Court Opinion

ID: 2964797
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2015-09-21 21:31:16.592498+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:37:25.386140
License: Public Domain

USCA1 Opinion

	

                               [NOT FOR PUBLICATION] 
                                ____________________
          No. 96-2100
                        KEVIN AND BOBBI RAYZOR, THE MINOR BR,
                 REPRESENTED BY HER PARENTS, KEVIN AND BOBBI RAYZOR,
                               Plaintiffs, Appellants,
                                         v.
                              UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                Defendant, Appellee.
                                ____________________
                    APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
                           FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
                  [Hon. Salvador E. Casellas, U.S. District Judge]
                                ____________________
                                       Before
                                Selya, Circuit Judge,
                       Coffin and Cyr, Senior Circuit Judges.
                                ____________________
               Andres Guilemard-Noble with whom Joan S. Peters was on brief
          for appellants.
               Steve  Frank, Attorney, Appellate Staff Civil Division,
          Department of Justice, with whom    Frank  
                                                     W.  
                                                         Hunger, Assistant
          Attorney General, 
                           Guillermo Gil
                                        , United States Attorney, and 
                                                                     Robert
          S. Greenspan
                     , Attorney, Appellate Staff Civil Division, Department
          of Justice, were on brief for appellee.
                                 ___________________
                                    JULY 22, 1997
                                 ___________________

               COFFIN, Senior 
                              Circuit 
                                       Judge. Appellants Kevin and Bobbi
          Rayzor seek to hold the United States responsible for the sexual
          abuse of their daughter by a babysitter whose name they obtained
          from a list allegedly recommended by the Navy. The Rayzors filed
          suit for damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. S
          1346(b), asserting that the Navy was negligent in directing them to
          select a babysitter from a Red Cross generated list without first
          checking the qualifications of the individuals on the list. The
          district court granted summary judgment for the government on both
          that claim and a related First Amendment claim. We affirm.
                                    I. Background
               Appellant Kevin Rayzor, a petty officer in the Navy, was
          stationed with his wife and young daughter at a base in Ceiba,
          Puerto Rico. The Rayzors claim that the Navy instructed them to
          hire babysitters for sporadic child care needs only from a list
          provided by the American Red Cross at the base's Family Service
          Center. That list contained the names of teenagers who had
          completed the nine-hour Red Cross babysitting course offered at the
                              
                Two points warrant some elaboration. First, there is some
          confusion about whether the district court misunderstood the
          allegation to be that the Navy advised the Rayzors 
                                                           not to hire from
          the Red Cross list. Unraveling the confusion is unnecessary
          because our assumption that the Navy did direct the Rayzors to use
          the list exclusively is most advantageous to the Rayzors, whose
          claim of negligence would be absurd, rather than just fruitless, if
          they had hired a sitter from the list despite the Navy's explicit
          directive not to do so.
               Second, the Rayzors' assertion that they were directed to hire
          from the Red Cross list is based only on their own statement and is
          not attributed to any particular individual or document. For
          purposes of summary judgment, we accept the allegation as true.

          base. The course covered the basics of first aid and outlined the
          duties of a babysitter.
               The Rayzors hired an individual from the list, and discovered
          the next day that she had physically and sexually abused their two-
          year-old daughter. They subsequently filed their complaint under
          the FTCA alleging that the Navy was negligent in "certif[ying]" the
          sitter, and in falsely representing that she was qualified to
          provide safe babysitting services. Appellants also alleged that
          the Navy violated their First Amendment rights by warning them "to
          keep silent" about the incident.
               The district court granted summary judgment for the
          government. It ruled that the FTCA was inapplicable because the
          Red Cross and its employees were not government employees whose
          conduct was actionable under the statute. It also held that an
          FTCA action was not viable because the Navy's alleged actions did
          not constitute negligence under local law. Although the government
          did not respond in its summary judgment motion to the First
          Amendment claim, the district court 
                                             sua 
                                                 sponte dismissed the claim
                              
                The Navy sought to have the sitter prosecuted but the U.S.
          Attorney's office declined to prosecute because the sitter was a
          juvenile.
                The Navy operates two fulltime child care programs at the
          base, the Child Development Center/Preschool (CDC) and a Family
          Home Care Program (FHC), neither of which is at issue in this case.
          The Navy has issued detailed instructions for each of these
          programs, including background checks for FHC providers, who are
          private individuals who care for up to six children in a Navy
          housing unit.  See App. at 24-41.

