19-13926 Chiquita 11th Cir Opinion
19-13926 Chiquita 11th Cir Opinion
19-13926 Chiquita 11th Cir Opinion
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[PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 19-13926
____________________
Defendant-Appellee
Cross-Appellant,
Defendants,
KEITH E. LINDNER,
CHARLES KEISER,
CARLA A. HILLS, as representative of the Estate
of RODERICK M. HILLS, SR.,
CYRUS FRIEDMAN,
ROBERT F. KISTINGER,
ROBERT W. OLSON,
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WILLIAM A. TSACALIS,
Defendants-Appellees
Cross-Appellants.
Plaintiffs,
DOE 378,
LUDY RIVAS BORJA as daughter and successor
to DOE 840 (deceased),
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
Cross-Appellees.
____________________
district court got some right and some wrong. As to the merits, we
hold that most of the bellwether plaintiffs presented sufficient evi-
dence to withstand summary judgment with respect to whether
the AUC was responsible for the deaths of their decedents. On the
cross-appeals, we do not reach the arguments presented by the in-
dividual defendants and Ms. Hills. 1
I2
Between 1997 and 2004, Chiquita Brands International paid
over $1.7 million to the AUC, a paramilitary group designated as a
foreign terrorist organization by the United States Secretary of
State. During this time, Colombia was in the midst of a civil war
between paramilitary groups, like the AUC, and guerillas. “[T]he
AUC was closely aligned—and even intertwined—with the Colom-
bian [government] through its ideologies and practices that re-
volved around their shared goals of eliminating the ‘subversive’
threat posed by guerrilla groups.” D.E. 2346-5 at 1. See also D.E.
2346-1 at 2. The AUC “controll[ed] territory by terror,” App. 8531,
and was well known for perpetrating violence not just against
1 We thank the district court for its extensive work and thorough opinion in
this complex MDL proceeding.
2 Inciting to the voluminous record, we refer to docket entries wherever pos-
sible, but occasionally cite to the appendices filed by the plaintiffs. Although
the plaintiffs filed certain documents under seal, they have referred to and
quoted from several of those sealed documents in their publicly-filed briefs.
So we, too, use those portions of the sealed filings to the extent we find it
necessary.
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guerrilla fighters, but also against innocent civilians. See D.E. 2346-
1 at 2; D.E. 2348-4 at 19–20.
Eventually, the United States learned of Chiquita’s pay-
ments to the AUC and charged the company with engaging in
transactions with a specially-designated global terrorist organiza-
tion. Chiquita pled guilty to the charge in 2007. See Plea Agree-
ment, D.E. 11, United States v. Chiquita Brands Int’l, Case No. 07-
CR-00055-RCL (D.D.C. Mar. 19, 2007).
In response, many people who suspected the AUC of killing
their family members and loved ones sued a number of defendants,
including Chiquita and some of its executives. As relevant here,
the bellwether plaintiffs asserted tort claims under Colombian law
and federal claims under the Torture Victim Protection Act, 28
U.S.C. § 1350 note, alleging that the defendants’ financial support
of the AUC led to the group’s murder of their family members and
loved ones. The plaintiffs conceded that to prevail on their claims
they had to “show, as a factual predicate for all of their claims, that
the AUC was responsible for the murder of each decedent.” D.E.
2551 at 4. 3
3 With respect to Chiquita, the only bellwether claims left are those brought
under Colombian law. See In re Chiquita Brands Int’l, Inc. Derivative Litig.,
2019 WL 11497632, at *2 (S.D. Fla. Sept. 5, 2019). See also Mohamad v. Pales-
tinian Auth., 566 U.S. 449, 461 (2012) (holding that the TVPA “did not extend
liability to organizations, sovereign or not”); Cardona v. Chiquita Brands Int’l,
Inc., 760 F.3d 1185, 1188–89 (11th Cir. 2014) (dismissing similar claims against
Chiquita under the TVPA and the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350).
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4 The district court entered partial final judgment pursuant to Rule 54(b) in
favor of the defendants as to the bellwether plaintiffs’ claims under Colombian
law and the TVPA.
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district court erred, we mean to say that the district court abused
its discretion in one of these ways.
With this standard in mind, we turn to the contested eviden-
tiary rulings. 5
A
The Non-Wolf plaintiffs argued below that several pieces of
evidence—the indictment of AUC leader Raúl Hasbún and several
letters from Colombian prosecutors—were admissible under the
business record and public record exceptions to the hearsay rule.
See Fed. R. Evid. 803(6), 803(8). The Wolf plaintiffs made the same
argument as to certain letters from prosecutors. The district court
excluded the evidence from both sets of plaintiffs. We conclude
that the Hasbún indictment was admissible under both exceptions,
that the Non-Wolf plaintiffs’ letters must be reconsidered under
Rule 803(8) on remand, and that the Wolf plaintiffs’ letters were
properly excluded.
A document is admissible as a business record under Rule
803(6) if (1) it was made at or near the time of an event by someone
with knowledge, (2) it was kept in the regular course of business,
(3) it was the organization’s regular practice to make such a record,
(4) a qualified witness is able to testify to these facts, and (5) the
opponent of the document does not show a lack of
6The chart included the decedents of these four plaintiffs. Those decedents
are Ceferino Antonio Restrepo Tangarife, Miguel Angel Cardona Muñoz,
Waynesty Machado Durango, and John Doe 8.
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7For additional background on the Justice and Peace Act, see, e.g., Courtney
Hillebrecht et al., The Judicialization of Peace, 59 Harv. Int’l L.J. 279 (2018),
and José E. Arvelo, International Law and Conflict Resolution in Colombia:
Balancing Peace and Justice in the Paramilitary Demobilization Process, 37
Geo. J. Int’l L. 411 (2006).
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the [one] whose first-hand knowledge was the basis of the facts
sought to be proved.” Bueno-Sierra, 99 F.3d at 379. See 5 Wein-
stein’s Fed. Evid. § at 803.08[8][a] (“The phrase [a ‘]qualified wit-
ness’ is given a very broad interpretation. The witness need only
have enough familiarity with the record-keeping system of the en-
tity in question to explain how the record came into existence . . . .
In fact, the witness need not even be an employee of the record-
keeping entity . . . .”). The declaration shows that Mr. Sánchez
León is such a witness. He is a Colombian lawyer and the Director
of the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Vir-
ginia School of Law. And he is “deeply familiar” with the Justice
and Peace process through which the Hasbún indictment was pre-
pared, as well as the legal framework behind it. See D.E. 2510-1 at
¶ 6.
