Magee, et al v. BEA Construction Corp.

Filing

OPINION issued by Juan R. Torruella, Appellate Judge; Bruce M. Selya, Appellate Judge and Timothy Belcher Dyk, Appellate Judge. Published. [14-1541]

Case: 14-1541

Document: 00116871658

Page: 1

Date Filed: 08/05/2015

Entry ID: 5927678

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 14-1541
ROBERT MAGEE and ZORAIDA MAGEE,
Plaintiffs, Appellees,
v.
BEA CONSTRUCTION CORP.,
Defendant, Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Marcos E. López, U.S. Magistrate Judge]

Before
Torruella, Selya and Dyk,*
Circuit Judges.

Yuri J. Valenzuela-Flores on brief for appellant.
Rolando A. Silva, Armando A. Cardona, and Consultores Legales
Asociados, CSP on brief for appellees.

August 5, 2015

*

Of the Federal Circuit, sitting by designation.

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SELYA, Circuit Judge.
old-fashioned

contract

construction firm.

dispute

Date Filed: 08/05/2015

Entry ID: 5927678

This diversity case involves an
between

property

owners

and

a

Defendant-appellant BEA Construction Corp.

(BEA) failed to dissuade a jury from finding that it was on the
wrong side of the dispute and now challenges the sufficiency of
the evidence.

Since this challenge comes too late and offers too

little in the way of substance, we affirm.
We highlight the pertinent events, resolving any factual
conflicts in favor of the jury verdict.

See La Amiga del Pueblo,

Inc. v. Robles, 937 F.2d 689, 690 (1st Cir. 1991). The plaintiffs,
Robert Magee and his wife Zoraida, are citizens of New Jersey.
Having retired, they wished to build a vacation home in Vieques,
Puerto Rico.

To that end, they entered into an oral contract with

BEA in December of 2008 for the assembly of a prefabricated house
on a lot that they owned.

The plaintiffs gave BEA an $80,000 down

payment on the understanding that the project would be completed
within 16 months.

Work commenced shortly thereafter.

Roughly a year later, the parties' relationship began to
sour.

At that time, the plaintiffs requested that the project be

put on hold to accommodate Mr. Magee's failing health.

BEA agreed

to stop work and to reimburse the unspent portion ($74,406) of the
down payment.

But words are not always matched by deeds, and the

plaintiffs received only $1000.
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The parties subsequently entered into a second oral
agreement for the assembly of a smaller and cheaper home.
new

project

was

to

be

completed

within

four

months

This

and

the

plaintiffs were to receive credit against the contract price for
any monies owed to them with respect to the original project.

BEA

began receiving materials in May of 2011 but — by July of 2012 —
it had managed to do nothing more than dig a square hole and place
rebar columns in the ground.
The plaintiffs were disgruntled and, on September 7,
2012, repaired to the federal district court.

Citing diversity of

citizenship and the existence of a controversy in the requisite
amount, see 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a), they alleged that BEA had breached
sundry

contractual

obligations

while

construction of their home as agreed.

failing

to

complete

In addition to their

principal claim, the plaintiffs also asserted breach of contract
claims against two BEA officials (C. William Dey and Abigail
González).

BEA

counterclaimed,

contending

that

it

was

the

plaintiffs who had defaulted on the contractual arrangements.
Following extensive pretrial skirmishing (none of which
is relevant here), the case went to trial in April of 2014.1

After

the plaintiffs rested, the individual defendants (but not BEA)

By consent, a magistrate judge presided.
§ 636(c).
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See 28 U.S.C.

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moved for the entry of judgment as a matter of law.
Civ. P. 50(a).

Entry ID: 5927678

See Fed. R.

The court granted the individual defendants'

motions, accepting their arguments that the evidence afforded no
basis either for piercing the corporate veil or for otherwise
holding them personally liable.

The trial proceeded against BEA

alone.

On April 11, the jury returned a verdict wholly favorable

to

plaintiffs:

the

it

found

BEA

to

have

defaulted

on

its

contractual obligations, awarded $150,000 in damages, and rejected
the counterclaim.

BEA did not file any post-trial motions, but it

did file a timely notice of appeal.
Though BEA's appellate brief is not a model of clarity,
we construe it liberally and tease from its heated rhetoric three
lines of argument.