          for lack of supporting evidence. The Rayzors then filed this
          appeal.
                             II. Federal Tort Claims Act
               Our review of a grant of summary judgment is de novo, and we
          evaluate the record in the light most favorable to the non-moving
          party.  See Coyne v. Taber Partners I, 53 F.3d 454, 457 (1st Cir.
          1995). Even from that vantage point, however, the Rayzors'
          negligence claim lacks luster.
                Their claim, in essence, is that the Navy should have probed
          the backgrounds of the babysitters on the Red Cross list before
          recommending them to base residents. Under Puerto Rico law, which
          is applicable in this FTCA suit, 
                                         see 
                                             Attallah v. 
                                                         United States
                                                                      , 955
          F.2d 776, 781 (1st Cir. 1992), such a claim is actionable only if
          a reasonable factfinder could find that the Navy had a duty to
          exercise due diligence to avoid foreseeable risks to the Rayzors,
          and that the Navy failed to fulfill that responsibility.      See
          Coyne, 53 F.3d at 458-60; 
                                   Malave Felix
                                                v.
                                                  Volvo Car Corp.
                                                                 , 946 F.2d
          967, 971 (1st Cir. 1991). Even assuming, as the Rayzors argue at
          length, that the Navy acquired a duty to protect them as a result
          of its recommendation that they hire a babysitter from the Red
          Cross list -- a legal proposition about which we have doubts -- we
          think no reasonable factfinder could find either a failure to
          exercise due diligence or a foreseeable risk of harm.
                              
                The Rayzors do not appeal the court's holding that Red Cross
          workers are not federal employees, limiting their challenge on the
          FTCA claim to the court's ruling that they failed to make a viable
          showing of negligence.

               The Navy's only representation about the sitters on the Red
          Cross list was an implicit statement that they were preferable to
          other sitters because of their relationship with the international
          humanitarian agency, making them something of a known quantity.
          The Rayzors offer no evidence to support their contention that the
          Navy lacked due diligence in failing to investigate the individuals
          whose names appeared on the list. They cite to no incidents of
          child abuse involving Red Cross sitters generally, or concerning
          the specific individuals on the list at the base in Ceiba.
          Moreover, all of the individuals on the Red Cross list were
          teenagers, ranging in age from 11 to 17, and we cannot accept that
          a reasonable factfinder would have concluded that the Navy had an
          obligation to do background checks on minors who had undergone Red
          Cross training, in the absence of particularized concern. In
          short, a reasonable person would not have foreseen a need to
          investigate these Red Cross-affiliated sitters to prevent harmful
          criminal conduct.
               Although foreseeability typically is both a "factbound and
          case-specific" issue, see  Coyne, 53 F.3d at 460 -- foreclosing
          summary judgment -- "the evidence must be such that the factfinder
          rationally can conclude that the risk complained of is among the
          universe of risks recognizable by reasonably prudent persons acting
          with due diligence under the same or similar circumstances."  Id.
          (citing Pacheco v. Puerto 
                                    Rico 
                                         Water 
                                               Resources 
                                                         Auth., 112 D.P.R.
          367, 372 (1982)). As we have noted, however, the Rayzors have
          proffered no basis upon which a factfinder could conclude that it
          was foreseeable to the Navy that this, or any other teenage

          babysitter who had taken a Red Cross babysitting course, would
          engage in criminally abusive mistreatment of her charge. 
                                                                 Cf., 
                                                                      e.g.,
          Coyne, 53 F.3d at 461 (reversing summary judgment where defendants
          were on notice of the potential for violence);  Elba v. Univ. 
                                                                         of
          P.R., 90 J.T.S. 13 (1990) (Official English Translation: No. RE-86-
          214, slip op. at 21-23) (university's failure to provide adequate
          security in high-risk area gave rise to violent assault of female
          student); 
                   Negron v. 
                             Orozco Rivera
                                          , 113 P.R. Offic. Trans. 921, 927-
          29 (1983) (reasonable person would have foreseen eruption of
          violence in police station, given prior confrontation between armed
          officer and decedent).  See also  Mas v. United 
                                                          States, 984 F.2d
          527, 530 (1st Cir. 1993) (showing of negligence under Puerto Rico
          law requires "a demonstration that the defendant has either actual
          or constructive knowledge of a dangerous condition"). We therefore
          conclude that the Rayzors failed to generate a sufficient factual
          dispute to survive the government's motion for summary judgment on
          the FTCA claim.  Accordingly, we affirm the district court's
          dismissal of that claim.
                             III. First Amendment Claim
                              
                We previously have observed that liability for a breach of
          duty under Puerto Rico law requires a causal relationship between
          the breach and the ensuing harm, meaning that "'the damage must
          have been foreseeable and 
                                    avoidable had the omitted action been
          timely taken,'" Coyne v. Taber 
                                         Partners 
                                                  I, 53 F.3d 454, 459 (1st
          Cir. 1995) (quoting Elba v.  Univ. 
                                             of 
                                                P.R., 90 J.T.S. 13 (1990)
          (Official English Translation: No. RE-86-214, slip op. at 12)
          (emphasis added)). The Rayzors offer no evidence that a background
          check would have revealed the unsuitability of the sitter.

