all employees of Medtronic-CR -- except for [Feliciano and 

Santana] -- . . . appear to be Costa Rican nationals," id., the 

majority of events allegedly transpired in Costa Rica, id., and 

the district court would lack the ability to compel Costa Rican 

witnesses to appear for testimony, id. at *12-13; and the public 

interest factors likewise overall favored trial in Costa Rica, 

which "holds a more substantial interest in [Medtronic's] claims," 

id. at *14.

Medtronic timely appealed, persuasively arguing that the 

district court committed error in a handful of reversal-worthy 

ways. For example, as an overarching matter, Medtronic asseverates 

that the district court consistently misconstrued the burden that 

Appellees -- not Medtronic -- needed to carry. Medtronic urges 

that the district court never made the threshold finding that all 

defendants would be amenable to service in Costa Rica, instead 

concluding that only one had so represented, and that was a factor 
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that was "weight[ed]" in its analysis. Id. at *10. And, says 

Medtronic, the district court not only applied the wrong legal 

standard in assessing dismissal, but also misbalanced the private 

and public interest factors. Appellees, of course, disagree with 

all of this.

In the normal course, our appellate task would be to

assay the district court's reasoning and examine the parties' 

arguments against and in favor of that reasoning, seeing how all 

of it maps onto our precedent. But an important and potentially 

game-changing event transpired in the wake of the district court's 

dismissal: A grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico handed 

down a June 30, 2022 federal indictment of Feliciano and Santana 

on charges that arise from the same acts and events Medtronic's 

complaint alleges comprise the basis for its civil RICO claim.2 

2 Appellees protest Medtronic's mention of the indictment in 

its July 8, 2022 Fed. R. App. P. 28(j) submission. They urge that 

Medtronic "abuse[d]" the Rule 28 process by impermissibly adding 

the indictment to the appellate record since it is not a 

"submission of 'pertinent and significant authorities.'" Instead, 

it reflects only a grand jury's opinion and should thus be stricken 

from the appellate record. 

Irrespective of whether Rule 28 permits a party to inform us 

of pertinent factual events, we may take judicial notice of this 

critical development because "[i]t is well-accepted that federal 

courts may take judicial notice of proceedings in other courts if 

those proceedings have relevance to the matters at hand." Kowalski

v. Gagne, 914 F.2d 299, 305 (1st Cir. 1990); see also Maher v.

Hyde, 272 F.3d 83, 86 n.3 (1st Cir. 2001) (same); United States v.

Gordon, 634 F.2d 639, 642 (1st Cir. 1980) (observing that a 

district court could take judicial notice of a grand jury's federal 

indictment -- even one in another district).

Relatedly, we may also take judicial notice of the fact that 
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Specifically, the sealed indictment reflects that Feliciano and 

Santana have been indicted for violating federal criminal laws 

prohibiting conspiracy to commit wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1349) and 

money laundering conspiracies (18 U.S.C. § 1956(h)).

As a simple function of the timeline here, when the 

district court fielded the motions to dismiss and conducted its 

forum non conveniens analysis, the indictment didn't yet exist. 

We have no way of knowing how this intervening factual development, 

which necessarily shifts the landscape of this case in fundamental 

ways, would have impacted the district court's decision. 

Foundationally, it's possible the district court would have 

approached the motions to dismiss quite differently. Whether the 

District of Puerto Rico is in a better position to keep watch over 

all proceedings, both civil and criminal, is in the mix. Perhaps 

the district court would have stayed the civil case, alert to the 

effect of the criminal case on the civil (and/or vice versa).3 

the criminal case docket reflects that both Feliciano and Santana 

have since been arrested and released on bail (with "standard 

conditions of release"), and their travel is restricted (Santana 

is permitted to travel only "between Puerto Rico and Florida in 

coordination with the U.S. Probation Office," and Feliciano, 

having surrendered his passport, is unable to leave Puerto Rico 

without getting permission from the district court). 

We do not take notice of any of this, as Appellees worry, 

with an eye towards prejudging Appellees' civil or criminal 

culpability. We consider this information only inasmuch as it has 

bearing on what happens next, as we'll explain.

3 We pause to observe that should Appellees be found culpable 

in the criminal action, that might have bearing on the civil 

action; so too might a civil recovery factor into a criminal 
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And, as things now stand, Puerto Rico is the forum for the criminal 

case against Appellees, who at this time are not permitted to 

journey beyond Puerto Rico (or, in Santana's case, Florida). 

