Opinion ID: 197918
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: the aba and the aals

Text: 42 The ABA and the AALS each present multiple grounds in support of the district court's grant of summary judgment. The most striking of these is the defense of res judicata. In its present iteration, this defense turns on whether the judgment entered in the previous litigation between the parties (MSL I ) bars the plaintiff from maintaining the instant action against these two institutional defendants. 8 43 Where, as here, both the potentially precluding suit and the potentially precluded suit were litigated in federal courts, federal law governs the res judicata effect of the prior judgment. See Gonzalez v. Banco Central Corp., 27 F.3d 751, 755 (1st Cir.1994). The elements of federal res judicata are (1) a final judgment on the merits in an earlier suit, (2) sufficient identicality between the causes of action asserted in the earlier and later suits, and (3) sufficient identicality between the parties in the two suits. Id. In this instance, the first and third tines of the test are foregone conclusions. Because the Supreme Court denied certiorari after the Third Circuit affirmed the district court's entry of final judgment in MSL I, the finality of the earlier judgment cannot be gainsaid. By like token, MSL, the ABA, and the AALS were parties to the precursor litigation and thus satisfy the identicality requirement. The question, then, is whether the state-law claims that MSL now advances against the ABA and the AALS are sufficiently related to the causes of action asserted in MSL I to warrant claim preclusion. 44 We begin with bedrock. To bring claim preclusion into play, a cause of action need not be a clone of the earlier cause of action. Under res judicata, a final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in that action. Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 94, 101 S.Ct. 411, 414-15, 66 L.Ed.2d 308 (1980). We have adopted a transactional approach to determine whether causes of action are sufficiently related to support a res judicata defense. See Kale v. Combined Ins. Co., 924 F.2d 1161, 1166 (1st Cir.1991). Under this approach, a cause of action is defined as a set of facts which can be characterized as a single transaction or series of related transactions. Apparel Art Int'l, Inc. v. Amertex Enters., Ltd., 48 F.3d 576, 583 (1st Cir.1995). This boils down to whether the causes of action arise out of a common nucleus of operative facts. See Gonzalez, 27 F.3d at 755. In mounting this inquiry, we routinely ask whether the facts are related in time, space, origin, or motivation, whether they form a convenient trial unit, and whether their treatment as a unit conforms to the parties' expectations. Aunyx Corp. v. Canon U.S.A., Inc., 978 F.2d 3, 6 (1st Cir.1992) (quoting Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 24 (1982)). 45 These principles are dispositive here. MSL's pending claims, though rooted in Massachusetts law, plainly arise from the same set of operative facts as its earlier antitrust claims. Although MSL describes the later claims more colloquially and dresses them in different legal raiment, the conduct that underbraces the two sets of claims is strikingly similar in time, space, origin, and motivation. Both suits stem from MSL's failed efforts in 1992 and 1993 to receive ABA accreditation. In both cases, MSL alleges that the ABA and the AALS orchestrated a long-term scheme to accumulate power and money and a short-term scheme to deny accreditation unjustly to MSL because MSL dared to oppose their hegemony. 46 In addition to their common heritage, the two suits also are compatible in a practical sense. It is settled that where the witnesses or proof needed in the second action overlap substantially with those used in the first action, the second action should ordinarily be precluded. Porn v. National Grange Mut. Ins. Co., 93 F.3d 31, 36 (1st Cir.1996). Because neither MSL's antitrust claims nor its state-law claims survived summary disposition, we must make an informed prophecy as to what witnesses would have appeared and what proof would have emerged had the two cases been tried. Here, the two suits' factual underpinnings are the same. This unmistakable congruence strongly suggests that the same witnesses--largely ABA, AALS, and MSL personnel--and information--the evolution of the ABA accreditation procedures and the details of the MSL accreditation effort--would have been necessary to resolve both cases. This substantial imbrication makes it apparent that the two cases would have formed a convenient trial unit and argues powerfully for claim preclusion. See id. at 34; see also King v. Union Oil Co., 117 F.3d 443, 445 (10th Cir.1997). 