The Hasbún indictment also meets the requirements of the
public records hearsay exception under Rule 803(8). It sets forth
the findings of the Justice and Peace prosecutors that Mr. Hasbún
was responsible for the listed homicides, which satisfies Rule
803(8)(A)(iii). Mr. Sánchez León stated that persons making false
confessions are subject to perjury charges in Colombia, and prose-
cutors must corroborate a confession through an independent in-
vestigation. These matters tend to show that the indictment is
trustworthy absent evidence to the contrary from the defendants.
Cf. Mike’s Train House, Inc. v. Lionel, LLC, 472 F.3d 398, 412 (6th
Cir. 2006) (“The notices of arrest, Korean complaint, and the inves-
tigative reports are generally admissible under the public-records
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9Given our ruling, the plaintiffs’ motion to supplement the appellate record
and/or for judicial notice as to the Hasbún indictment is denied as moot.
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10 The district court quoted an earlier version of Rule 803(8) which required
that “neither the source of the information nor other circumstances indicate a
lack of trustworthiness.” D.E. 2551 at 34. As noted earlier, the current and
applicable version requires that the opponent show untrustworthiness.
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the appellate record and/or for judicial notice as to the letters from the Justice
and Peace prosecutors. And we express no view on whether the references to
Mr. Mangones’ confession in some of the letters present a hearsay-within-
hearsay issue. Cf. United Techs. Corp. v. Mazer, 556 F.3d 1260, 1278 (11th
Cir. 2009) (“[P]lacing otherwise inadmissible hearsay statements by third-par-
ties into a government report does not make the statements admissible.”).
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12The district court also ruled that the Mangones sentencia and the Rendón
Herrera judgment were not properly authenticated. Because we conclude in
Part II.C that those documents were not admissible, we do not consider their
authenticity here.
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PDVSA US Litig. Tr. v. Lukoil Pan Ams., LLC, 991 F.3d 1187, 1191
(11th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
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The district court ruled that the Hasbún indictment and the
prosecutor letters were not properly authenticated because they
were not self-authenticating, did not fall under the good cause al-
ternative, and the plaintiffs did not identify how they would obtain
the required authentication documents prior to trial. The court
noted that the plaintiffs conceded that the documents did not yet
have a final certification required to be self-authenticating. It also
concluded that the plaintiffs had not shown good cause for the lack
of final certification. The court acknowledged that the plaintiffs
stated that they “intend[ed], before trial, to obtain certified copies
of the correspondence from the emitting agency” and apostilles
from the Colombian consulate in the United States regarding the
letters and the Hasbún indictment. See D.E. 2551 at 40. 13
But the district court faulted the plaintiffs for not specifying
the particular people or officials from whom they expected to ob-
tain the certified copies and apostilles, and for not showing that the
13
“An ‘apostille’ is an international method for verification of foreign docu-
ments similar to notarization.” Corovic v. Mukasey, 519 F.3d 90, 93 n.2 (2d
Cir. 2008). See Fed. R. Civ. P. 44, advisory committee note, 1991 Amendment
(“The Hague Public Documents Convention provides that the requirement of
a final certification is abolished and replaced with a model apostille, which is
to be issued by officials of the country where the records are located. . . . [T]he
apostille can be accorded greater weight than the normal authentication pro-
cedure because foreign officials are more likely to know the precise capacity
under their law of the attesting officer than would an American official.”).
Given our ruling, we deny as moot the Non-Wolf plaintiffs’ motion for judicial
notice of authenticating apostilles.
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14 The district court found that the prosecutor letters were signed, but it is
unclear whether it also concluded that the Hasbún indictment met the re-
quirement that it be signed by an authorized person. See D.E. 2551 at 39–42.
In any event, we conclude that the indictment was also signed as required. See
D.E. 2346-78 at 21–23. See also D.E. 2551 at 39 (acknowledging that the Span-
ish version of the indictment had signatures).
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did that, setting out the specific agencies and entities which would
provide the necessary certifications. See D.E. 2551 at 40 (“As to the
letters allegedly issued by Colombian prosecutors, [the p]laintiffs
state that they intend, before trial, to obtain certified copies of the
correspondence from the emitting agency (either the Public Prose-
cutor or the Center for Judicial Administration), as a precursor to
seeking an apostille, and that they ‘will obtain an apostille for all
(Justice and Peace Law) documents from the Colombian consulate
in the United States’ prior to trial.”) (cleaned up).
C
The plaintiffs submitted two different documents purport-
ing to be convictions of AUC members in the Justice and Peace
process—the Mangones sentencia and the Rendón Herrera “First
Instance Judgment”—as final judgments of conviction under Rule
803(22). We conclude that the district court correctly excluded
both documents, although for different reasons.
As noted, the Justice and Peace process was one in which the
Justice and Peace Unit of the Colombian Office of the Public Pros-
ecutor investigated offenses allegedly committed by paramilitary
participants, and in which AUC members could truthfully confess
to crimes in order to receive sentences that were lower than they
would otherwise be in the ordinary Colombian criminal system.
See D.E. 2551 at 5 n.4 (citing to the Sánchez León declaration).
Judgments issued as a part of the proceedings were the equivalent
to a criminal conviction in the usual system. See id. See also Ar-
velo, 37 Geo. J. Int’l L. at 438 (discussing how, in the Justice and
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See D.E. 2551 at 5 n.4. The court did not cite any source for its
uncertainty, other than a few vaguely worded sentences in the sen-
tencia. This basis for exclusion was therefore mistaken. See Ar-
look, 952 F.2d at 374.
But the district court properly concluded that the sentencia
was inadmissible for lack of adjudicative findings. Although the
plaintiffs argue that the sentencia is admissible as a final judgment
of conviction under Rule 803(22), the excerpts submitted to the dis-
trict court surprisingly did not contain Mr. Mangones’ actual con-
viction. Significantly, the excerpts discussed his charges, rather
than his conviction on those charges. Indeed, the plaintiffs concede
in their brief that they did “not submit th[e] portion of the judg-
ment” with the adjudicative findings below. See Non-Wolf Plain-
tiffs’ Initial Br. at 45–46. 15
The plaintiffs argue that the other portions of the sentencia
were not submitted to the district court only because the defend-
ants first made the relevant hearsay argument in their supple-
mental response, to which they could not respond. The record,
however, indicates that the plaintiffs were able to respond. Three
weeks after the defendants filed their supplemental response, the
plaintiffs submitted a motion in limine that discussed the admissi-
bility of the sentencia but made no reference to the defendants’
15
In addition, the table of contents of the sentencia indicated that some of the
charges against Mr. Mangones were withdrawn by the government or dis-
missed by the court. See D.E. 2346-72 at 2.
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940 F.2d 1503, 1506–07 (11th Cir. 1991) (holding that the declarants,
who were in a Bahamian jail, were not properly considered una-
vailable when the statements’ proponent had not attempted to
make them available).
