BOSTON (CN) - The adult children of baseball legend Roberto Clemente can sue Puerto Rico government officials for misappropriating their father's legacy to extort money from citizens during a financial crisis, the First Circuit held late Friday.
The government forced people to pay $21 for a license plate with Clemente's picture on it and an additional $5 for a registration label celebrating the 50th anniversary of his 3,000th hit, which together raised some $15 million. The family never approved any of this, but many Puerto Ricans became angry because they mistakenly assumed the family benefited from a mandatory fee hike during hard financial times.
This tarnished Clemente's popularity and reputation, the family said.
In addition, the government took over a sports complex for children that the family had supported in order to build a new one that was nominally dedicated to Clemente but that the family strongly opposed.
A trial judge threw the case out, finding that Puerto Rico was immune from suit, the license fees weren't "commercial activity" as required by trademark law and the government didn't prevent the family from using its trademark in other ways.
But the First Circuit partially vacated that ruling in a 102-page decision, finding that government-issued license plates are a form of commerce.
"License plates and registration tags are mundane examples of goods or services that fall within the ambit of trademark law," wrote U.S. Circuit Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, who noted that license plates are included in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's official trademark ID manual.
Clemente was a right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates who played in 15 All-Star games, won a Gold Glove award in 12 straight seasons and hit .317 during his Hall of Fame career. The 1966 National League MVP was also known for his charity work and died at age 38 in a plane crash in 1972 while delivering supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
While the government didn't prevent the family from using its trademark in other ways, its interests were damaged because the public wrongly assumed that the family was profiting from the deal during hard times, the appeals court said.
The family's "business interests in licensing the Clemente mark for merchandise or other projects were plausibly impacted by this public blowback," Thompson, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote.
"This is especially so where appellants' business reputation is built in part on an association with charitable endeavors, and the public backlash was in response to the perceived extortionate nature of the commemorative license plates and registration tags, goods that all Puerto Rico residents who needed new plates or tags in 2022 were forced to purchase."
However, the three-judge panel found that the Puerto Rico officials could be sued only in their personal capacities, not in their official capacities, because the latter claims were barred by sovereign immunity.
The court also rejected the family's claim the purported misappropriation amounted to an illegal "taking" under the Fifth Amendment.
The ruling was joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Kermit Lipez, a Bill Clinton appointee.
Chief U.S. Circuit Judge David Barron, another Obama appointee, dissented in part and would have thrown out the personal-capacity claims as well based on qualified immunity. He said the officials acted reasonably in carrying out lawmakers' actions because it wasn't obvious at the time that they were illegal.
Source: Courthouse News Service
