Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
______
In the
Supreme Court of the United States
_______________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUESTION PRESENTED .......................................... i
PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING ........................... ii
CORPORATE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT ........... iii
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ..................................... vii
PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI ................ 1
OPINIONS BELOW ................................................... 3
JURISDICTION ......................................................... 3
CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS INVOLVED ..... 4
STATEMENT OF THE CASE ................................... 4
A. The Catholic Church in Puerto Rico ............ 4
B. Proceedings Below ........................................ 7
REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION....... 17
I. The Court Should Grant Certiorari To Bring
The Puerto Rico Courts In Line With
Centuries Of Unbroken First Amendment
Jurisprudence .................................................... 19
A. The First Amendment Forbids Civil
Courts From Interfering With Matters of
Church Structure and Governance ............ 19
B. The Decision Below Eviscerates the First
Amendment Right of Religious
Organizations to Determine Their Own
Ecclesiastical Structure ............................. 27
II. The Question Presented Is Exceptionally
Important ........................................................... 30
CONCLUSION ......................................................... 34
v
APPENDIX
Appendix A
Opinion of the Supreme Court of Puerto
Rico, Feliciano v. Roman Catholic
Apostolic Church, No. 2018-0475 (June 11,
2018)............................................................. App-1
Appendix B
Resolution of the Supreme Court of Puerto
Rico, Feliciano v. Roman Catholic Apostolic
Church, No. 2018-0475 (Aug. 17, 2018) .... App-95
Appendix C
Order of the Court of Appeals of the Judicial
Region of San Juan, Figueroa v. La Santa
Iglesia Católica Apostólica en la Isla De
Puerto Rico, Inc., No. KLCE201800413
(April 30, 2018) .......................................... App-97
Appendix D
Order of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
Court of First Instance, Superior Court of San
Juan, Figueroa v. La Santa Iglesia Católica
Apostólica en la Isla De Puerto Rico, Inc.,
No. SJ2016CV0131 (March 27, 2018) ..... App-221
Appendix E
Order of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
Court of First Instance, Superior Court of San
Juan, Figueroa v. La Santa Iglesia Católica
Apostólica en la Isla De Puerto Rico, Inc.,
No. SJ2016CV0131 (March 26, 2018) ..... App-225
vi
Appendix F
Decision of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
Court of First Instance, Superior Court of San
Juan, Figueroa v. La Santa Iglesia Católica
Apostólica en la Isla De Puerto Rico, Inc.,
No. SJ2016CV0131 (March 16, 2018) ..... App-228
Appendix G
Complete List of Plaintiff-Respondent Parties
to the Proceeding ..................................... App-242
vii
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Cases
Aguilar v. Felton,
473 U.S. 402 (1985)................................................ 19
Attorney-General v. Pearson,
3 Merivale 353 (1817) ............................................ 21
Cox Broad. Corp. v. Cohn,
420 U.S. 469 (1975)............................................ 4, 30
Examining Bd. of Eng’rs, Architects
& Surveyors v. Flores de Otero,
426 U.S. 572 (1976)................................................ 22
Jones v. Wolf,
443 U.S. 595 (1979)................................................ 12
Kedroff
v. St. Nicholas Cathedral of Russian
Orthodox Church in N. Am.,
344 U.S. 94 (1952).......................................... passim
Kreshik v. St. Nicholas Cathedral,
363 U.S. 190 (1960).......................................... 23, 24
Larson v. Valente,
456 U.S. 228 (1982)................................................ 33
McCollum v. Bd. of Educ.,
333 U.S. 203 (1948)................................................ 19
Mohawk Indus., Inc. v. Carpenter,
558 U.S. 100 (2009)............................................ 4, 30
Morrison v. Olson,
487 U.S. 654 (1988).................................................. 2
NAACP v. Patterson,
357 U.S. 449 (1958)................................................ 24
viii
5 For all the same reasons, the decision below also violates the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, 42 U.S.C. §2000bb-4
et seq.
6 The time for that review is now. Although the underlying
dispute about the pension obligations has not yet been resolved,
the decision below conclusively resolves the entirely collateral
issue of who must fund those obligations during the pendency of
the litigation. This Court therefore has jurisdiction under both
the collateral order doctrine and Cox Broadcasting. See Mohawk
Indus., 558 U.S. at 106; Cox Broad., 420 U.S. at 480-85.
31
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, this Court should grant
the petition for certiorari.