47 To the extent that reasonable expectations, objectively assayed, enter into the res judicata calculus, they augur here toward the same conclusion. In the first place, since the two sets of claims arise in the same time frame out of similar facts, one would reasonably expect them to be brought together, Porn, 93 F.3d at 37. In the second place, a party may be more readily presumed to expect that a court will treat multiple causes of action as a single trial unit when the plaintiff has all the facts necessary to bring the second claim at its disposal before or during the pendency of the first. MSL does not identify any significant facts that were not within its ken before the antitrust action reached its climax. We therefore conclude that the application of res judicata is an entirely predictable consequence of MSL's unilateral decision to split its claim. 48 Of course, res judicata will not attach if the claim asserted in the second suit could not have been asserted in the first. See In re Newport Harbor Assocs., 589 F.2d 20, 24 (1st Cir.1978). In an effort to avoid looming defeat, MSL tries to squeeze through this loophole by questioning whether it could have brought the instant claims in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Insofar as this question relates to MSL's pursuit of the ABA and the AALS, it is easily answered. 49 Under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a), a federal court that exercises federal question jurisdiction over a claim may also assert supplemental jurisdiction over all state-law claims that arise from the same operative facts. See BIW Deceived, 132 F.3d at 833; Rodriguez v. Doral Mortgage Corp., 57 F.3d 1168, 1175 (1st Cir.1995). As we already have determined, the facts upon which MSL grounded its antitrust action concern MSL's efforts to receive ABA accreditation between 1992 and 1993. This same trove of facts also provides the basis for MSL's state-law claims against the ABA and the AALS. As a result, had MSL ventured to bring its current compendium of claims before the Pennsylvania federal district court as part and parcel of MSL I, that court could have entertained them in conjunction with the antitrust action then before it. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367. 50 Despite the fact that the Court has ceded the federal judiciary broad leeway to look to the common law or to the policies supporting res judicata ... in assessing the preclusive effect of decisions of other federal courts, Allen, 449 U.S. at 96, 101 S.Ct. at 415, MSL makes one last effort to undercut the district court's determination. Res judicata cannot be applied against a plaintiff unless the plaintiff had a full and fair opportunity to litigate all its claims in the original action. See id. at 90, 101 S.Ct. at 412-13; Kale, 924 F.2d at 1168. Citing a series of adverse discovery rulings, MSL argues that it did not receive such an opportunity in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 51 The Court has not yet addressed the standard for determining the existence vel non of a full and fair opportunity in regard to a prior federal judgment. The standard, however, is quite permissive as it pertains to prior state court judgments. To meet this standard, a state court judgment need only satisfy the minimal procedural requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Kremer v. Chemical Constr. Corp., 456 U.S. 461, 481, 102 S.Ct. 1883, 1897, 72 L.Ed.2d 262 (1982). We do not envision a significantly less latitudinarian test for federal court judgments. We hold, therefore, that as long as a prior federal court judgment is procured in a manner that satisfies due process concerns, the requisite full and fair opportunity existed. 52 Here, MSL points to its numerous failed efforts to obtain additional discovery in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and asseverates that draconian restrictions deprived it of an adequate chance to litigate its claims in MSL I. These allegations of discovery error are reheated for our consumption. They previously were reviewed and rejected by the Third Circuit, see MSL I, 107 F.3d at 1033-34, and we see no reason to revisit that determination. 53 At any rate, a full and fair opportunity to litigate cannot be equated with a license to do as a party pleases. The adjudicative process operates pursuant to rules, and an opportunity to litigate is no less full or fair simply because the forum court enforces conventional limitations on pretrial discovery. By any conceivable criterion, MSL had its full and fair opportunity to assert, in the Pennsylvania proceeding, the panoply of procedural and substantive rights guaranteed it by federal law. Its first action therefore furnishes a proper predicate for the application of res judicata in its second action. 