United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit
No. 23-1609
NEYZA CRUZ-CEDEÑO; SAVIER VÁZQUEZ-OYOLA; NAIDA CEDEÑO-MALDONADO; ABNER CRUZ-CEDEÑO; and AVID CRUZ-CEDEÑO,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
FERNANDO VEGA-MORAL and CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP VEGA-ROE,
Defendants, Appellees,
HIMA SAN PABLO BAYAMÓN; HOSPITAL PEDIÁTRICO UNIVERSITARIO DR. ANTONIO ORTÍZ; CENTRO SERVICIOS DE SALUD TOA ALTA LLC; ADMINISTRACIÓN DE SERVICIOS MÉDICOS DE PUERTO RICO; LUIS E. CINTRÓN-ORTÍZ; CMT, a/k/a HIMA SAN PABLO BAYAMÓN; JANE DOE; CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP CINTRÓN-DOE; SALLY ROE; JOHN DOE; JANEY DOE; and INSURERS A, B, C,
Defendants.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Aida M. Delgado-Colón, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Gelpí, Lipez, and Rikelman, Circuit Judges.
Juan M. Martínez-Nevárez, with whom González & Martínez, PSC, Mirelis Valle-Cancel, and Valle Cancel Law, LLC were on brief, for appellants.
Igor J. Domínguez, with whom Igor J. Domínguez Law Offices was on brief, for appellee Dr. Fernando Vega-Moral.
August 8, 2025 RIKELMAN, Circuit Judge. In October 2016, Neyza
Cruz-Cedeño and Savier Vázquez-Oyola sought medical treatment for
their infant son, who was suffering from convulsions and seizures.
After being treated at three medical centers on the same day, their
son suffered cardiac arrest and, tragically, passed away.
After filing an initial complaint in Commonwealth court,
the parents ultimately sued the medical centers and doctors in
federal court. Dr. Fernando Vega-Moral ("Dr. Vega"), one of the
doctors who treated their son, moved for summary judgment, arguing
that the parents' claims against him were filed too late. The
district court granted his motion, concluding that Dr. Vega had
properly raised a statute of limitations defense and the parents
had failed to meet their burden of proving that their federal
claims against him were timely. It then denied the parents' motion
for reconsideration on the ground that they relied on new arguments
that they should have presented much earlier in the case. We agree
with the district court's analysis and thus affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
In reviewing the district court's decision granting
summary judgment to Dr. Vega, we recite the facts in the record in
the light most favorable to the parents and draw all reasonable
inferences from those facts in their favor. See Klunder v. Brown
Univ., 778 F.3d 24, 30 (1st Cir. 2015).
- 3 - A. Relevant Facts
After their nineteen-month-old son began experiencing
convulsions and seizures on October 25, 2016, Cruz-Cedeño and
Vázquez-Oyola sought emergency medical treatment for him. They
first sought treatment at a health services center. After an hour
and a half, the center transferred their son to the HIMA San Pablo
Bayamón hospital ("HIMA"), where Dr. Vega treated him. A few hours
later, Dr. Vega decided that the child was stable enough to be
transferred to another hospital. Less than two hours after this
second transfer, however, the child suffered a cardiac arrest and
passed away.
B. Commonwealth Court Proceedings
In November 2017, the child's parents, grandmother, and
two uncles (collectively, "the parents") filed suit in
Commonwealth court, bringing medical malpractice and negligence
claims against the various medical centers, the unnamed doctors
who treated their son, and related defendants.1 The parents did
not identify any of the physician defendants, including Dr. Vega,
by name in their complaint. The trial court dismissed that case
without prejudice in May 2018.
1 Althoughthe parents filed their Commonwealth complaint more than one year after the child's death, and thus beyond the one-year statute of limitations under Puerto Rico law, the defendants concede that this complaint was timely because the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico extended all court deadlines that were set to expire during the Hurricane María state of emergency.
- 4 - C. Federal Court Proceedings
One year later, in May 2019, the parents filed a new
lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico
against the same medical centers, Dr. Vega, and related
defendants.2 Asserting diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1332, they alleged medical malpractice and negligence claims
under two provisions of the Puerto Rico Civil Code: Article 1802,
Puerto Rico's tort statute, and Article 1803, which establishes
vicarious liability for Article 1802 torts. See P.R. Laws Ann.
tit. 31, §§ 5141-5142. The district court dismissed the claims
against one medical center, Administración de Servicios Médicos de
Puerto Rico, with prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 12(b)(1). The parents also voluntarily dismissed their
claims against two other medical centers: Hospital Pediátrico
Universitario Dr. Antonio Ortíz, without prejudice; and HIMA, with
prejudice.
