Calderon v. Internal Medicine Canovanas Group, Corp.

Opinion

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

LUZ CALDERÓN,

Plaintiff, Civil No. 22-1240 (ADC)

v.

INTERNAL MEDICINE CANÓVANAS

GROUP CORP., et al.,

Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER Before the Court is a motion to set aside the Court’s Opinion and Order of September 10, 2025, ECF No. 79, filed by plaintiff Luz Calderón (“Calderón” or “plaintiff”) on September 11, 2025, ECF No. 80. Plaintiff raises two primary bases for which she claims the Opinion and Order should be set aside. First, that plaintiff has a viable Rehabilitation Act claim which the Opinion and Order did not address, and secondly, that the Court misapplied the six-part test set forth in Dudley v. Hannaford Bros. Co., 333 F.3d 299 (1st Cir. 2003), in granting summary judgment. For the reasons set forth below, the plaintiff’s motion is DENIED. I. Legal Standard “[A] motion for reconsideration should be granted if the court ‘has patently misunderstood a party . . . or has made an error not of reasoning but [of] apprehension.’” Ruiz Rivera v. Pfizer Pharm., LLC, 521 F.3d 76, 81-82 (1st Cir. 2008) (quoting Sandoval-Díaz v. Sandoval- Orozco, 2005 WL 1501672, at *2 (D.P.R. June 24, 2005)). Moreover, a motion for reconsideration must “either clearly establish a manifest error of law or . . . present newly discovered evidence.” Marks 3 Zet-Ernst Marks GmBh & Co. KG v. Presstek, Inc., 455 F.3d 7, 15 (1st Cir. 2006); see also Villanueva-Méndez, 360 F. Supp. 2d at 325 (“The Court may grant a party's motion for

reconsideration if the movant presents new evidence not previously available, an intervening change in controlling law or the need to correct a clear error of law. . . .”). “[T]he district court has substantial discretion and broad authority to grant or deny such a motion.” Ruiz Rivera, 521 F.3d at 81 (quoting United States v. 5 Bell Rock Rd., 896 F.2d 605, 611 (1st Cir.1990)).

I. Plaintiff’s Rehabilitation Act Claims Plaintiff claims that “[t]he Court’s Opinion and Order . . . fails to analyze or dismiss [plaintiff’s Section 504 Rehabilitation Act] claim.” ECF No. 80, at 8-11. This is incorrect. The

Court’s Opinion and Order explicitly addresses plaintiff’s Section 504 Rehabilitation Act claims: The Court notes here that plaintiff’s claims under the Rehabilitation Act requested relief in the form of damages and declaratory relief. ECF No. 12-1, at ¶¶ A (“A declaratory judgment providing that the Respondent has violated the requirements of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. . . “), E (“Compensatory damages under the Rehabilitation Act.”), F (“Nominal damages . . . . [for] violation of the Rehabilitation Act. . . .”). Plaintiff voluntarily dismissed her claims for damages, ECF Nos. 40, 43, and the Court declines herein to grant declaratory judgment. See El Dia, Inc. v. Hernandez-Colón, 963 F.2d 488, 493 (1st Cir. 1992) (“[D]eclaratory relief, both by its very nature and under the plain language of 28 U.S.C. § 2201, is discretionary.”). Thus, the Court does not address plaintiff’s Rehabilitation Act claims in this Opinion and Order.

Opinion and Order, ECF No. 79, at 3 n. 1. Plaintiff voluntarily dismissed her damages claims, ECF Nos. 40, 43, and the Court declined to grant declaratory judgment for the Rehabilitation Act claims. ECF No. 79. There are no remaining relief claims for the Court to address under the Rehabilitation Act, and thus no remaining relief for the Court to consider or apportion.

II. Application of the Dudley Standard Plaintiff opines that the Court’s application of Dudley, requiring that plaintiff have informed the defendant of barriers prior to filing suit, constitutes “a profound miscarriage of justice” and “reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of disability discrimination law.” ECF

No. 80, at 11, 13. Yet this very same attorney has litigated before the Court on multiple occasions where the Court applied the Dudley standard in discussing pre-suit notice under Title III of the ADA.

See Vélez-Rodríguez v. Didaxis, Inc., No. CV 23-1287 (RAM), 2024 WL 3347228, at *4 (D.P.R. July 8, 2024); Betancourt-Colón v. Supermercados Maximo, Inc., No. CV 3:22-01274 (GMM), 2024 WL 2702330, at *11 (D.P.R. May 23, 2024); Betancourt-Colón v. Puerto Rico Convention Ctr. Dist. Auth., No. CV 22-01288 (MAJ), 2023 WL 5163320, at *4 (D.P.R. Aug. 11, 2023); Betancourt-Colón v. Kimco

PR Mgmt. Corp., Civ. No. 22-1055 (DRD), 2023 WL 6393065 (D.P.R. Sept. 30, 2023). Thus, the argument that a “pre-suit notice requirement . . . does not exist under Title III” and that the notice “requirement simply does not exist in federal law” is erroneous. ECF No. 80, at 1-2; Dudley

v. Hannaford Bros. Co., 333 F.3d 299 (1st Cir. 2003). Plaintiff’s references regarding administrative exhaustion of remedies fails to show any manifest error of law and are inapposite; the notice at issue here is a pre-suit notice to the entity alleged to have violated the ADA, not any notice to state or local administrative authorities. ECF No. 80, at 3-5 (citing Medina-Rodríguez v. Fernández Bakery, Inc., 255 F. Supp. 3d 33, 340 (D.P.R.

2017) (“The weight of recent authority, however, allows the Court to conclude that Title III of the ADA imposes no requirement to provide notice to state or local authority or to exhaust administrative remedies prior to filing suit.” (emphasis added))). Finally, although plaintiff is correct in noting that the Dudley test originates from an ADA

Title III case regarding a request to modify discriminatory policies and practices, this Court has applied the Dudley test to assess standing broadly for “Title III claim[s].” See, e.g., Vélez- Rodríguez, 2024 WL 3347228, at *4; Martínez v. Nat'l Univ. Coll., No. CV 18-1975 (DRD), 2020 WL

1933646, at *4 (D.P.R. Apr. 21, 2020). Moreover, the Court maintains that the application of the Dudley test to plaintiff’s Title III claims in the instant case was appropriate, given that plaintiff claimed discrimination based on the intertwined ADA Title III claims related to architectural barriers, namely: (i) defendant’s failure to remove architectural barriers and (ii) defendant’s

policy and practice of failing to remove architectural barriers. ECF No. 12-1, at 14-20. The Court finds that plaintiff’s arguments regarding reconsideration fail to demonstrate any manifest error of law. Accordingly, and for the reasons stated above, the Court DENIES plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration at ECF No. 80.1 The Clerk of Court is to enter judgment accordingly.

SO ORDERED.

At San Juan, Puerto Rico, on this 30th day of September, 2025.

S/AIDA M. DELGADO-COLÓN United States District Judge

1 Accordingly, defendants’ request for extension of time (ECF No. 81) in which to respond to plaintiff’s request for reconsideration is DENIED as MOOT.