54 In this instance, all roads lead to Rome. MSL had an appropriate opportunity to litigate its first set of claims, and conveniently could have brought the second set as part of the same proceeding. Its failure to do so dooms the instant action since MSL's two sets of allegations arise from a common nucleus of operative facts and fit together tongue and groove. We conclude that, as a consequence of this road not taken, res judicata precludes MSL's state-law claims against the ABA and the AALS. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of these two institutional defendants. 9 VIII. NEW ENGLAND SCHOOL OF LAW 55 The district court granted NESL's motion to dismiss, ruling that the complaint failed to state a claim against NESL upon which relief could be granted. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). We review this determination de novo, accept all well-pleaded facts as true, and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. See Dartmouth Review v. Dartmouth College, 889 F.2d 13, 16 (1st Cir.1989). Notwithstanding the generous contours of this standard, a reviewing court need not swallow plaintiff's invective hook, line, and sinker; bald assertions unsupportable conclusions, periphrastic circumlocutions, and the like need not be credited. Aulson v. Blanchard, 83 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir.1996). 56 MSL's briefing reads as if it were seeking to hold NESL liable for civil conspiracy. Nevertheless, its complaint aims the conspiracy charge elsewhere and the sufficiency of a complaint ordinarily should be tested by examining the claims that are stated therein rather than by weighing afterthought claims that are only mentioned in a legal brief. See Beddall v. State St. Bank & Trust Co., 137 F.3d 12, 22 (1st Cir.1998); Doyle v. Hasbro, Inc., 103 F.3d 186, 190 (1st Cir.1996); Litton Indus., Inc. v. Colon, 587 F.2d 70, 74 (1st Cir.1978). As MSL's complaint does not level a conspiracy charge against NESL, we limit our inquiry to the claims that MSL saw fit to plead. 57 MSL's complaint asserts two causes of action against NESL: tortious misrepresentation and violations of the Massachusetts statute governing unfair and deceptive trade practices (commonly known as Chapter 93A). The complaint predicates these causes of action on an exchange of correspondence between NESL officials (specifically, James Lawton, the chair of NESL's board of trustees, and Ellen Wayne, NESL's placement director) and the ABA's consultant, James White. We catalog these four pieces of correspondence. 58 Lawton wrote to White on January 2, 1990, stating in pertinent part: 59 The chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Regents is former U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas and he is for all intents and purposes the principal in the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover. Mr. Tsongas has the solid support of the Boston Globe and the Board of Regents are under his complete control at this time. 60 My guess is that any other, new or competing law schools, which may come into existence will not receive support from the Regents who are a rigidly controlled group of Dukakis loyalists who will only do what they are told by the present administration under Tsongas and [Governor] Dukakis. 61 Later that year, Wayne informed White that Massachusetts authorities had authorized MSL to award J.D. degrees, and that its graduates henceforth could sit for the Massachusetts bar. This missive, dated June 19, 1990, also mentioned that MSL had requested and received a table at a fair sponsored by the Northeast Association of Pre-Law Advisors (NAPLA). Wayne reported that NAPLA's by-laws had compelled approval of MSL's request, but that the NAPLA board of directors would amend the by-laws to restrict participation in subsequent programs to ABA approved law school[s]. The complaint does not allege that NAPLA excluded MSL from any subsequent events. 62 Eight days later, White wrote to Lawton and solicited his opinion as to the possibility of convincing the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) to amend its rules and require graduation from an ABA-accredited law school as a prerequisite to taking the Massachusetts bar examination. Lawton's response, dated July 17, 1990, indicated his approbation and recommended that members of the bar petition for such an amendment. The complaint does not allege that such a request was ever made or that the SJC revised its rules in the desired manner. 