Dr. Vega moved for summary judgment, arguing that the
parents' federal complaint against him was time-barred. He
highlighted two specific points in his motion: first, the parents
2 The parents also brought the federal complaint against Dr. Luis Cintrón-Ortíz (another treating physician), as well as many unnamed defendants: the wives of Dr. Vega and Dr. Cintrón-Ortíz and their "conjugal partnerships," two additional doctors who treated the child, and three insurance companies. None of those defendants entered an appearance below, and they are not involved in this appeal.
- 5 - filed the Commonwealth complaint thirteen months after their son's
death, and thus after the one-year statute of limitations had
lapsed, and second, that complaint did not name Dr. Vega as a
defendant, so it did not toll the statute of limitations against
him under Puerto Rico law. Dr. Vega also submitted a statement of
undisputed facts alongside his motion but failed to attach five of
the six exhibits that he relied upon to substantiate those facts.
The parents opposed Dr. Vega's summary judgment motion,
but they contended only that their Commonwealth complaint was
timely because the Puerto Rico Supreme Court extended all court
deadlines during the Hurricane María state of emergency. They did
not address or explain how their initial Commonwealth complaint
tolled the statute of limitations specifically as to their federal
claims against Dr. Vega. Instead, they argued that it was
"impossible for [them] to properly respond" to Dr. Vega on this
issue because he failed to attach exhibits supporting his statement
of uncontested facts, which he filed with his motion.
The district court granted summary judgment to Dr. Vega
in March 2021. Cruz-Cedeño v. HIMA San Pablo Bayamón,
No. CV 19-1477, 2021 WL 4056295, at *5 (D.P.R. Mar. 31, 2021).
The court initially ruled that the parents' federal lawsuit was
filed within the applicable limitations period. As it explained,
the dismissal of the Commonwealth complaint reset the one-year
statute of limitations available under Puerto Rico law. See id.
- 6 - at *4. And after taking judicial notice of the dismissal date of
the Commonwealth complaint, "as it appears in the Commonwealth
Court's electronic case database," the court calculated that the
federal lawsuit was filed less than one year later. See id. at *1
n.2, *4. (The court also noted that the filing and dismissal dates
of the Commonwealth lawsuit were discussed in the parents' federal
complaint. See id. at *2 nn.3-4.) Next, the court concluded that,
once Dr. Vega raised a statute of limitations defense in his
answer, the burden of proof shifted to the parents to demonstrate
that the limitations period was tolled specifically as to him,
given that he was not named in the Commonwealth complaint. See
id. at *4-5. Finally, the court held that the parents' "failure
to submit competent evidence showing that the one-year statute of
limitations was tolled as to Dr. Vega via the filing of the
[Commonwealth] complaint is fatal to their case against him" and,
"[a]bsent such evidence, their federal claims . . . are
time-barred." Id. at *5.
The parents promptly filed a "motion for reconsideration
and request to be heard on sua sponte judicial notice" on the
district court's grant of summary judgment to Dr. Vega. They
raised five new arguments in their motion for reconsideration:
(i) that the burden never shifted to them to prove that they had
tolled the statute of limitations as to Dr. Vega; (ii) that, if
the burden had shifted, the court should allow them to submit
- 7 - evidence of tolling now, under the excusable neglect doctrine;
(iii) that the court should reconsider summary judgment to
"prevent manifest injustice"; (iv) that the statute of limitations
was tolled against Dr. Vega because he shared "perfect solidarity"
with HIMA, a defendant named in the Commonwealth complaint; and
(v) that Dr. Vega waived his statute of limitations defense by not
raising it in his answer. The parents also contended that the
district court should not have taken sua sponte judicial notice of
the Commonwealth complaint's filing and dismissal dates.
The district court denied the motion for reconsideration
in February 2022, concluding that none of the parents' arguments
relied on "newly discovered evidence" or revealed any "manifest
error[s] of law" in the court's summary judgment ruling.
Cruz-Cedeño v. HIMA San Pablo Bayamón, No. CV 19-1477, 2022 WL
426938, at *1-3 (D.P.R. Feb. 11, 2022). The court did not
explicitly address the parents' "request to be heard on sua sponte
judicial notice."