These lines of argument can be summarized as

follows: that the jury (i) erroneously found BEA in breach of its
contractual obligations; (ii) compounded this error by incorrectly
finding

that

the

plaintiffs

were

not

in

breach;

arbitrarily failed to credit pivotal testimony.

and

(iii)

A common thread

links the three components of this asseverational array: whether
viewed singly or in the ensemble, all of BEA's arguments boil down
to an attack on the sufficiency of the evidence.
That

attack

stumbles

at

the

threshold.

It

is

an

elementary principle that a party who wishes to challenge the
sufficiency of the evidence on appeal must first have sought
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appropriate relief in the trial court.

Entry ID: 5927678

See, e.g., Hammond v. T.J.

Litle & Co., 82 F.3d 1166, 1171 (1st Cir. 1996); La Amiga del
Pueblo,

937

F.2d

at

691.

Here,

however,

BEA

flouted

this

elementary principle — and there is a price to pay.
We need not tarry.

BEA could have moved for the entry

of judgment as a matter of law at various points during and after
the trial, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a)-(b), but it never deigned to
file such a motion at the close of the plaintiffs' case, at the
close of all the evidence, or even after the verdict.

By the same

token, BEA could have moved for a new trial following the verdict,
see Fed. R. Civ. P. 59, but it did not deign to do so.

BEA's

decision to forgo any and all of these anodynes precludes it from
challenging the legal sufficiency of the evidence for the first
time on appeal.

See, e.g., Cone v. W. Va. Pulp & Paper Co., 330

U.S. 212, 217-18 (1947); Hammond, 82 F.3d at 1171; La Amiga del
Pueblo, 937 F.2d at 691; Jusino v. Zayas, 875 F.2d 986, 991 (1st
Cir. 1989); LaForest v. Autoridad de Las Fuentes Fluviales de P.R.,
536 F.2d 443, 445 (1st Cir. 1976).
To be sure, even without an appropriate motion in the
trial court, an appellate court may, in the interests of justice,
examine the record to determine "whether there was an absolute
absence of evidentiary support for the jury's verdict."
del Pueblo, 937 F.2d at 691.

La Amiga

But such an inquiry will rarely bear
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fruit: after all, a party challenging a jury verdict on sufficiency
grounds faces an uphill climb even when the challenge has been
duly preserved.

See Climent-García v. Autoridad de Transporte

Marítimo y Las Islas Municipio, 754 F.3d 17, 20 (1st Cir. 2014).
An

unpreserved

exponentially

challenge

more

to

difficult.

evidentiary
Such

an

sufficiency

unpreserved

is

challenge

warrants review only for a showing of a clear and gross injustice.
See Surprenant v. Rivas, 424 F.3d 5, 13 (1st Cir. 2005); Muñiz v.
Rovira, 373 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 2004).2
On this chiaroscuro record, no clear and gross injustice
is evident.

The contractual arrangements between the parties were

oral, and the proof concerning their intentions, obligations, and
actions comprises a mixed bag.

Moreover, the case presents

substantial questions of credibility — questions that typically
lie within the jury's province.
43, 47 (1st Cir. 2003).

See Blake v. Pellegrino, 329 F.3d

Under such hazy circumstances, we cannot

say that no rational jury could have found in favor of the
plaintiffs.3

We have sometimes expressed this standard in terms of "plain
error resulting in a manifest miscarriage of justice." Hammond,
82 F.3d at 1172.
We regard this formulation as simply an
alternative expression of the "clear and gross injustice"
standard.
2

BEA argues vociferously that the verdict against it was
somehow inconsistent with the court's entry of judgment as a matter
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We need go no further.

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Entry ID: 5927678

The lesson of this case is that

"[c]ourts, like the Deity, are most frequently moved to help those
who help themselves."

Paterson-Leitch Co. v. Mass. Mun. Wholesale

Elec. Co., 840 F.2d 985, 989 (1st Cir. 1988).

BEA did little to

help itself, and ─ for the reasons elucidated above ─ the judgment
is

Affirmed.

of law for the individual defendants.
But there was no
inconsistency: the plaintiffs contracted with BEA, not with the
individuals.
Thus, it was BEA alone which bore the legal
responsibility for its failure to carry out those contractual
arrangements.
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