A district court has discretion to “accept statements of par-
ties or counsel as to unavailability of witnesses as a predicate to the
use of depositions,” Castilleja v. S. Pac. Co., 445 F.2d 183, 186 (5th
Cir. 1971), but it need not do so. And we have held that “counsel’s
uncorroborated statement” as to the reason for the declarant’s un-
availability is not sufficient on its own to satisfy the proponent’s
burden. See United States v. Acosta, 769 F.2d 721, 723 (11th Cir.
1985).
1
John Doe 7 is the father of John Doe 8, one of the decedents.
John Doe 7 testified that a now-deceased AUC commander, Gil-
berto Camacho, made statements that incriminated himself and
the AUC in the murder of John Doe 8. Specifically, John Doe 7
testified that when he confronted Mr. Camacho fifteen days after
his son’s death, Mr. Camacho did not deny killing his son. Instead,
when John Doe 7 asked Mr. Camacho why he killed his son, Mr.
Camacho answered that his son “was full of vices,” such as smok-
ing and drugs. See Non-Wolf Plaintiffs’ Initial Br. at 72–73 (quoting
D.E. 2348-50 at 12).
The district court excluded this testimony because it found
that John Doe 7 did not provide evidence that Mr. Camacho’s
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statement linked John Doe 8’s murder to the AUC. The court ex-
plained that Mr. Camacho did not “take responsibility” for the mur-
der or attribute it to an AUC operative, so his statement did not
qualify as a statement against penal interest under Rule 804(b)(3).
See D.E. 2551 at 59. The court emphasized that although John Doe
7 testified that Mr. Camacho was an AUC leader he “did not explain
a basis for this belief, based on personal knowledge,” nor did he
“identify a source of evidence in the record establishing an affilia-
tion between [Mr.] Camacho and the AUC.” Id.
We conclude that the district court erred in ruling that the
statement to John Doe 7 was not against Mr. Camacho’s penal in-
terest. A reasonable person would realize that, by explaining why
a crime was committed, a declarant who is questioned implies that
he personally participated in or was involved in that crime. By an-
swering John Doe 7’s question in the way he did, Mr. Camacho
implied or suggested that he was involved in John Doe 8’s murder.
His statement was therefore against his penal interest. See
Thomas, 571 F.2d at 288–89 (holding that a witness’ statement that
the defendant “didn’t have anything to do with [the robbery]” and
should be let go was against the witness’ penal interest).
The district court also erred in concluding that John Doe 7
did not sufficiently explain the basis for his belief that Mr. Camacho
was affiliated with the AUC. The affidavit which John Doe 7 filed
under seal, and to which the district court referred, contains more
than simply a “suggesti[on]” that the AUC was active in the rele-
vant community and recognizable by its weapons. See D.E. 2551
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authorities in 2016, 2017, or 2018 to find out what was going on.
Unfortunately for Juana Doe 11, the record is silent on this score.
3
Juana Pérez 43A also submitted her own testimony. She tes-
tified that she learned that Mr. Mangones confessed to being re-
sponsible for her son’s death. But she admitted that Mr. Mangones
was not present when she learned of his confession. Although she
had seen Mr. Mangones at a hearing, she did not recall anything he
said at that hearing.16
The district court excluded this testimony for two reasons.
First, Juana Pérez 43A did not show that Mr. Mangones was una-
vailable within the meaning of Rule 804(a)(5). Second, she was not
competent to testify as to Mr. Mangones’ confession because she
did not personally hear it.
As with Juana Doe 11, the district court did not err in ruling
that Juana Pérez 43A did not establish that Mr. Mangones was un-
available under Rule 804(a)(5). Nor did the court err in excluding
her testimony about the confession. She was not competent to
16Although Juana Pérez 43A argues that she attended the hearing where Mr.
Mangones took responsibility for killing her son, she admits that her “testi-
mony on this point is ambiguous.” Non-Wolf Plaintiffs’ Initial Br. at 96–97.
Nevertheless, she asserts that the district court erred in not drawing the rea-
sonable inference that she was present. We disagree because she explicitly
stated that Mr. Mangones was not present when she was at the Justice and
Peace hearing and that that is where she learned of his confession.
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17Juana Pérez 43A also testified that, on the morning of her son’s murder, she
noticed a young man following him to work and heard shots. The district
court did not address this portion of her testimony, so we assume it was not
excluded.
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Herrera was unavailable. The court also excluded his “alleged con-
fession” because it “[did] not create a triable issue of fact on the
identify of José López 339’s killers.” D.E. 2551 at 58.
Courts require a “bona fide effort[ ] to obtain” the appear-
ance or testimony of a witness. See 30B Jeffrey Bellin, Fed. Prac. &
Proc.: Evid. at § 6968 (2022). If a witness resides in another coun-
try, one “reasonable solution” is to seek his deposition. See United
States v. Kelly, 892 F.2d 255, 262 (11th Cir. 1989). As we explain,
the district court abused its discretion in excluding the children’s
testimony because the plaintiffs had, in fact, attempted but twice
failed to depose Mr. Rendón Herrera in Colombia.
Pursuant to Letters of Request issued under the Hague Evi-
dence Convention, the plaintiffs were permitted to schedule two
depositions of Mr. Rendón Herrera. The first deposition was
scheduled while he was still in prison. The plaintiffs’ counsel trav-
eled to Colombia and appeared at the scheduled deposition. Mr.
Rendón Herrera, however, had been released from prison two
weeks before the deposition, sent his attorney to the wrong court,
and did not appear. See D.E. 1798 at 8; D.E. 2346-98 at 17. The
second deposition, also in Colombia, was scheduled after
Mr. Rendón Herrera did not show up for the first, but he also failed
to appear for the second. See D.E. 2551 at 55 n.35 (acknowledging
that Mr. Rendón Herrera twice failed to appear for deposition). So
the plaintiffs were unable to depose Mr. Rendón Herrera despite
having twice scheduled his deposition and traveled to Colombia.
These two failed depositions show that the plaintiffs employed a
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18To the extent that the district court excluded the testimony because it did
not create a triable issue on the identity of José López 339’s killer, we address
the sufficiency of the evidence in Part III.F.
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United States v. Belfast, 611 F.3d 783, 817–18 (11th Cir. 2010) (hold-
ing that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting,
as excited utterances, statements made by a person four to five
hours after he was tortured).
Two plaintiffs, Gloria Eugenia Muñoz and Jane Doe 7, argue
that certain evidence was admissible under Rule 803(2)’s hearsay
exception for excited utterances. We conclude that the testimony
offered by Ms. Muñoz and Jane Doe 7 was properly excluded for
various reasons.
