Opinion ID: 2753819
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Watchtower I Mandate.

Text: We turn now to the argument that the district court violated the mandate rule in crafting equitable relief. In its -15- pertinent iteration, the mandate rule, a branch of the law of the case doctrine, prevents relitigation in the lower court of issues already decided on an earlier appeal of the same case. See Mun'y of San Juan v. Rullan, 318 F.3d 26, 29 (1st Cir. 2003). We review de novo whether and to what extent the mandate rule applies. See Negrón-Almeda v. Santiago, 579 F.3d 45, 50 (1st Cir. 2009). Although both sides suggest that the district court's remedial scheme for unmanned urbanizations flouts the mandate in Watchtower I, they offer disparate reasons for their suggestion. From the plaintiffs' standpoint, the putative mandate violation rests on our statement that a manned guard gate for each urbanization is required, unless the urbanization carries a burden of special justification. Watchtower I, 634 F.3d at 13. The plaintiffs posit that the district court ignored this statement and improvidently allowed unmanned urbanizations to forgo hiring guards without first justifying their entitlement to an exception. The municipalities come at the putative mandate rule violation from a different direction. Relying on our statement that [t]he district court will have to determine whether and when it is reasonable to rely only on a buzzer system or some limited guard access, id., they posit that the district court should have considered each urbanization singly instead of imposing a global solution. We readily admit that our opinion in Watchtower I created some ambiguity as to the scope of discretion available to the -16- district court. We did not intend to lay down rigid rules but, rather, meant to highlight that the district court must take some remedial action to resolve the unique constitutional problems presented by unmanned urbanizations. And in all events, what we said about specific remedies was not part of our mandate. The scope of an appellate mandate is restricted by the issues that were actually before the appellate court. See Biggins v. Hazen Paper Co., 111 F.3d 205, 209 (1st Cir. 1997) (Broadly speaking, mandates require respect for what the higher court decided, not for what it did not decide.). The issue in Watchtower I was whether the district court erred in dismissing any or all of the plaintiffs' claims. See 634 F.3d at 8. Issues of remediation were not before the Watchtower I court and, thus, the nature and extent of any particular remedy was not within the scope of our mandate. See Amado v. Microsoft Corp., 517 F.3d 1353, 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2008). That ends this aspect of the matter. We intended neither to bind the district court to a presumption that unmanned urbanizations should hire guards nor to preclude the use of a global solution to the problems presented by unmanned urbanizations. Accordingly, we reject the parties' mandate rule -17- arguments5 and proceed to evaluate the district court's remedial scheme on the merits.