10 63 The first letter from Lawton to White is plainly inaccurate insofar as it proclaims a Tsongas/MSL connection. Senator Tsongas, who had ties to a different unaccredited law school, had none with MSL. MSL does not assert that the first letter contains any other inaccuracies and does not point to any misstatements in the remaining three epistles. 64 Against this mise-en-scene, we turn to MSL's claim of tortious misrepresentation. This strikes us as something of a misnomer (our canvass of Massachusetts case law does not reveal a single articulation of the elements of a particularized cause of action for tortious misrepresentation), but in all events, Massachusetts jurisprudence recognizes causes of action for both fraudulent misrepresentation and negligent misrepresentation. See, e.g., Craig v. Everett M. Brooks Co., 351 Mass. 497, 222 N.E.2d 752, 753 (1967) (fraudulent misrepresentation); Nycal Corp. v. KPMG Peat Marwick, 426 Mass. 491, 688 N.E.2d 1368, 1371 (1998) (negligent misrepresentation). MSL's complaint does not plead this claim with sufficient particularity to support a charge of fraud, 11 see Fed.R.Civ.P. 9(b), and thus, we interpret the complaint as an attempt to articulate a claim for negligent misrepresentation. The elements of such a cause of action are that the defendant falsely represented a past or existing material fact without any reasonable basis for thinking it to be true; that he intended to euchre the plaintiff into relying on the representation; that the plaintiff, unaware of the representation's falsity, justifiably relied on it; and that the plaintiff suffered harm due to his reliance. See 37 Am.Jur.2d, Fraud and Deceit § 12 (1968). 65 The claim deserves short shrift. To be sure, the comments about Senator Tsongas amount to a misrepresentation, but MSL does not plead that it relied on that misrepresentation to its detriment, 12 and such reliance cannot plausibly be inferred from the complaint's other averments. The general rule is that, without this necessary element, there can be no recovery for negligent misrepresentation under Massachusetts law. See Romanoff v. Balcom, 4 Mass.App.Ct. 768, 339 N.E.2d 927, 927 (1976). 66 There is an exception to this rule. In the absence of detrimental reliance, a party still may be held liable under Massachusetts law for misrepresentation of information negligently supplied for the guidance of others. See Fox v. F & J Gattozzi Corp., 41 Mass.App.Ct. 581, 672 N.E.2d 547, 551 (1996) (stating that if a defendant in the course of his business ... supplies false information for the guidance of others in their business transactions, he is subject to liability for pecuniary loss caused to [third persons] by [the recipient's] justifiable reliance upon the information, if he fails to exercise reasonable care or competence in obtaining or communicating the information) (quoting Restatement (Second) Torts § 552(1) (1977)). 67 MSL's claim for tortious misrepresentation fails to qualify for this exception. Even if we assume that Lawton's first letter to White occurred in the course of a business transaction--a fact that MSL does not allege--MSL pleads neither that it (or anyone else, for that matter) relied upon Lawton's faux pas nor that it suffered any harm as a result of the transmittal of the Tsongas-related (mis)information. Hence, the district court did not err in granting NESL's motion to dismiss the tortious misrepresentation count. 68 We next engage MSL's Chapter 93A claim for unfair and deceptive acts. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A, § 2. By their nature, Chapter 93A claims tend to be case-specific. Their general meter, however, is that the defendant's conduct must be not only wrong, but also egregiously wrong--and this standard calls for determinations of egregiousness well beyond what is required for most common law claims. See Whitinsville Plaza, Inc. v. Kotseas, 378 Mass. 85, 390 N.E.2d 243, 251 (1979). To quote a by-now-familiar formulation, the objectionable conduct must attain a level of rascality that would raise an eyebrow of someone inured to the rough and tumble of the world of commerce. Levings v. Forbes & Wallace, Inc., 8 Mass.App.Ct. 498, 396 N.E.2d 149, 153 (1979). 69 MSL's complaint is inscrutable as to the precise nature of its Chapter 93A claim and its briefing is not very helpful on this score. Its complaint attributes nothing to NESL beyond the latter's role in the exchange of correspondence described above. MSL apparently means to asseverate that publication of the statements contained in the exchange of correspondence defamed or otherwise damaged it and thus transgressed Chapter 93A. This asseveration cannot survive scrutiny. 