Respectfully submitted,
TABLE OF APPENDICES
Appendix A
Opinion of the Supreme Court of Puerto
Rico, Feliciano v. Roman Catholic
Apostolic Church, No. 2018-0475 (June
11, 2018). ...................................................... App-1
Appendix B
Resolution of the Supreme Court of
Puerto Rico, Feliciano v. Roman Catholic
Apostolic Church, No. 2018-0475 (Aug.
17, 2018)..................................................... App-95
Appendix C
Order of the Court of Appeals of the
Judicial Region of San Juan, Figueroa v.
La Santa Iglesia Católica Apostólica en la
Isla De Puerto Rico, Inc., No.
KLCE201800413 (April 30, 2018) ............. App-97
Appendix D
Order of the Commonwealth of Puerto
Rico Court of First Instance, Superior
Court of San Juan, Figueroa v. La Santa
Iglesia Católica Apostólica en la Isla De
Puerto Rico, Inc., No. SJ2016CV0131
(March 27, 2018) ...................................... App-221
Appendix E
Order of the Commonwealth of Puerto
Rico Court of First Instance, Superior
Court of San Juan, Figueroa v. La Santa
Iglesia Católica Apostólica en la Isla De
Puerto Rico, Inc., No. SJ2016CV0131
(March 26, 2018) ...................................... App-225
App-ii
Appendix F
Decision of the Commonwealth of Puerto
Rico Court of First Instance, Superior
Court of San Juan, Figueroa v. La Santa
Iglesia Católica Apostólica en la Isla De
Puerto Rico, Inc., No. SJ2016CV0131
(March 16, 2018) ...................................... App-228
Appendix G
Complete List of Plaintiff-Respondent
Parties to the Proceeding ........................ App-242
App-1
Appendix A
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PUERTO RICO
________________________
No. 2018-0475
________________________
YALÍ ACEVEDO FELICIANO, et al.,
Petitioners,
v.
ROMAN CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH, et al.,
Respondents.
________________________
SONIA ARROYO VELÁZQUEZ, et al.,
Petitioners,
v.
ROMAN CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH, et al.,
Respondents.
________________________
ELSIE ALVARADO RIVERA, et al.,
Petitioners,
v.
ROMAN CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH, et al.,
Respondents.
________________________
Certified Translation*
________________________
OPINION
Associate Justice Estrella Martinez issued the
Opinion of the Court.
Today we have the obligation to address the claim
of hundreds of teachers, employees, and ex-employees
of various catholic schools and academies
(petitioners), which have dedicated a large portion of
their lives to the teaching, education, and formation of
part of various generations in Puerto Rico. As such,
this case demands analyzing and clarifying of various
aspects of our law system as well as addressing
various new disputes of great public interest. To that
end, we must analyze the following: (1) if the Roman
Catholic and Apostolic Church in Puerto Rico
(Catholic Church) has legal personality; (2) if its
divisions and components have their own and
separate legal personalities ( 3) the appropriateness of
a garnishment in assurance of judgment and a
preliminary injunction without bond; (4) if there is any
contractual link that has the effect of participating
employers of a retirement plan being supplementary
liable for it, and (5) the scope of Art. 9.08 of the
General Corporations Act of Puerto Rico, infra.
With that in mind, we proceed to highlight the
factual and procedural context in which the present
dispute arises.
I.
On June 6, 2016, petitioners, of Academia
Perpetuo Socorro filed their initial complaint in which
they held they are beneficiaries of the Pension Plan for
Employees of Catholic Schools (Plan) , administered by
App-2
pages 787-789.
App-15
III.
As stated, the petitioners state that the appealed
judgment erroneously determined that there was no
obligational source between them and their employer
regarding the payment of the pensions. That, as the
only obligational link present in the dispute was
strictly between the pensioners and the Trust. That
conclusion is contrary to our mandate in Acevedo
Feliciano, et al v. Roman Catholic and Apostolic
Church, et al, supra. In that occasion we established
with clarity and the obligational relationship between
the parties its legal effect. Therefore, the action of the
Court of Appeals is erroneous, as it is incongruent
with our previous mandate. See, Colon, et al. v. Frito
Lays, 186 DPR 135, 151 (2012).
On that occasion, this Court determined that in
the Plan there were several clauses that held the
employers liable for the obligations of the Trust. Id.,
pages 9-10. Therefore, we ordered the Court of First
Instance to hold a hearing, to determine which
employers had independent legal personality and
would be liable to pay. In that sense, we stated the
following:
At the same time, and regardless of the
legality of the termination of the plan, from
the Pension Plan there are several clauses
that deal with the responsibility of the
participating employers with the
beneficiaries, namely: 1) Article 2 (B), where
the employers guarantee their contribution of
the necessary funds for the operation of the
plan, 2) Articles 4 (B) and 8 (B.1) where a
guarantee of payment is emphasized for at
App-18
A.