1
Ms. Muñoz sought to introduce testimony regarding the cir-
cumstances of the death of her son, Miguel Angel Cardona. At her
deposition, Ms. Muñoz testified that her daughter-in-law, Onelsi
Mejía, told her that two men came into her house and kidnapped
Mr. Cardona (who was then her brother-in-law). See D.E. 2348-36
at 13–14. Ms. Muñoz was not at the house at the time of the kid-
napping, and she did not testify about either the timing of Ms.
Mejía’s statements to her about the abduction or Ms. Mejía’s men-
tal state at the time.
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19 Although Ms. Mejía witnessed the kidnapping, she did not know at the time
who the kidnappers were. She only later came to learn the identity of the
kidnappers, and their status as AUC members, from other witnesses in the
community who identified the men and told her their aliases. See D.E. 2551
at 50 & n.33 (quoting D.E. 2345-106 at 4).
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3
Jane Doe 7 sought to introduce her deposition and affidavit
testimony, which in summary was as follows. The AUC had a list
with the names of certain banana workers, set up checkpoints near
the banana plantations, and often killed those whose names were
on the list. One night, two coworkers of John Doe 11—Jane Doe
7’s husband—allegedly told him that earlier in the day they had
been stopped at a checkpoint and that his name had been read
aloud. The coworkers also said that the AUC had killed two other
workers who were on the list that day. Before he was killed, John
Doe 11 told Jane Doe 7 all of this. Aside from saying that John Doe
11’s statements to her came “afterwards,” Jane Doe 7 did not spec-
ify how much time elapsed from the time the coworkers spoke to
John Doe 11 to the time he relayed the information to her. Nor did
Jane Doe 7 say anything about John Doe 11’s mental state.
The district court excluded Jane Doe 7’s testimony, conclud-
ing that the statement from John Doe 11 did not qualify as an ex-
cited utterance because the statement was “made at some indeter-
minate point ‘afterwards.’” DE 2551 at 45–46. Based on the record
before us, the court did not abuse its discretion in excluding Jane
Doe 7’s testimony. There are at least two layers of hearsay here—
(1) the statements of John Doe 11’s coworkers to John Doe 11, and
(2) John Doe 11’s statements to Jane Doe 7. See Crawford, 977 F.3d
at 1348 (“If a statement contains multiple levels of hearsay, each
level must satisfy an exception to the hearsay rule.”). Assuming
that the coworkers’ statements to John Doe 11 were excited
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utterances, there is still a hearsay problem with John Doe 11’s later
statement to Jane Doe 7.
As noted, Rule 803(2) requires that, to qualify as an excited
utterance, a statement be “made while the declarant was under the
stress of excitement” caused by an event or condition. The mere
existence of a stressful event is insufficient; “the declarant must still
be under the stress or excitement that the startling event caused”
when making the statement. See Belfast, 611 F.3d at 817 (emphasis
added). The statement must have been “spontaneous, excited, or
impulsive as required by Rule 803(2) rather than the product of re-
flection and deliberation.” United States v. Lawrence, 699 F.2d 697,
704 (5th Cir. 1983).
We look at the “totality of the circumstances” in order to
determine whether a hearsay statement was an excited utterance.
See Belfast, 611 F.3d at 817. The record here, however, is com-
pletely silent as to whether John Doe 11 was still under the stress
of excitement caused by his coworkers’ statements when he spoke
to Jane Doe 7. As a result, it was not an abuse of discretion for the
district court to exclude Jane Doe 7’s testimony.
F
We now turn to the expert evidence offered by the plaintiffs.
Based on the district court’s order and the parties’ arguments on
appeal, there are three categories of evidence in play: (1) statistical
data relating to AUC/paramilitary patterns of violence in relevant
geographic areas of Colombia; (2) modus operandi evidence,
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The district court reasoned that the manner in which the ex-
perts formed their opinions—“simply collect[ing] historical crime
war statistics” as a basis for deducing an AUC connection to the
victims’ deaths—did not satisfy the requirements of the Federal
Rules of Evidence. See D.E. 2551 at 68. “[N]either [expert] applied
‘a reliable methodology’ to form the proffered opinions on the
‘likelihood’ of AUC involvement”; nor did the experts “demon-
strate how their prior experience or ‘specialized knowledge’ was
relevant to the making of the proffered ‘deductions’ on the likeli-
hood of AUC involvement.” Id.
2
The principles set out in Daubert apply to soft-science expert
testimony. “Social science testimony, like other expert testimony
. . . , must be tested to be sure that the person possesses genuine
expertise in a field and that her court testimony adheres to the same
standards of intellectual rigor that are demanded in her profes-
sional work.” Tyus v. Urb. Search Mgmt., 102 F.3d 256, 263 (7th
Cir. 1996) (alteration, internal quotation marks, and citation omit-
ted). See also Wessmann v. Gittens, 160 F.3d 790, 805 (1st Cir.
1998) (“When scientists (including social scientists) testify in court,
they must bring the same intellectual rigor to the task that is re-
quired of them in other professional settings.”) (citations omitted).
That said, “social science research, theories[,] and opinions
cannot have the exactness of hard science methodologies,” and
“peer review, publication, error rate, etc. are not applicable to this
kind of testimony, whose reliability depends heavily on the
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21According to Mr. Kaplan, 6,101 of the 6,792 murders in the decedents’ mu-
nicipalities in the relevant time period were committed by paramilitaries. See
D.E. 2348-4 at 43 & fig. 7.4.
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victims. See id. at 26. He detailed some of the methods the AUC
used to target and kill victims, including driving white or grey cars,
taking people off of buses, and torturing and decapitating victims.
See id. at 46. Third, Mr. Kaplan corroborated the plaintiffs’ ac-
counts of each of the murders, providing information as set out in
“news sources, NGO reports, paramilitary testimonies . . . , and hu-
man rights violation and armed conflict datasets.” Id. at 47. For
example, as to John Doe 11 Mr. Kaplan verified through a Colom-
bian database that he had been killed in a manner “consistent with
the information registered by [his] family member plaintiffs.” Id.
Specifically, he confirmed that John Doe 11 had been “executed . . .
with four gunshots” “at the urban perimeter of the town center”
by “[p]aramilitaries who covered their faces with ski masks and
[were] riding a high-cylinder motorcycle.” Id.
Using all of that information, Mr. Kaplan opined that
“[m]any if not all of the human rights violations against the bell-
wether victims in this case were caused by the AUC paramilitaries.”
Id. at 52. He expressly stated that his conclusion was “supported
by similar modus operandi, timing and geography, . . . the general
patterns of violence committed by the AUC[,] . . . [and] direct ver-
ification of bellwether victim cases and their details via human
rights violation and conflict databases and paramilitary testimonies
that confess to the murders.” Id.
