Opinion ID: 194980
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fundamental Right to Civil Suit for Damages.

Text: 21 Nieves' alternate constitutional claim bypasses the problematic poverty classification discussed above. Nieves contends that strict scrutiny analysis is required because the Puerto Rico Constitution guarantees the fundamental right to maintain a civil suit for full compensatory damages, see Torres v. Castillo Alicea, 111 P.R. Dec. 792, 801-802 (1981), without regard to whether the challenged statutory classification targets a suspect class. She argues that section 4105 unconstitutionally deprives a non-suspect class--all patients who use Puerto Rico public health services--of this fundamental right without positing a compelling governmental interest in its classification scheme. But cf., e.g., Christensen v. Ward, 916 F.2d 1462, 1472 (10th Cir.) (pursuit of state-law tort action not fundamental right guaranteed by Federal Constitution), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 999, 111 S.Ct. 559, 112 L.Ed.2d 565 (1990); Edelstein v. Wilentz, 812 F.2d 128, 131 (3d Cir.1987) (same). 22 In Alicea v. Cordova Iturregui, 117 P.R. Dec. 676 (1986), the Puerto Rico Supreme Court struck down P.R.Laws Ann. tit. 26, § 4109(1), a MHPLIA companion provision to section 4105, which established a maximum two-year statute of limitations for all medical malpractice claims, without regard to whether the injury was discoverable within the two-year limitations period. The court noted that section 4109 created different (albeit non-suspect) classifications for patients who sustained patent injuries and patients with latent injuries. Id. at 688. The court reaffirmed its earlier statement in Torres that the right to commence a civil action is a fundamental right, and went on to conclude that any legislative classification affecting such right will have to withstand the strict judicial scrutiny analysis. Id. at 690 (citing Torres, 111 P.R. Dec. at 801-02) (emphasis added). In Alicea, the court held that the Commonwealth lacked a sufficiently compelling state interest to justify even this non-suspect classification, and that the purported goals of the MHPLIA--assuring the general availability of medical malpractice insurance and avoiding the increasing medical costs and declining quality of care associated with exorbitant malpractice insurance premiums--would not do. Id. at 693. 23 The Alicea court's depiction of Torres has engendered a splintered precedent that ultimately undermines Nieves' argument. Only two justices joined the opinion of the court in Alicea without reservation. Three justices filed separate concurrences; one justice lodged a vigorous dissent. 12 In her concurring opinion, Justice Naveira de Rodon concluded that the right to bring a civil suit for damages was at best a property right, and though section 4109(1) was violative of procedural due process, she opined that Torres did not recognize a fundamental constitutional right of access to the civil courts. Alicea, 117 P.R. Dec at 699-70 n. 1 (Naveira de Rodon, J., concurring). 13 Moreover, the dissent warned that such a reading of Torres would expose all Puerto Rico civil statutes of limitations to strict scrutiny. Id. at 710 (Rebollo Lopez, J., dissenting). Thus, five of the seven justices on the Court did not endorse Nieves' interpretation of Torres. See In re San Juan Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire Litig., 687 F.Supp. 716, 733-34 (D.P.R.1988) (citing Alicea as support for interpreting Torres as recognizing a property right, not a fundamental right, to bring civil suit for damages); see also Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 169 n. 15, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2923 n. 15, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976) (noting that, when no rationale commands the respect of a majority of the court, the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds) (emphasis added). 24 Moreover, our own analysis of the Torres decision confirms that the reservations expressed by the concurring and dissenting justices in Alicea conflict with the broader interpretation of Torres proposed by Nieves. Torres struck down a statute which capped tort damages in malpractice actions against the Commonwealth, but permitted plaintiffs who won higher jury awards to petition the Legislature for special exemption from the caps. See Torres, 111 P.R. Dec. at 795. Although Torres cites language suggesting that the challenged statute fatally impeded a fundamental right to bring a civil action, the court struck down the statute without mentioning the need to demonstrate a compelling state interest, thereby raising grave doubt whether strict scrutiny analysis was engaged. Arguably, at least, Torres invalidated the legislative exemption scheme simply as an undue encroachment on the judicial branch, in contravention to the principle of separation of powers. Id. at 803; cf. Velez Ruiz v. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 111 P.R. Dec. 747, 762 (1981) (striking down MHPLIA's compulsory arbitration provision as undue interference in judicial function). Thus, Nieves' proposed reading of Torres, the mooring for her constitutional claim, derives from language which may well be mere dicta. 25 Since a majority of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court has not interpreted (indeed, has declined, as in Alicea, to interpret) Torres as Nieves urges, it would be unfitting for us to chart the future course of Commonwealth law or to enlist the Puerto Rico Supreme Court in her pathfinding effort. See Venezia v. Miller Brewing Co., 626 F.2d 188, 192 n. 5 (1st Cir.1980) (court should be wary of certification where requesting party merely seeks to persuade state court to extend current state law). State-law claimants who bypass an available state forum generally are not entitled to adventurous state-law interpretations from the federal forum, 14 nor have we been receptive to their requests for certification newly asserted on appeal. 15 While Nieves did not raise the section 4105 defense, of course, it was a clearly foreseeable response to her federal complaint against appellees. 26