Section 3 of Article II of the Constitution of the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, L.P.R.A., Volume 1,
establishes that, ‘‘no law shall be approved relating to
the establishment of any religion, nor shall the free
exercise of religious worship be prohibited. There shall
be complete separation of the church and the state.”
On the other hand, the Constitution of the United
States clearly states that, ‘‘Congress shall make no
law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise of the consequences, or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the
right of the people peacefully to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
U.S. Const. Amend I.
From the outset, it is necessary to emphasize that
our constitutional clause—as opposed to its federal
counterpart—expressly orders “complete separation of
Church and State.” At the federal level, this
separation—which aspiration and inspiration of the
religious clauses—has been formulated through a
recognition of the existence of two separate spheres of
action that go back to the secular thought of Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison. 3 The other two clauses
related to the recognition of the freedom of religion
and the prohibition to the establishment of a religion
contained in both constitutions, prevent State actions
1511, promulgated by Pope Julius II, the first three dioceses were
erected in the New World. These were: Santo Domingo,
Concepcion de la Vega, both in Hispaniola, and San Juan
App-43
IV.
Despite understanding that the foregoing
analysis is sufficient to clear up any doubt regarding
the error of the majority opinion, I consider it
necessary to briefly examine the practical implications
of the determination of the majority and the
consequences of imposing on a religious entity a legal
personality that it does not hold and that, for purposes
of its internal organization, is non-existent.
In the first place, it is worth drawing attention to
the fact that the majority opinion tacitly revokes years
of jurisprudence established by this Court, through
which the Archdiocese of San Juan and five (5) other
dioceses have appeared as parties in different
litigation. If we consider one of the first decisions of
this Court in which the Diocese of Puerto Rico was a
part, it follows that, until today, the personality and
legal status of that institution has been recognized by
this Court. In Roman Catholic Apostolic Church v. The
People, 11 D.P.R. 485 (1906), this Court heard a
request in which the Catholic Church requested that
C. Indispensable Parties
Having established the above, it is necessary to
add to our analysis the expressions of this Court that,
by virtue of the constitutional protection that prevents
any person from being deprived of their property or
their freedom without due process of law, it is required
of any plaintiff, when filing any judicial claim, to
include in it all the parties that could be affected by
the holding that, eventually, could be issued by the
judicial court. Bonilla Ramos v. Dávila Medina, 185
DPR 667 (2012); Sánchez v. Sánchez, 154 DPR 645
(2001); Cepeda Torres v. García Ortiz, 132 DPR 698
(1993).
Related to the foregoing, Rule 16.1 of Civil
Procedure requires that “persons that have a common
interest without whose presence the dispute may not
be adjudicated, are [made] parties and are [joined] as
plaintiffs or defendants, as it corresponds. When a
person that should be joined as a plaintiff refuses to
do so, it may be joined as a defendant.” 32 LPRA Ap.
V., R. 16.1.
In this sense, as we have indicated, a party is
considered indispensable whenever it cannot be left
out, because the adjudication without its presence
entails that the issues in litigation cannot be decided
correctly, as its rights would be affected. López García
v. López García, 2018 TSPR 57,__ DRP __ (2018); Deliz
et als. v. Igartúa et als., 158 DPR 403, 432 (2003);
Cepeda Torres v. García Ortiz, 132 DPR 698, 704
(1993). That is, “the absent third party [has] an
interest in the case that converts its presence into an
indispensable requirement to impart complete justice
or of such order that it prevents the making of a decree
App-75
6 At the time that the cited article was drafted for the Law
Review, the Diocese of Fajardo-Humacao which we include in our
analysis did not yet exist.
7 This is clearly stated in the article Personalidad Jurídica de
2.
In accordance with this interpretation, the Code of
Canon Law—which establishes the internal structure
of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church—
provides that each Separate Church, that is, the
archdioceses, the dioceses, and the parishes, are the
entities that, within the organizational scheme of the
Church, truly have legal personality.
Thus, the Code of Canon Law states that, ‘‘The
Catholic Church and the Apostolic See have the
character of a moral person by divine ordinance itself.”