The Non-Wolf plaintiffs cite to three cases in support of their
argument that the district court erred in excluding Mr. Kaplan’s ul-
timate opinion—Boim v. Holy Foundation for Relief &
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Development, 549 F.3d 685 (7th Cir. 2008) (en banc); Acosta v. Is-
lamic Republic of Iran, 574 F. Supp. 2d 15 (D.D.C. 2008); and Blais
v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 459 F. Supp. 2d 40 (D.D.C. 2006). These
out-of-circuit cases are not dispositive, but they do address similar
expert testimony.
In Boim, the family of a murder victim sued various entities
alleging that the murder had been committed by Hamas, which
had been aided by the defendants’ support. See 549 F.3d at 687–88.
The expert, hired “[t]o show that the murder of David Boim was
the work of Hamas,” was permitted to opine that the murder had
been committed by members of Hamas based on his review of case
exhibits, independent research, and “knowledge of how Hamas
and other Islamic terror organizations operate.” Id. at 702. The
Seventh Circuit, sitting en banc, concluded that the district court
had not abused its discretion in permitting the expert to testify even
though he may have relied on some inadmissible evidence to reach
his ultimate opinion. See id. at 704–05.
In both district court cases, Acosta and Blais, the plaintiffs’
experts were allowed to opine as to the causal link between the
terrorist group at issue and the defendant(s) in the case, based on
data and information similar to that relied upon by Mr. Kaplan. See
Acosta, 574 F. Supp. 2d at 22–23 (permitting two experts to opine
that Iran had provided support to a particular terrorist organization
“based upon publicly available sources including the State Depart-
ment’s 1992 Patterns of Global Terrorism, . . . and a number of dif-
ferent public articles reporting Iranian training and financial
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support” of the group during the relevant time period); Blais, 459
F. Supp. 2d at 49 (allowing expert to testify that a particular terrorist
attack would not have happened without Iranian support, an opin-
ion which was based “on publicly available sources that were not
inconsistent with classified information known to him,” including
congressional testimony and “articles published by the Federation
of American Scientists as well as the Free Muslims Coalition”). Alt-
hough none of these cases compel reversal here, they are persua-
sive and lead us to conclude that Mr. Kaplan’s opinion is admissi-
ble. Significantly, the defendants have not cited to any decisions
excluding this type of expert testimony or opinion.
Individually, the additional categories of data and infor-
mation relied on by Mr. Kaplan, which the district court failed to
consider, might not have required reversal under the abuse of dis-
cretion standard. Taken together, however, they provide further
support for Mr. Kaplan’s conclusion and lead us to a different result
concerning admissibility. Given the full universe of information on
which Mr. Kaplan relied, the court abused its discretion in exclud-
ing his opinion. See United Fire & Cas. Co. v. Whirlpool Corp.,
704 F.3d 1338, 1341–42 (11th Cir. 2013) (reversing the exclusion of
a portion of an expert’s testimony because the district court had
failed to consider the evidence supporting that opinion); United
States v. Ala. Power Co., 730 F.3d 1278, 1284–88 (11th Cir. 2013)
(holding that the exclusion of an expert constituted an abuse of dis-
cretion because the district court mischaracterized the evidence
supporting the expert’s opinion).
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4
We turn next to Mr. Ortega, a former special agent with the
FBI. Prior to his retirement in 2012, he was involved in the FBI’s
investigation of Chiquita’s payments to the AUC. See D.E. 2325-4
at 3. As a special agent, Mr. Ortega “received training on” and in-
vestigated “the identity of groups that conducted kidnapping[s] and
murders of American citizens in Colombia.” Id. He has “signifi-
cant on-the-ground experience in Colombia, having traveled exten-
sively across the country.” Id. at 4. Presently, Mr. Ortega works in
private sector security consulting, which “involves teaching and ad-
vising private clients in Latin American countries how to detect
risks associated with exposure to terrorist groups.” Id. at 5.
Like Mr. Kaplan, Mr. Ortega examined temporal, geograph-
ical, and circumstantial evidence to opine that the violent crimes
committed against the six victims (including the two Wolf plain-
tiffs’ decedents) he was hired to evaluate “were probably all com-
mitted by the paramilitaries.” D.E. 2325-4 at 6. He considered the
locations where the murders took place relative to AUC-controlled
territories, the circumstances of the murders, and the statistics of
murders committed in the Urabá region of Colombia. See id. at 2.
One piece of data was that between 1981 and 2012, 38% of “selec-
tive assassination[s]” in all of Colombia were committed by para-
militaries. See id. at 17. Another was that “[t]he paramilitaries
were responsible for the vast majority of the murders in Urab[á]”
from 1995 to 1997. Id. at 16. The latter statement, however, was
based on a contention by Wolf plaintiffs’ attorney, who told Mr.
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Cuong, 18 F.3d 1132, 1143–44 (4th Cir. 1994) (holding that the dis-
trict court erred in permitting a family medicine physician to bol-
ster his opinion with another expert’s forensic medical opinions
prepared specifically for litigation because those are not the types
of opinions on which an expert would rely). See also TK-7 Corp.
v. Estate of Barbouti, 993 F.2d 722, 732–33 (10th Cir. 1993) (holding
that the opinion of an expert who based his analysis on someone
else’s sales projections and “failed to demonstrate any basis for con-
cluding that another individual’s opinion on a subjective financial
prediction was reliable” failed to meet the requirements of Rule
703); Gong v. Hirsch, 913 F.2d 1269, 1272–73 (7th Cir. 1990) (con-
cluding that it was not an abuse of discretion to have excluded the
basis for an opinion where “the information sought to be relied on
. . . [was] merely a conclusory statement, made by a doctor who
was not the treating physician at the time of the illness in question,
for the presumed purpose of obtaining employment disability ben-
efits,” because it was unreliable under Rule 703).
Additionally, Mr. Ortega’s “vast majority” statement is little
more than a vehicle by which the Wolf plaintiffs can introduce
their own counsel’s otherwise inadmissible hearsay statement re-
garding the perceived strength of their cases. See United States v.
Mejia, 545 F.3d 179, 197 (2d Cir. 2008) (Although an expert can rely
on hearsay in formulating his opinion, he “may not . . . simply
transmit that hearsay to the jury. . . . Instead, the expert must form
his own opinions by applying his extensive experience and a relia-
ble methodology to the inadmissible materials.”) (internal
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23
The Wolf plaintiffs also argue that the district court erred in failing to con-
sider whether Mr. Ortega’s opinion was admissible as that of a lay witness un-
der Rule 701. This argument, however, was not made to the district court, so
we do not consider it. See Access Now, Inc. v. S.W. Airlines Co., 385 F.3d
1324, 1331 (11th Cir. 2004) (“This Court has repeatedly held that an issue not
raised in the district court and raised for the first time in an appeal will not be
considered by this court.”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
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Cir. 1985). But Rule 404(b) does not apply to evidence pertaining
to acts committed by others, even members of a conspiracy. See
id. Indeed, “we have held in both the civil and criminal contexts
that Rule 404(b) does not—at least of its own force—apply when,
as here, the challenged . . . evidence implicates a witness or another
non-party to the litigation.” Ermini v. Scott, 937 F.3d 1329, 1342
(11th Cir. 2019). Instead, as we recognized in Ermini, “the factors
articulated in Rule 404 ‘should be considered in weighing the bal-
ance between the relevancy of this evidence and its prejudice under
Rule 403.’” Id. at 1343 (quoting United States v. Sellers, 906 F.2d
597, 604 n.11 (11th Cir. 1990)). Thus, where the evidence concerns
a third party, there is no presumptive exclusion under Rule 404(b)
and the analysis “takes place under the auspices of Rule 403 rather
than Rule 404(b).” See id.