The parents appealed to our court. In September 2023,
Dr. Vega moved to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction,
arguing that the appeal was untimely under Federal Rule of
Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1). In November 2023, we rejected Dr.
Vega's jurisdictional argument and denied his motion to dismiss.
Nevertheless, we instructed both parties to address a different
jurisdictional issue in their briefs to us: "whether the remaining
- 8 - unserved defendants, named and unnamed, impact finality and this
court's appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291."
II. JURISDICTION
We begin with the question posed in our November 2023
order: whether the remaining unserved defendants undermine the
finality of the district court's judgment and our appellate
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. This is an issue of first
impression in our circuit. See Barrett ex rel. Est. of Barrett v.
United States, 462 F.3d 28, 33 (1st Cir. 2006) (declining to decide
this issue). And, despite our order posing this question to the
parties, neither Dr. Vega nor the parents addressed it in their
briefs to us. But we conclude that we can bypass this statutory
jurisdiction question because we resolve the merits in favor of
Dr. Vega, who is also the party who would "benefit from a finding
that jurisdiction is wanting." Caribbean Mgmt. Grp., Inc. v.
Erikon LLC, 966 F.3d 35, 41 (1st Cir. 2020) ("When an appeal raises
an enigmatic question of statutory jurisdiction and the merits are
easily resolved in favor of the party who would benefit from a
finding that jurisdiction is wanting, we may bypass the
jurisdictional inquiry and proceed directly to the merits.").
III. DISCUSSION
The parents argue that the district court was wrong to
grant summary judgment to Dr. Vega on statute of limitations
grounds and to deny their motion for reconsideration of that
- 9 - ruling. On appeal, however, the parents do not contend that they
met their burden to establish that their federal complaint against
Dr. Vega was timely. Instead, they claim that the burden of proof
to establish timeliness never shifted to them at all, and that,
even if it did, the district court should have reconsidered its
summary judgment ruling after reviewing their Commonwealth
complaint. We address each of their arguments in turn.
A. Summary Judgment Ruling
We review the district court's grant of summary judgment
"de novo, 'scrutiniz[ing] the facts in the light most agreeable'
to [the parents] and drawing all reasonable inferences in [their]
favor." Klunder, 778 F.3d at 30 (first alteration in original)
(quoting Foote v. Town of Bedford, 642 F.3d 80, 82 (1st Cir.
2011)). "We will affirm only if the record, so viewed, discloses
that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the
moving party [here, Dr. Vega] is entitled to judgment as a matter
of law." Id. (quoting Santiago v. Puerto Rico, 655 F.3d 61, 68
(1st Cir. 2011)).
The parents raise two arguments as to why the district
court erred in granting summary judgment to Dr. Vega on statute of
limitations grounds. Both of their arguments depend on the premise
that the burden to prove timeliness never shifted to them, contrary
to the district court's holding. First, the parents contend that
Dr. Vega waived his statute of limitations affirmative defense by
- 10 - not raising it in his answer. Second, and alternatively, they
maintain that Dr. Vega did not properly support his summary
judgment motion.
Because the parents invoked the federal district court's
diversity jurisdiction, we apply Puerto Rico substantive law and
federal procedural law under the Erie doctrine. See Quality
Cleaning Prods. R.C., Inc. v. SCA Tissue North Am., LLC, 794 F.3d
200, 204 (1st Cir. 2015) (citing Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304
U.S. 64, 78 (1938)). Whether Dr. Vega properly asserted a statute
of limitations defense in his answer is a procedural question
controlled by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See, e.g.,
Jordan v. Kelly, 728 F.2d 1, 1, 3-4 (1st Cir. 1984) (in diversity
case alleging only violations of Puerto Rico law, applying Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 8(c)(1) to determine whether affirmative
defense was "properly asserted" in the pleadings). But which party
bears the burden of proof to demonstrate timeliness depends on
Puerto Rico's substantive statute of limitations law. See
Rodríguez v. Suzuki Motor Corp., 570 F.3d 402, 406 (1st Cir. 2009).
As we explain, our analysis of these two legal issues reveals no
basis for disturbing the district court's grant of summary judgment
to Dr. Vega.
- 11 - 1. Did Dr. Vega properly assert a statute of limitations defense?
The parents argue that Dr. Vega failed to raise a statute
of limitations defense in his answer, so the district court erred
in granting him summary judgment on that ground. Specifically,
they contend that Dr. Vega failed to comply with Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 8(c), which requires that, in response to a
pleading, "a party must affirmatively state any . . . affirmative
defense, including: . . . statute of limitations." Fed. R. Civ.