Code of Canon Law, Canon 113 sec. 1. However,
although the Church is a moral entity, that is abstract
and intangible, in said Code it clearly states that “[i]n
the Church, besides physical persons, there are also
juridic persons, that is, subjects in canon law of
obligations and rights which correspond to their
nature.” Code of Canon Law, Canon 113 sec. 2. That
is, the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, as a whole,
is not a legal person, but within it there exist legal
personalities.
On this subject, Canon 116 of the Code of Canon
Law, in its section 1, establishes that:
Public juridic persons are aggregates of
persons or of things which are constituted by
competent ecclesiastical authority so that,
within the purposes set out for them, they
fulfill in the name of the Church, according to
the norm of the prescripts of the law, the
Appendix B
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PUERTO RICO
________________________
No. 2018-0475
________________________
YALÍ ACEVEDO FELICIANO, et al.,
Petitioners,
v.
ROMAN CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH, et al.,
Respondents.
________________________
SONIA ARROYO VELÁZQUEZ, et al.,
Petitioners,
v.
ROMAN CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH, et al.,
Respondents.
________________________
ELSIE ALVARADO RIVERA, et al.,
Petitioners,
v.
ROMAN CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH, et al.,
Respondents.
________________________
Certified Translation*
________________________
RESOLUTION
Having examined the second motions for
reconsideration presented by the Archdiocese of San
Juan, the Superintendence of the Catholic Schools of
the Archdiocese of San Juan, the Catholic School
Employees Pension Trust, and the San Jose Academy,
along with the motion in opposition, the second
motions for reconsideration are dismissed. Adhere to
this resolution as it pertains to the second motions for
reconsideration.
The “Urgent motion regarding acts of retaliation
and seeking provisional remedies” is dismissed since,
in accordance with the enacting terms of the Opinion
issued by this Tribunal, ensuing proceedings are
under the purview of the Court of First Instance.
It is agreed upon by the Court and certified by the
Secretary of the Supreme Court. Associate Judge, Mr.
Colon Perez would reconsider and agrees in overruling
the “Urgent motion regarding acts of retaliation and
seeking provisional remedies”. The Presiding Judge
Oronoz Rodriguez and Associate Judge Mrs.
Rodriguez Rodriguez did not intervene.
[SEAL] [Signature]
Juan Ernesto Davila Rivera
Secretary of the Supreme Court
App-97
Appendix C
COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO
COURT OF APPEALS
JUDICIAL REGION OF SAN JUAN
SPECIAL PANEL
________________
No. KLCE201800413
________________
YALÍ ACEVEDO FIGUEROA, JOHN A. WILLIAMS
BERMÚDEZ, and the community property formed by
both, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Respondents,
v.
LA SANTA IGLESIA CATÓLICA APOSTÓLICA EN LA ISLA
DE PUERTO RICO, INC., represented by Monsignor
Roberto González Nieves in his capacity as
Archbishop of San Juan, et al.,
Defendants-Petitioners.
________________
SONIA ARROYO VELÁZQUEZ, JESÚS M. FRANCO
VILLAFAÑE, and the community property formed by
both, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Respondents,
v.
LA SANTA IGLESIA CATÓLICA APOSTÓLICA EN LA ISLA
DE PUERTO RICO, INC., represented by Monsignor
Roberto González Nieves in his capacity as
Archbishop of San Juan, et al.,
Defendants-Petitioners.
________________
App-98
I.
The origin of this case dates back to June 6, 2016,
the date on which a group of employees and former
employees of Academia del Perpetuo Socorro filed a
complaint against the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church
in Puerto Rico,” the Archdioceses of San Juan, the
Office of the Superintendent of Catholic Schools,
Academia del Perpetuo Socorro, and the Catholic
School Employee Pension Plan Trust Fund (Trust
Fund). The Trust Fund had just announced the
discontinuance of the Catholic Schools Employee
Pension Plan (Pension Plan), due to the insolvency of
the Trust Fund funds and its virtual liquidation, from
which the plaintiffs benefited. The Pension Plan was
established under the sponsorship of the Office of the
Superintendent of Catholic Schools of the
Archdioceses of San Juan, which came into effect in
1979. 3 The 26th of November of that same year, the
Office of the Superintendent of Catholic Schools
created the Trust by way of the corresponding public
instrument. The Pension Plan operated by means of
the Trust Fund and grouped together forty-two
schools, among them, Academia del Perpetuo Socorro.
As stated in the Pension Plan and the Trust, each
participating employer would contribute to the Trust
funds between two to four percent of its payroll to
sustain the payment of the pensions. The teachers and
employees of the participating employers would not
need to make contributions to the fund.
140-147.
App-107
page 148-155.