We conclude that the modus operandi evidence should not
have been excluded under Rule 404(b). The defendants here are
Chiquita and some of its executives. The AUC and its members,
the subjects of the modus operandi evidence, are not defendants.
The plaintiffs, therefore, are not submitting the evidence “to prove
[the defendants’] character” in any way, let alone “to show that on
a particular occasion [the defendants] acted in accordance with that
character.” The plaintiffs are instead offering the evidence to show
that the perpetrators of the decedents’ murders were members of
or affiliated with the AUC. See United States v. U.S. Infrastructure,
Inc., 576 F.3d 1195, 1210 (11th Cir. 2009) (“Rule 404(b) does not
specifically apply to exclude . . . evidence [which] involves an
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24We express no view on how that Rule 403 balancing should play out on
remand. And we do not address the other arguments made by the Chiquita
defendants for exclusion of the modus operandi evidence because they were
not addressed by the district court.
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The district court ruled that because the plaintiffs did “not
identify any specific piece of evidence they [sought] to admit under
the residual hearsay exception,” it was “unable to make an in-
formed assessment of its applicability to any specific document or
category.” D.E. 2551 at 44. It also explained that, “[a]s a global
proposition,” the “several proffered unauthenticated, excerpted
and unsigned documents” did not satisfy Rule 807 because they
were not necessarily trustworthy, they were not more probative
on the relevant issue than other available evidence, and the inter-
ests of justice did not compel their inclusion. See id. at 44–45.
When making their Rule 807 argument before the district
court, the plaintiffs asserted that “[t]he reports, documents[,] and
confessions” were admissible because the “Justice and Peace con-
fessions” had “[equivalent] circumstantial guarantees of trustwor-
thiness,” were appropriately probative, and were “in the interest of
justice.” D.E. 2510 at 5 (citing to subsections (3) and (4) of Rule
807, which no longer exist). They did not, however, refer to any
specific documents and instead seemed to treat all of the Justice and
Peace documents as one. See id.
On appeal, the plaintiffs continue to be vague about the ap-
plication of Rule 807. They argue that “the Justice and Peace doc-
uments” should have been allowed under the December 2019 ver-
sion of Rule 807, and not the old version with the requirements
they previously cited to the district court. They argue that the cur-
rent version of Rule 807 should have applied “at least to the second
of the two bellwether trials” and that we should remand for the
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to Rule 807. See United States v. Brannan, 562 F.3d 1300, 1306
(11th Cir. 2009) (quotation marks omitted). 25
III
Given our rulings on the evidentiary matters, we now apply
the Rule 56 summary judgment standard to the bellwether plain-
tiffs’ cases. We consider, of course, the evidence that was not ex-
cluded (e.g., the statistical data evidence provided by Mr. Kaplan
for the Non-Wolf plaintiffs and by Mr. Ortega for the Wolf plain-
tiffs) and the evidence that was improperly excluded (e.g., Mr.
Kaplan’s ultimate opinion and the modus operandi evidence).
To recap, the statistical data evidence for the Non-Wolf
plaintiffs (through Mr. Kaplan) was that from 1997 to 2007—the
relevant time period in this case—paramilitaries were responsible
for 90% of the murders in the decedents’ municipalities. See D.E.
2348-4 at 41. From this and other evidence, Mr. Kaplan opined that
“[m]any if not all of the human rights violations against the bell-
wether victims in this case were caused by the AUC paramilitaries.”
Id. at 52. The statistical data evidence for the Wolf plaintiffs
(through Mr. Ortega) was that 38% of selective assassinations in all
AUC. See Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252. As noted earlier, the prepon-
derance standard requires a showing that a given proposition is
more likely true than not true. See Watkins, 10 F.4th at 1184–85.
When we review the evidence at summary judgment, we
“draw[ ] all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the
non-moving part[ies],” which here are the plaintiffs. See Owen v.
I.C. Sys., Inc., 629 F.3d 1263, 1270 (11th Cir. 2011). Even when the
underlying facts are undisputed, summary judgment is improper if
those facts can lead to conflicting inferences on material issues. See
Manners v. Cannella, 891 F.3d 959, 967 (11th Cir. 2018) (“Even
where the parties agree on the facts, ‘[i]f reasonable minds might
differ on the inferences arising from undisputed facts, then the
court should deny summary judgment.’”) (alteration in original)
(citation omitted).
A district court errs if it weighs the evidence or makes cred-
ibility determinations at the summary judgment stage. See Sears
v. Roberts, 922 F.3d 1199, 1209 (11th Cir. 2019). But if a case is “so
one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law,” then
summary judgment is appropriate. See Bowen, 882 F.3d at 1362
(citation omitted).
B
The district court apparently considered some of the plain-
tiffs’ evidence “standing alone.” See, e.g., D.E. 2551 at 8 n.5, 49, 62,
66, 67, 71. At the summary judgment stage of the proceedings,
however, courts are required to consider “the totality of the
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26 Circumstantial evidence, as Sherlock Holmes once put it, “is a very tricky
thing . . . . It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your
own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompro-
mising manner to something entirely different.” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The
Boscombe Valley Mystery, in 2 The Annotated Sherlock Holmes 136 (William
S. Baring-Gould ed. 1967).
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C
We first address the claims of the Non-Wolf plaintiffs.
1
John Doe 7 has presented enough evidence to establish a
genuine issue of material fact as to whether the AUC killed or was
responsible for the murder of his son, John Doe 8. We explain why
below.
In addition to the statistical data evidence, Mr. Kaplan’s
opinion, and the modus operandi evidence, John Doe 7 relied on
his own testimony, see Part II.D.1, and the Hasbún indictment, see
Part II.A.1, to demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact. John
Doe 7’s testimony—that an AUC commander did not deny that he
had killed John Doe 8 and instead explained why John Doe 8 was
murdered—could be relied on by a jury to conclude that John Doe
8 was an AUC murder victim. The same goes for the Hasbún in-
dictment, which indicates that Mr. Hasbún, a different AUC leader,
confessed to being responsible for John Doe 8’s murder—a confes-
sion that was verified by Justice and Peace process officials. These
two pieces of evidence alone show that the case is not “so one-
sided” that summary judgment should have been granted in favor
of the defendants. Cf. Boim, 549 F.3d at 702–05 (holding that, based
on an expert’s knowledge of Islamic terrorist organizations, review
of the record, independent research, and reliance on a website con-
trolled by Hamas, the plaintiffs set forth sufficient evidence to show
that Hamas was responsible for the murder of the decedent).