70 The SJC recently has held that where allegedly defamatory statements do not support a cause of action for defamation, they also do not support a cause of action under [Chapter] 93A. Dulgarian v. Stone, 420 Mass. 843, 652 N.E.2d 603, 609 (1995). Truth is an absolute defense to a defamation action under Massachusetts law, see Bander v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 313 Mass. 337, 47 N.E.2d 595, 598 (1943), and MSL therefore must demonstrate that NESL published a false and defamatory written communication of and concerning the plaintiff. McAvoy v. Shufrin, 401 Mass. 593, 518 N.E.2d 513, 517 (1988). As previously noted, the only false statement ascribed to any NESL representative concerns Senator Tsongas's alleged patronage of MSL. 71 We next consider if that statement can form the basis for a claim of defamation by MSL. Whether a statement is reasonably susceptible of a defamatory meaning is a question of law for the court. See Foley v. Lowell Sun Pub. Co., 404 Mass. 9, 533 N.E.2d 196, 197 (1989). For a communication to qualify as defamatory, [t]he test is, whether, in the circumstances, the writing discredits the plaintiff in the minds of any considerable and respectable class in the community. Smith v. Suburban Restaurants, Inc., 374 Mass. 528, 373 N.E.2d 215, 217 (1978). The core question, therefore, is not whether Lawton's demonstrated falsehood discredits somebody--it plainly denigrates the late senator--but whether it significantly discredits MSL. See New Eng. Tractor-Trailer Training, Inc. v. Globe Newspaper Co., 395 Mass. 471, 480 N.E.2d 1005, 1007 (1985). 72 In our estimation, the misstatement contained in Lawton's January 2 letter does not sink to this level. The senator enjoyed an enviable reputation as a public servant of the highest integrity. MSL has failed utterly to suggest how any educational institution could be defamed by attributing to it a connection with him. Absent such a link, no action lies. See, e.g., Schwanbeck v. Federal-Mogul Corp., 31 Mass.App.Ct. 390, 578 N.E.2d 789, 804 (1991) (explaining that false statements must have adverse consequences for a plaintiff in order to be actionable under Chapter 93A). Thus, the Tsongas-related comment, though untrue, is not defamatory of and concerning MSL. 73 Nor does MSL's complaint allege any other cognizable basis for Chapter 93A liability on NESL's part. The four items of correspondence hint that NESL did not wish MSL well, but none of the matters which its representatives discussed with White suggest activities so scurrilous as to trigger liability under Chapter 93A. Although we understand that a Chapter 93A violation need not rest on an independent common law tort, see Massachusetts Farm Bureau Fed'n, Inc. v. Blue Cross, Inc., 403 Mass. 722, 532 N.E.2d 660, 664 (1989), the conduct must at least come within shouting distance of some established concept of unfairness. See Gooley v. Mobil Oil Corp., 851 F.2d 513, 515-16 (1st Cir.1988). 74 To sum up, even if Lawton and Wayne, on NESL's behalf, participated in activities of the kind adumbrated by their correspondence, such activities, though hostile to MSL and inimical to its interests, are not so seriously deceptive and harmful as to permit recovery under Chapter 93A. Zayre Corp. v. Computer Sys. of Am., Inc., 24 Mass.App.Ct. 559, 511 N.E.2d 23, 30 n. 23 (1987). Indeed, NESL's suspected (but unproven and unalleged) actions--e.g., asking NAPLA to amend its by-laws or petitioning the SJC to revise its rules--do not abridge any legal duty or bedrock concept of unfairness, and are not so unethical, oppressive, or unscrupulous as to be actionable under Chapter 93A. PMP Assocs., Inc. v. Globe Newspaper Co., 366 Mass. 593, 321 N.E.2d 915, 917 (1975) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). What is more, MSL fails to allege how NESL's involvement in these activities actually caused any cognizable economic harm to it. In itself, this is a fatal flaw. See Zayre Corp., 511 N.E.2d at 30; see also Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A, § 11 (explaining that, in a Chapter 93A claim, the complainant must show that she suffer[ed] a loss of money or property, real or personal, as a result of the use ... of an unfair method of competition or an unfair or deceptive act or practice). 75 That ends the matter. Because MSL has not advanced any sound basis on which NESL could be held liable either for negligent misrepresentation or for transgressing Chapter 93A, we uphold Judge Lasker's order granting NESL's motion to dismiss.