               The Rayzors also alleged that the government violated their
          First Amendment rights by threatening that they should keep quiet
          about the abuse incident. The government's motion for summary
          judgment did not address this claim, but the court dismissed it 
                                                                        sua
          sponte because it could not find any proof in the record to verify
          the allegation. The court stated in its opinion:
               Mr. Rayzor has failed to identify or indicate who, if
               anyone, threatened him. In our opinion, a claim not
               supported by affirmative evidence does not present a
               genuine issue for trial. Unsupported allegations or
               denials are not enough to defeat a motion for summary
               judgment.  Anderson v.  Liberty 
                                               Lo[bby], 
                                                        Inc. 477 U.S.
               242, 252 (1986).
               The only apparent evidence on this claim contained in the
          appellate materials consists of two affidavits, one from each of
          the Rayzors. The content relevant to a First Amendment claim in
          Kevin Rayzor's affidavit is as follows:
               [W]e were harassed and threatened by Navy officers in an
               attempt to cover-up the incident. . . . I was told by an
               officer of the Navy that I better keep my wife's mouth
               shut, or I would have problems with my records.
          Bobbi Rayzor's affidavit merely repeats the allegation of
          harassment and threats, and alleges that action on her application
          to be licensed as a Child Care Provider was delayed because of the
          couple's complaints about the incident.
               We agree with the district court's judgment that these
          statements are inadequate to warrant a trial on the First Amendment
          claim. They fail to identify who made the threatening statement(s)
          or when they were made, the basis for Mrs. Rayzor's assertion that
          this incident affected her application to become a base Child Care
          Provider, or how Officer Rayzor's records could be affected by
          public disclosure of the assault.

               Appellants imply in their brief that summary judgment on this
          claim is premature because no discovery has been conducted. So far
          as we can tell, lack of discovery was not an issue below. The
          government moved for summary judgment on March 18, 1994, and the
          district court dismissed the case more than two years later on July
          28, 1996. Appellants do not assert that they requested, but were
          denied, discovery. Instead, they maintain that their affidavits
          constituted "ample evidence" to survive summary judgment.
               As we already have explained, we disagree that their proffer
          is adequate. It is virtually axiomatic that "neither 'conclusory
          allegations,' . . . nor '[b]rash conjecture coupled with earnest
          hope that something concrete will materialize, is []sufficient to
          block summary judgment.'"  J. Geils Band Employee Benefit Plan v.
          Smith 
                Barney 
                       Shearson, 
                                 Inc., 76 F.3d 1245, 1251 (1st Cir. 1996)
          (citations omitted). This is all the Rayzors have offered.
                              
                We have some concern about the court's  sua 
                                                            sponte grant of
          summary judgment on the First Amendment claim in light of the
          government's failure to move for brevis disposition on that claim.
          This, however, was not an ambush. In its Reply to Plaintiffs'
          Opposition to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, the
          government pointed to the lack of support for both the allegations
          of threats and Mrs. Rayzor's contention that the government stalled
          her license to become a Child Care Provider. The Reply was filed
          on June 27, 1994, more than two years before the court ruled.
               We therefore are satisfied that appellants had adequate notice
          of the government's challenge to the sufficiency of their "threat"
          allegations. See 
                           Penobscot Indian Nation
                                                   v. 
                                                     Key Bank of Maine
                                                                      , 112
          F.3d 538, 562 (1st Cir. 1997) (quoting    Berkovitz v.  Home  
                                                                        Box
          Office, Inc., 89 F.3d 24, 29 (1st Cir. 1996)) ("'targeted party'"
          must be given "'appropriate notice and a chance to present its
          evidence on the essential elements of the claim or defense'"). 
          In these circumstances, to preclude summary judgment on the First
          Amendment claim based on the government's failure to seek it
          explicitly would be to waste judicial resources for the sake of
          pointless technicality. We decline to do so.

               For the foregoing reasons, the summary judgment of the
          district court is affirmed.