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27Because we are setting aside the summary judgment in favor of the defend-
ants, the plaintiffs’ motion for judicial notice of evidence supporting John Doe
7’s claim is denied as moot.
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had killed him.” D.E. 2346-59 at 4. Mr. Fontalvo said that AUC
members later detained him a second time, asking how he was con-
nected to Mr. Salas and saying that he shouldn’t have moved Mr.
Salas’s body “from the place they killed him.” Id. Mr. Fontalvo
also stated that the AUC’s chief in the area, El Tijeras (Mr. Man-
gones), personally called him and asked why he had taken Mr.
Salas’s body. Finally, Mr. Fontalvo explained that he recognized
the AUC members (including El Ruso) based on how they were
dressed—either wearing an AUC bracelet or a military uniform—
and the fact that they always openly carried their weapons. Be-
cause Mr. Fontalvo sufficiently explained why he believed the peo-
ple who threatened him were AUC members, the district court
abused its discretion in concluding that he lacked any personal
knowledge. A jury could refuse to credit Mr. Fontalvo’s testimony
on AUC affiliation, but it was admissible.
Taken together, Mr. Castro’s testimony as to the method of
the kidnapping, Mr. Fontalvo’s testimony, the statistical data evi-
dence (that 90% of the murders in the decedents’ municipalities
were committed by paramilitaries), Mr. Kaplan’s opinion, the mo-
dus operandi evidence regarding the AUC’s use of motorcycles for
kidnappings, see Part II.F.2, and other circumstantial admissible ev-
idence, such as the attendance of AUC members at Mr. Salas’ wake,
see App. 5523, are sufficient evidence for a jury to reasonably con-
clude that the AUC killed Mr. Salas. Although the Mangones sen-
tencia is not admissible, see Part II.C.1, and the admissibility of Mr.
Camargo’s letter from the Justice and Peace investigator is to be
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the guerillas. See, e.g., D.E. 2346-10 at 11, 2346-103 at 9; App. 6679,
6682. Moreover, Jane Doe 7 presented evidence of graffiti threat-
ening union organizers in John Doe 11’s hometown and said that
the paramilitaries were there. See App. 6677, 6679. That circum-
stantial evidence further suggests that the AUC would’ve targeted
a union leader like John Doe 11.
All of this evidence, together with the statistical data evi-
dence and opinion provided by Mr. Kaplan, permit a jury to find
that John Doe 11 was killed by the AUC. The district court there-
fore erred in granting summary judgment against Jane Doe 7.
4
Nancy Mora Lemus witnessed the murder of Miguel Anto-
nio Rodriguez Duarte, her common-law spouse. She too estab-
lished a genuine issue of material fact regarding the AUC’s involve-
ment in the murder.
Ms. Lemus explained how Mr. Duarte was killed, and what
his murderers wore. She related that two men arrived at their
house, kidnapped Mr. Duarte, walked him down a path to the
river, tied him to a pole, and then cut his throat. See D.E. 2551 at
14 (describing D.E. 2348-45 at 16–18). The two men were armed
with rifles and a knife and wore sweatshirts and green shirts. She
said they were not wearing uniforms and described a symbol on
their clothes as “a wheel, like a brand.” See id. at 15 (quoting D.E.
2348-45 at 19). She explained that she knew that they were AUC
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members because “they were the [only] ones who were there in
that area.” See id. at 14–15 (quoting D.E. 2348-45 at 21).
The evidence about the perpetrators and the murder does
not fit the modus operandi of the AUC. See Part II.F.2. Mr. Duarte,
moreover, was not a member of any targeted political parties, gue-
rilla groups, gangs, or labor unions. See D.E. 2348-45 at 23. Alt-
hough on appeal Ms. Lemus argues that the wheel emblem identi-
fied the men as AUC members, she testified that she did not recog-
nize the symbol. See D.E. 2551 at 15 (describing D.E. 2348-45 at
18). Nor did she provide evidence connecting the symbol to the
AUC.
The evidence that the AUC was in the area and the details
about how Mr. Duarte was murdered, without anything else,
would not be enough to establish a genuine issue of material fact
about the AUC’s involvement. Cf. Sullivan v. Republic of Cuba,
891 F.3d 6, 11 (1st Cir. 2018) (holding that second- and third-hand
reports that the plaintiff’s father was in a Cuban prison were not
enough to establish that he was the victim of an extrajudicial killing
by the state under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act). But
there is also the statistical data evidence, which was that 90% of the
murders committed in the decedents’ municipalities were carried
out by paramilitaries, and Mr. Kaplan’s opinion. That evidence,
combined with the AUC’s operations in the area and the absence
of another reason for the murder of Mr. Duarte, gets the claim to
a jury. The district court erred in granting summary judgment
against Ms. Lemus.
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5
John Doe 11 was shot in public. Juana Doe 11 and Minor
Doe 11A may have provided enough evidence to show the exist-
ence of a genuine issue of material fact with respect to who was
responsible for the murder of John Doe 11. On remand, the district
court will need to reconsider summary judgment after it deter-
mines the admissibility of the relevant letter from the Justice and
Peace prosecutors. 29
As explained earlier, Juana Doe 11 and Minor Doe 11A sub-
mitted several pieces of evidence that are not admissible, see Parts
II.C.1 and II.D.2, and the modus operandi evidence does not fit
John Doe 11’s murder. But they also proffered a letter from the
Justice and Peace prosecutors regarding Mr. Mangones’ confession
as to John Doe 11’s death. See Part II.A.2. The additional circum-
stantial evidence—such as the statistical data evidence, Mr.
Kaplan’s opinion, and the AUC’s operations in the area where John
Doe 11 was killed—may be enough to survive summary judgment.
We leave it to the district court on remand to determine whether
the letter from the prosecutors is admissible and whether it, to-
gether with the other evidence, is sufficient to establish a genuine
issue of material fact as to whether the AUC was responsible for
the murder of John Doe 11.
29 To avoid confusion, we note that this John Doe 11 is not the same John Doe
11 who is Jane Doe 7’s decedent.
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6
José López 339 was shot and killed by men on motorcycles.
We conclude that his seven surviving children presented enough
evidence about the AUC’s involvement to proceed past summary
judgment.