P. 8(c). In pressing this argument, the parents acknowledge that
Dr. Vega alleged that "the statute of limitations has tolled" in
a section of his answer entitled "affirmative defenses." However,
they characterize this statement as an admission by Dr. Vega,
favorable to them, "that the statute of limitations had in fact
been tolled." Dr. Vega responds that his answer should have read
that "the statute of limitations has not tolled," and his omission
of the word "not" was simply a "clerical error."
But as the district court determined in ruling on the
motion for reconsideration, the parents never made this particular
argument about Rule 8(c) in their opposition to Dr. Vega's summary
judgment motion. See Cruz-Cedeño, 2022 WL 426938, at *2. We
conclude that the district court did not err in failing to credit
an argument that the parents never presented. Instead, we
determine that the parents waived this argument by failing to raise
- 12 - it to the district court prior to its summary judgment ruling.
See Merrimon v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of Am., 758 F.3d 46, 57 (1st
Cir. 2014) ("If a party fails to assert a legal reason why summary
judgment should not be granted, that ground is waived and cannot
be considered or raised on appeal." (quoting Grenier v. Cyanamid
Plastics, Inc., 70 F.3d 667, 678 (1st Cir. 1995))).
2. Did the burden shift to the parents to prove timeliness?
The parents next contend that, even if Dr. Vega raised
a statute of limitations defense in his answer, the burden to prove
the timeliness of their federal claims never shifted to them due
to deficiencies in Dr. Vega's summary judgment motion. The parents
do not dispute that their claims against Dr. Vega under the
relevant Puerto Rico statutes, Articles 1802 and 1803 of the Civil
Code, are subject to a one-year statute of limitations. See P.R.
Laws Ann. tit. 31, §§ 5141-5142, 5298(2). Nor do they dispute
that the limitations period began running in October 2016 and that
they did not bring a claim against Dr. Vega by name until two and
a half years later, when they filed the federal lawsuit in
May 2019. Thus, the parties agree that, unless the limitations
period was effectively tolled or reset as to Dr. Vega, the parents'
federal claims against him are time-barred.
Under Puerto Rico law, "[a]lthough prescription is an
affirmative defense, once it has been raised, the burden of proving
that prescription has been interrupted shifts to the plaintiff."
- 13 - Rodríguez, 570 F.3d at 406 (quoting Tokyo Marine & Fire Ins. Co.,
Ltd. v. Perez & Cia., De P.R., Inc., 142 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 1998)
(citing Supreme Court of Puerto Rico cases)).3 And, when opposing
a summary judgment motion, as the parents did, they were required
to present "definite, competent evidence" to rebut the motion on
all issues as to which they bore "the ultimate burden of proof."
Pina v. Children's Place, 740 F.3d 785, 795-96 (1st Cir. 2014)
(quoting Mesnick v. Gen. Elec. Co., 950 F.2d 816, 822 (1st Cir.
1991)). That legal obligation included offering evidence to
establish that the statute of limitations was tolled or reset
against Dr. Vega in particular.
The parents did not present any "definite, competent
evidence" in their opposition to Dr. Vega's summary judgment
motion. Instead, they contended that deficiencies in Dr. Vega's
motion -- namely, his failure to attach exhibits supporting his
statement of uncontested facts -- prevented the burden of proof
from shifting to them at all. The parents re-urge this contention
3 Puerto Rico law refers interchangeably to "statute of limitations" and "prescription." See, e.g., Rodríguez, 570 F.3d at 406 ("The statute of limitations or prescriptive period for such tort actions begins to run 'from the time the aggrieved person has knowledge thereof.'" (quoting P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, § 5298(2))). It also refers interchangeably to "tolling" or "interrupting" the statute of limitations. See, e.g., id. at 407 ("Article 1873 of Puerto Rico's Civil Code provides three mechanisms by which the prescription of actions can be interrupted or 'tolled' . . . ."). To avoid confusion, we use the terms "statute of limitations" and "tolling" in this opinion.
- 14 - on appeal, but the difficulty with their argument is that they do
not identify any cases in which a court has so held. To be sure,
the parents do cite our opinion in an age discrimination case to
support their proposition that, at the summary judgment stage, the
burden shifts to the non-moving party "[o]nce a properly documented
motion has engaged the gears of Rule 56." Suarez v. Pueblo Int'l,
Inc., 229 F.3d 49, 53 (1st Cir. 2000) (quoting McCarthy v. Nw.