Relative to all of this, we similarly cannot know how the shift in 

factual circumstances might have influenced specific arguments 

advanced by Medtronic or Appellees, whether before us or the 

district court.

The point is that the indictment changes things.4 It's 

unclear to what extent and in what ways the district court's 

analysis would have been affected, but this much is clear: At 

this juncture, these intervening and developing circumstances have 

prompted us to pause and consider the most efficient, prudential 

path forward. Having done so, we decline to weigh in on the 

district court's analysis at this time. 

Our case law teaches that a forum non conveniens

examination -- probing whether "the chosen forum (despite the 

restitution proceeding. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3663, 3663A, 

3664(j)(2)(A), 3664(l), 3664(m), 3771(6).

4 It's worth noting the appeal of the civil case's dismissal 

is impacting the criminal case to some extent, too -- notations in 

the criminal case's docket reflect that the government and the 

defendants are grappling with issues that are somewhat bound up in 

the fate of the civil action. See United States v. FelicianoSoto, et al., No. 3:22-cr-00291, ECF Nos. 28, 30 (indicating that 

the government awaits the defendants' responses to the plea offers

extended and how the defendants would like to proceed, with defense 

counsel noting possible jurisdictional issues because of the civil 

case's appeal, confirming receipt of the plea offers, and 

indicating that the pending appeal means the defense "has to wait 

to see what happens in the civil case as it may affect this case"). 
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presence of jurisdiction and venue) is so inconvenient that it 

would be unfair to conduct the litigation in that place," Curtis

v. Galakatos, 19 F.4th 41, 46 (1st Cir. 2021) (quoting Nandjou v.

Marriott Int'l, Inc., 985 F.3d 135, 140 (1st Cir. 2021)) -- is a 

"multifaceted and fact-laden" undertaking, id. at 49. Movants 

face a very heavy burden in this regard. Id. at 47. And assessing 

whether there's an adequate alternative forum (meaning, inter 

alia, all parties would come within its jurisdiction), id. at 47-

48, balancing all of the private and public interest factors (a 

non-exhaustive list), determining whether the factors "strongly 

favor litigating the claim in the second forum," id. (emphasis in 

original) (quoting Nandjou, 985 F.3d at 142), and considering 

"[t]he 'ultimate inquiry'" of "where trial will best serve the 

convenience of the parties and the ends of justice," id. at 48-49 

(quoting Imamura v. Gen. Elec. Co., 957 F.3d 98, 107 (1st Cir. 

2020)), all require significant scrutiny of the facts.

Given the potentially sweeping impact of the indictment 

and ongoing criminal case, the district court should be afforded

the opportunity to conduct anew the "fact-laden" forum non 

conveniens analysis, to reassess the disposition of this civil 

case with the benefit of these notable factual developments. And 

so, in light of everything we've observed to this point, and 

mindful of the gravitas of abuse-of-discretion review, we conclude 

that the most prudent approach and the best way to honor our 
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commitment to judicial efficiency is to remand to give the district 

court the opportunity to reassess the motions to dismiss. See, 

e.g., Madison Cnty. v. Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y., 562 U.S. 42, 

43 (2011) (per curiam) (vacating and remanding to the Second 

Circuit so it could "address, in the first instance, whether to 

revisit its ruling on sovereign immunity in light of [a] new 

factual development"); Kiyemba v. Obama, 559 U.S. 131, 131 (2010)

(per curiam) (vacating and remanding when the detainees seeking 

release into the United States had received at least one offer of 

resettlement in another country, constituting a "change in the 

underlying facts" that "may affect the legal issues presented").

Our familiarity with the legal arguments here compels us 

to offer a few parting thoughts before we go. While we offer no 

holding on any of the merits issues currently poised for our 

review, we observe our serious concerns about, for example, the 

existence and status of Appellees' agreement to submit to the 

jurisdiction of a Costa Rican court and the evaluation of 

Appellees' burden of demonstrating that the public and private 

interest factors strongly favor litigation in Costa Rica. In any 

event, it strikes us as quite likely that the advent of the 

criminal case -- along with its attendant impacts on litigation of 

and proceedings in the civil case, as discussed above -- will play 

a substantial role in the district court's reconsideration of the 

dismissal motions. 
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For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the district 

court's Opinion and Order and remand to the district court for 

further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Each side shall 

bear its own costs.