Along with other admissible evidence, such as the statistical
data evidence, Mr. Kaplan’s opinion, and the modus operandi evi-
dence, see Parts II.F.1 and II.F.2, Mr. López’s children presented
testimony that an AUC commander apologized to them for Mr.
López’s death. See Part II.D.4. All of this evidence is enough for a
jury to reasonably conclude that the AUC was responsible for kill-
ing Mr. López. The district court therefore erred in granting sum-
mary judgment against Mr. López’s children.
7
Pablo Pérez 43A, a banana farmer who lived in an area con-
trolled by the AUC, was shot dead at the corner of his mother’s
house. Juana Pérez 43A has presented evidence that may preclude
summary judgment with respect to the AUC’s involvement in his
murder, but that ultimate determination will depend on admissi-
bility rulings on remand.
As discussed above, see Part II.A.2, Juana Pérez 43A received
two letters from prosecutors stating that (1) Mr. Mangones had
“confessed” to killing Pablo Pérez 43A; (2) the authorities had in-
dicted Mr. Mangones for the crime; and (3) a magistrate judge had
“confirmed the criminal charges” and “issued a sentence
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C
We turn now to the Wolf Plaintiffs. They did not rely on
the statistical data evidence provided by Mr. Kaplan, and instead
submitted Mr. Ortega’s data and opinions. Mr. Ortega stated that
38% of the individual murders—“selective assassination[s]”—in all
of Colombia during the relevant time period were committed by
paramilitaries. See D.E. 2325-4 at 17. He also stated that the rele-
vant towns “were controlled by the AUC between 1995 and 1997,
the range of dates of the case reviewed.” Id. at 15. Taking those
two things in combination, Mr. Ortega opined that “the vast ma-
jority of these crimes were committed by the group in control.” Id.
at 17. As noted earlier in Part II.F.4, however, the district court did
not err in excluding Mr. Ortega’s ultimate opinion. So we do not
consider it here.
1
Doe 378 has not offered sufficient, admissible evidence to
demonstrate the existence of a genuine issue of material fact as to
the AUC’s involvement in the murder of her unnamed brother.
The only direct evidence she has presented shows that her brother,
a banana worker, went out one evening in violation of an AUC-
imposed curfew, and that at some point while he was out, he was
shot and killed by an unidentified individual who took his identifi-
cation card.
In support of her position, Doe 378 argues that several doc-
uments—a letter from the Acción Social agency and a letter from a
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record, a reasonable juror could not conclude Lilly was more likely
than not the manufacturer of the pills Keller took.”).
At best, Doe 378 has offered a “mere scintilla of evidence.”
Brooks v. Cnty. Comm’n of Jefferson Cnty., Ala., 446 F.3d 1160,
1162 (11th Cir. 2006) (quotation marks omitted). This, however,
“will not suffice; there must be enough of a showing that the jury
could reasonably find for [Doe 378].” Id. (quoting Walker v.
Darby, 911 F.2d 1573, 1577 (11th Cir. 1990)). See also Daniels v.
Twin Oaks Nursing Home, 692 F.2d 1321, 1326 (11th Cir. 1982)
(“[A] jury will not be allowed to engage in a degree of speculation
and conjecture that renders its finding a guess or mere possibil-
ity.”). Thus, the district court properly granted summary judg-
ment against Doe 378.
2
The district court granted summary judgment against Doe
840 (Genoveva Isabel Borja Hernandez) because she did not offer
admissible evidence linking her unnamed son’s murder to the
AUC. See D.E. 2551 at 60–61. Ludy Rivas Borja, the daughter of
the now-deceased Doe 840, seeks to challenge that ruling on ap-
peal.
Generally, “only parties to a lawsuit, or those that properly
become parties, may appeal an adverse judgment.” AAL High
Yield Bond Fund v. Deloitte & Touche LLP, 361 F.3d 1305, 1309
(11th Cir. 2004) (quoting Marino v. Ortiz, 484 U.S. 301, 304 (1988)).
Ms. Rivas Borja twice moved to substitute herself as a plaintiff in
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place of Doe 840. In her motions, Ms. Rivas Borja argued that un-
der Colombian law, “[a]s the victim’s [sister], [she] is a proper party
to the case, and may represent the interests of her siblings, as long
as she has their permission.” D.E. 2124 at 2. The defendants op-
posed those motions, asserting that Ms. Rivas Borja had failed to
show that she was the “proper party” to be substituted under Co-
lombian law. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 25(a)(1). Cf. Escareno v. Noltina
Crucible & Refractory Corp., 139 F.3d 1456, 1459 (11th Cir. 1998)
(explaining that a court should refer to state law to determine if
substitution is by a “proper party”).
The district court denied Ms. Rivas Borja’s first motion for
substitution because the documents “submitted in support of [the]
motion [were] all in Spanish,” and it was “unable to decipher”
them. See D.E. 2179 at 1. The court later denied the renewed mo-
tion as moot following its grant of summary judgment for the de-
fendants.
An order denying a motion for substitution is not a final de-
cision under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 unless it has “the effect of a dismis-
sal.” 1 Motions in Fed. Court § 6:75 (West 3d ed. & Mar. 2022 up-
date). Compare Va. Land Co. v. Miami Shipbuilding Corp., 201
F.2d 506, 508 (5th Cir. 1953) (denial of motion to substitute was not
a final decision because it was not an order of dismissal), with Pan-
ther Pumps & Equip. Co. v. Hydrocraft, Inc., 566 F.2d 8, 22–23 &
n.9 (7th Cir. 1977) (denial of motion to substitute is reviewable
once there is a final decision). In her initial brief, however, Ms.
Rivas Borja did not contest either denial of her motions to
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30
Although Ms. Hills raised numerous other grounds for dismissal in the dis-
trict court, she does not assert any of those grounds on appeal.
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V
Accordingly, we AFFIRM in part, VACATE and REMAND
in part, REVERSE and REMAND in part, and DISMISS in part, as
follows.
♦ We affirm (a) the summary judgment entered against Doe
378, (b) the denial of Carla Hills’ motion to dismiss the
claims against the Estate of Roderick Hills for lack of per-
sonal jurisdiction, and (c) the denial of the motions of the
individual defendants to dismiss the TVPA claims.
♦ We vacate the summary judgments entered against Juana
Doe 11 and Minor Doe 11, and Juana Pérez 43A and remand
for further proceedings.
♦ We reverse the summary judgments entered against John
Doe 7, Juvenal Fontalvo Camargo, Jane Doe 7, Nancy Mora
Lemus, José López 339’s seven surviving children, Ana Ofe-
lia Torres Torres, Pastora Durango, and Gloria Eugenia
Muñoz and remand for further proceedings because there
are issues of material fact as to whether the AUC murdered
their decedents.
♦ We dismiss the appeal of Doe 840.
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Sincerely,