Airlines, Inc., 56 F.3d 313, 315 (1st Cir. 1995)). But we did not
expound in Suarez on what "proper[] document[ation]" would be
required to "engage[] the gears of Rule 56" in a dispute over
whether a statute of limitations had lapsed, let alone apply such
a rule to hold that the burden of proving the tolling of a statute
of limitations did not shift to the plaintiff. Id. at 53, 56.
To the contrary, when reviewing summary judgment rulings
applying Puerto Rico tort law, we have found that defendants need
only "show[] that the action was filed more than one year after
the incident occurred" to shift the burden to plaintiffs to create
a material factual dispute as to the tolling of the limitations
period. Bonilla-Aviles v. Southmark San Juan, Inc., 992 F.2d 391,
393 (1st Cir. 1993). And, in Bonilla-Aviles, we affirmed the
district court's grant of summary judgment to the defendants on
the ground that the plaintiffs' failure to introduce evidence "to
support their claim that the statute was tolled . . . was fatal."
Id.; see also Klunder, 778 F.3d at 36-37 (affirming grant of
- 15 - summary judgment on timeliness grounds after plaintiff failed to
prove that the statute of limitations tolled).
Here, as we have explained, the undisputed facts
established that the federal complaint against Dr. Vega was filed
more than one year after the child's death. The district court
also noted the facts alleged by the parents in their federal
complaint about when the Commonwealth case was filed and dismissed,
see Cruz-Cedeño, 2021 WL 4056295, at *2 & nn.3-4, which was proper
because Rule 56 allows district courts to consider the pleadings
in ruling on a summary judgment motion, see Fed. R. Civ.
P. 56(c)(3). Thus, given that Dr. Vega raised a limitations
defense in his answer, the district court was right to conclude
that "the burden of proving that [the statute of limitations] ha[d]
been [tolled] shift[ed] to the [parents]." Rodríguez, 570 F.3d at
406 (quoting Tokyo Marine, 142 F.3d at 4).
3. Did the district court err in determining the parents had failed to meet their burden to prove timeliness?
The parents do not contend that, in opposing Dr. Vega's
summary judgment motion, they met their burden to prove that their
federal claims against him were timely. And, indeed, we agree
with the district court's conclusion that they did not.
Under Puerto Rico law, the parents had to meet two
requirements to show that their federal claims against Dr. Vega
were not time-barred. Initially, they had to prove that the
- 16 - statute of limitations had not yet expired when they filed their
federal complaint. See id. at 406-07 (citing P.R. Laws Ann.
tit. 31, § 5303). Next, they had to establish that their federal
lawsuit against Dr. Vega was functionally "identical" to their
Commonwealth complaint to demonstrate that the statute of
limitations was tolled specifically with respect to him. Id. at
409. To do so, the parents needed to demonstrate that their
federal complaint (i) "[sought] the same form of relief" as their
Commonwealth complaint, (ii) was "based on the same substantive
claims," and (iii) was "asserted against the same defendants in
the same capacities." Id. (quoting Rodríguez-García v. Mun. of
Caguas, 354 F.3d 91, 98 (1st Cir. 2004)). The parents could
sidestep the final requirement only if another Puerto Rico statute
applied to toll the limitations period against new defendants.
See id.
In opposing summary judgment before the district court,
the parents addressed only the first requirement above, arguing
that their federal complaint was timely despite being filed years
after their son's death because the statute of limitations was
either tolled or reset three times.4 The parents did not explain
The parents contended that the statute of limitations was 4
tolled twice: when the Puerto Rico Supreme Court issued an order during Hurricane María extending deadlines until December 1, 2017, see supra note 1, and then again when the parents timely filed their Commonwealth complaint on November 30, 2017. The parents
- 17 - how their federal claims against Dr. Vega were "asserted against
the same defendant[]" as their Commonwealth claims when the
Commonwealth complaint did not name Dr. Vega as a defendant at
all. Instead, the parents merely contended that they could not
address Dr. Vega's argument that the two complaints were not
identical because his motion "lack[ed] supporting evidence."
Thus, the undisputed facts demonstrate that the parents failed to
meet their burden, during the summary judgment proceedings, to
prove that their federal claims against Dr. Vega were filed within
the limitations period.
