Segundo Melendez-Garcia v. Jorge L. Sanchez; George v. Hillyer

On April 30, 2001, Segundo Melandez-Garcia (“Melandez”), a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (“ROTC”) officer, was assaulted during a student protest on the University of Puerto Rico’s Rio Piedras campus (“the UPR-RP campus”). Due to the university’s non-confrontation policy, Puerto Rico Police Department (“PRPD”) officers were unable to come to his aid. In April 2002, Melandez sued various university officials pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging, among other things, that they had violated the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to protect him from injury. He also asserted various state-law claims. After protracted discovery, the district court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the federal-law claims and dismissed the state-law claims because it concluded that the parties were not diverse.

Melandez now contends that the district court (1) abused its discretion twice when ruling on discovery motions — first, by refusing to issue sanctions under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37 for the defendants’ alleged “massive discovery misconduct,” and second, by failing to grant Melandez’s motion to set aside summary judgment based on the same discovery misconduct; (2) improperly dismissed Melandez’s federal civil rights claims on the ground of qualified immunity; and (3) committed clear error in determining that there was no diversity jurisdiction. For the reasons stated hereinafter, we affirm all of the district court’s rulings.