Opinion ID: 2639670
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alcantar

Text: The district court also relied on the Alcantar case, in which a federal district court granted Harrah's summary judgment motion based on issue preclusion. The Alcantar court relied on the prior jury verdicts for Harrah's in the Yvette Barreras and Ramirez cases in determining that issue preclusion barred Alcantar's claims. However, the Alcantar case is both factually and legally distinguishable from this case. Factually, the Alcantar case is distinguishable from this case for four reasons. First, the Alcantar plaintiffs and the plaintiffs in Yvette Barreras and Ramirez were all either members of the Mongols or related to members of the Mongols. Here, none of the appellants were members of or related to members of either biker gang. Second, several of the Alcantar plaintiffs testified in the Yvette Barreras and Ramirez cases. In contrast, none of the appellants testified in prior trials. Third, the same attorney represented the Alcantar plaintiffs and the Yvette Barreras and Ramirez plaintiffs. Here, appellants were not represented by the same attorney as the Alcantar plaintiffs. Fourth, the Alcantar, Yvette Barreras, and Ramirez cases were consolidated for discovery purposes; whereas the Bower case was not consolidated with the Alcantar case. Thus, there are many more factual and procedural connections between the Alcantar and Yvette Barreras and Ramirez cases than there are between the Alcantar case and appellants' case. Legally, the Alcantar court's analysis is distinguishable from this case because it applied the virtual representation analysis set forth in Irwin v. Mascott, 370 F.3d 924 (9th Cir.2004), and determined that issue preclusion was appropriate because: (1) the plaintiffs in Alcantar and Yvette Barreras and Ramirez had a close relationship because they were all members or relatives of the Mongols; (2) the Alcantar plaintiffs substantially participated in the prior cases because several of them testified in those cases; (3) the plaintiffs in all three cases participated in tactical maneuvering because they were represented by the same counsel and the cases were consolidated for discovery purposes; (4) all of the plaintiffs had a commonality of interest because they all sought to establish that the brawl was foreseeable, Harrah's owed them a duty, Harrah's breached that duty, the cases arose out of the same nucleus of facts, and the evidence was the same in all the cases; and (5) the Yvette Barreras and Ramirez plaintiffs adequately represented the Alcantar plaintiffs' interests because they were all represented by the same attorney who controlled the discovery and decision making. In contrast, as discussed above, this court must apply the adequate representation analysis set forth in Taylor, 553 U.S. at ___, 128 S.Ct. at 2176. In this case, Harrah's presents no evidence that the Alcantar plaintiffs understood that they were representing appellants or that the Alcantar court knew of appellants' cases so that it could protect their interests. The record is also void of any indication that appellants had notice of the Alcantar case. Therefore, although the Alcantar court found that issue preclusion barred the Alcantar plaintiffs' claims, because of the distinguishable facts in the Alcantar case and because this court is applying Taylor, we conclude that issue preclusion does not bar appellants' claims.