B. Motion for Reconsideration Ruling
We review a district court's denial of a motion for
reconsideration for a "manifest abuse of discretion." City of
Miami Firefighters' & Police Officers' Ret. Tr. v. CVS Health
Corp., 46 F.4th 22, 36 (1st Cir. 2022).5 "The granting of a motion
for reconsideration is an extraordinary remedy which should be
used sparingly." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting
also claimed that the one-year statute of limitations reset on May 21, 2018, when their Commonwealth complaint was dismissed without prejudice, so their federal complaint filed less than one year later, on May 20, 2019, was also timely.
Even though the parents do not expressly ask us to reverse 5
the denial of their motion for reconsideration in their appellate briefs, they appealed the district court's order denying their motion for reconsideration in the notice of appeal. We assume without deciding that the appeal of the motion for reconsideration is preserved.
- 18 - Palmer v. Champion Mortg., 465 F.3d 24, 30 (1st Cir. 2006)).
Motions for reconsideration "'do[] not provide a vehicle for a
party to undo its own procedural failures' or to 'introduce new
evidence or advance arguments that could and should have been
presented to the district court prior to judgment.'" Quality
Cleaning Prods., 794 F.3d at 208 (quoting Emmanuel v. Int'l Bhd.
of Teamsters, Loc. Union No. 25, 426 F.3d 416, 422 (1st Cir.
2005)).
The parents contend that the district court erred in
refusing to reevaluate its summary judgment ruling after they
submitted a copy of their Commonwealth complaint with their motion
for reconsideration. They explain that, had the district court
reviewed the Commonwealth complaint, it would have "inevitably
denied" summary judgment to Dr. Vega because the complaint "clearly
references him as an unknown defendant." As they argued to the
district court and re-iterate to our court, because Dr. Vega was
"included as an unknown defendant and . . . properly identif[ied]"
in the Commonwealth complaint, the complaint triggered Puerto
Rico's solidarity doctrine.6 As a result, they claim that tolling
the statute of limitations as to HIMA (which was named in the
6 PuertoRico's solidarity doctrine is "rooted in Article 1874 of the Civil Code" and "similar to" the concept of "joint and several liability." Rodríguez, 570 F.3d at 410 & n.6 (quoting Tokyo Marine, 142 F.3d at 4 n.1); see also P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, § 5304.
- 19 - Commonwealth complaint) also tolled the statute of limitations as
On appeal to us, the parents maintain that the district
court should have reviewed the Commonwealth complaint submitted
with their motion for reconsideration for multiple reasons. They
claim that refusing to consider the substance of the complaint was
an abuse of discretion because: (i) doing so would not have
"cause[d] prejudice to Dr. Vega" or "delay[ed] the proceedings,"
(ii) the parents chose not to file the complaint with their summary
judgment opposition brief due to their "good faith" belief that
"the burden of proof had never shifted" to them, (iii) granting
summary judgment to Dr. Vega on this ground is "too harsh of a
consequence" and "clearly offend[s] equity," and (iv) the district
court erred in taking judicial notice of the Commonwealth
complaint's filing and dismissal dates without granting the
parents "an opportunity to be heard."
Although we are sympathetic to the parents'
circumstances, we are not persuaded that they have identified any
"manifest abuse[s] of discretion" by the district court. CVS
Health Corp., 46 F.4th at 36. The parents fail to cite any case
law supporting their first and third arguments or explain why the
usual rules of litigation must not apply here. See United States
v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990) ("[I]ssues adverted to
in a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort at developed
- 20 - argumentation, are deemed waived."). As to their second argument,
it would have been a simple matter for the parents to attach the
Commonwealth complaint to their opposition to Dr. Vega's summary
judgment motion as part of a belt-and-suspenders approach. That
the parents opted not to do so, based on a view that Dr. Vega's
own submissions fell short, does not demonstrate an abuse of
discretion by the district court. As for the last argument, we do
not see why taking judicial notice of the two dates without
providing the parents an opportunity to be heard constitutes an
abuse of discretion when the parents previously admitted both facts
to the district court.
All in all, the arguments the parents raised in their
motion for reconsideration simply came too late. We cannot
conclude that the district court erred in denying a motion for
reconsideration based on arguments that the parents could have put
forward much earlier. See Quality Cleaning Prods., 794 F.3d at
208.
Thus, we find no reason to disturb the district court's
rulings.
IV. CONCLUSION
For all these reasons, we affirm.
- 21 -