Angela Lynn Zareas v. Luis Bared-San Martin; Ana Maria Bared-Espinosa; Conjugal Partnership Bared-Bared

Not For Publication in West's Federal Reporter.
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 06-1986
ANGELA LYNN ZAREAS,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
LUIS BARED-SAN MARTIN; ANA MARIA BARED-ESPINOSA;
CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP BARED-BARED,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Jay A. Garcia-Gregory, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Circuit Judge,
Selya, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Lipez, Circuit Judge.
Nicolás Nogueras-Cartagena and Juan José Nolla-Acosta, on
brief, for appellant.
Luis Sánchez Betances, Sánchez-Betances, Sifre, and Muñoz-Noya
& Rivera, P.S.C., on brief, for appellees.
April 11, 2007

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Per Curiam. This case arises from Angela Lynn Zareas's
allegation in a federal complaint that Luis Bared San Martin and
Ana Maria Bared Espinosa (the "Bareds") fraudulently deprived
Zareas of her property interest in an apartment she shared with her
then-husband, the Bareds' son. The Bareds filed a motion to
dismiss Zareas's complaint, arguing that it failed to allege the
minimum amount in controversy required for federal diversity
jurisdiction, see 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a), and that it neither stated
a claim on which relief could be granted under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) nor pled fraud with sufficient
particularity, as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b).
The Bareds also argued that questions relating to the ownership and
transfer of the contested apartment – upon which Zareas's complaint
was predicated – had been litigated to a final judgment in the
Puerto Rican courts and thus her claim was barred by principles of
res judicata. When the motion to dismiss went unanswered, the
district court dismissed Zareas's complaint for failure to oppose
and for the reasons stated in the Bareds' motion.
Although Zareas raises several claims of error on appeal,
we do not reach them. Zareas previously filed a federal lawsuit
under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
("RICO"), 18 U.S.C. § 1961 et. seq., alleging that the Bareds
engaged in the fraudulent sale of duty-free goods, as a result of
which she was deprived of her interest in the same property at

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issue in this complaint. We affirmed the dismissal of that lawsuit
in Zareas v. Bared-San Martin, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 30994 (1st Cir.
Dec. 15, 2006), ruling that we could not reopen the issue of
Zareas's claim to own the property at issue in that claim:
[T]he ownership of the disputed property was
addressed in Zareas's divorce proceedings by
the Puerto Rico Court of First Instance and
the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals. Both courts
found that Zareas has no ownership interest in
the property. This Court is bound by these
state court decisions pursuant to the full
faith and credit clause. 28 U.S.C. § 1738.
Id. at *3.
We apply federal principles of res judicata in
determining the import of this prior federal judgment. See Semtek
Int'l Inc. v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 531 U.S. 497, 507 (2001)
("[W]e have long held that States cannot give . . . [federal court]
judgments [in federal question cases] merely whatever effect they
would give their own judgments, but must accord them the effect
that this Court prescribes."). According to these principles, "a
final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or
their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been
raised in that action." Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 94 (1980).
In our opinion in the first federal action, we concluded that we
could not entertain Zareas's claim to own the property contested
here. That final decision on the merits precludes our further
review of this issue. Furthermore, we note that Zareas should have
raised her fraud theory in the original federal complaint.

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Accordingly, we affirm the district court's judgment
dismissing Zareas's complaint and award costs to appellees.
So ordered.

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