11 This as a follow-up to a prior motion in which the plaintiff
17 See also, section 114 (1) (2) of the CCL regarding religious
IV.
Based on the foregoing grounds, the Decision from
March 16, 2018 and the Order from March 26 of the
same year are hereby revoked. The case is hereby
remanded to the court of first instance so that it may
proceed, pursuant to that provided herein.
So agreed and ordered by the Court, and certified
by the Clerk of the Court of Appeals. Justice Rivera
Colón issues a dissenting vote in writing.
[signature]
Lilia M. Oquendo Solís
Clerk of the Court of Appeals
App-171
160.
App-173
B. Canon Law.
Pursuant to the Code of Canon Law of January
25, 1983 (CCL), the Catholic Church and the Apostolic
See are moral persons by way of the same divine
ordainment. 4 The Catholic Church, in addition to
possessing strictly spiritual characteristics, is legally
organized. 5 Said organization is based on the CLL,
which provides the set of legal rules that govern the
religious community of Christians, especially the
Latin Catholic Church. Book 1, CLL. This establishes,
principally, the constitutional right of the Church, the
diocese, the parishes, and the religious orders. It also
establishes the set of rules that regulate the
organization of the Latin Church, as well as the rights
and obligations of the faithful. O. Ochoa G., Derecho
Civil I: Personas [“Civil Law I: Persons”], Caracas,
Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, 2006, pp. 105-106.
Canon 368 of the CLL provides that:
Particular churches, in which and from which the
one and only Catholic Church exists, are first of all
dioceses, to which, unless it is otherwise evident, are
likened a territorial prelature and territorial abbacy,
an apostolic vicariate and an apostolic prefecture, and
an apostolic administration erected in a stable
manner.
The canonical system distinguishes between
physical persons and juridic persons. Moreover,
Appendix D
COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO
COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
SUPERIOR COURT OF SAN JUAN
_________________________
No. SJ2016CV0131
_________________________
SJ2016CV00143
_________________________
_________________________
SJ2016CV00156
_________________________
Certified Translation*
_________________________
ORDER
Having addressed the request filed by plaintiffs to
Order the Seizure of Funds of the Catholic Church, to
secure the payment of the pensions of the plaintiff-
employees, it is hereby granted.
In this case, by way of its judgment on July 18,
2017, the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico ruled that the
plaintiffs are suffering irreparable damages due to the
suspension of payment of their pensions.
Appendix E
COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO
COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
SUPERIOR COURT OF SAN JUAN
_________________________
No. SJ2016CV0131
_________________________
SJ2016CV00143
_________________________
_________________________
SJ2016CV00156
_________________________
Certified Translation*
________________________
Appendix F
COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO
COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
SUPERIOR COURT OF SAN JUAN
_________________________
No. SJ2016CV0131
_________________________
SJ2016CV00143
_________________________
_________________________
SJ2016CV00156
_________________________
Certified Translation*
_______________________
DECISION
I.
This Decision is issued for the purposes of
complying with the order of the Supreme Court of
Puerto Rico in this case, as a result of a writ of
certiorari filed by plaintiffs. On July 18, 2017, the
Supreme Court, by way of the Judgment in the case
CC 2016-1053, vacated the Decision issued by this
court and granted the preliminary injunction
requesting that payment of plaintiffs’ pensions
continue. It affirmed that it remains to be determined
III.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
A.
At the outset, it is important to note that the Civil
Code of Puerto Rico establishes who artificial persons
are in our jurisdiction. Art. 27 of the Civil Code
prescribes that the following are artificial persons:
(1) Corporations and associations of public
interest, having artificial personality
recognized by law. The personality of such
bodies shall commence from the moment of
their establishment in accordance with law.
(2) Private corporations, companies or
associations, whether civil, commercial or
industrial, to which the law grants legal
personality.
31 LPRA Sec. 101. Emphasis ours.
The Supreme Court has reiterated that an
artificial person is, then, the collectivity of persons or
group of assets that, organized for the realization of a
permanent purpose, obtains the recognition of the
State as a subject of law. The artificial person receives
its personhood directly from the law; therefore, the
limits of its powers, rights, and responsibilities are set
by the enacting law. Rivera Maldonado v.
Commonwealth, 119 DPR 74.
Likewise, Article 28 of the Civil Code prescribes that:
[t]he corporations, companies or associations
referred to in subsection (2) of this title
governed by such legal provisions as may be
applicable thereto, by their classes of
App-234
C.
Alternatively, we understand that the legal status
of the Catholic Church in Puerto Rico does not depend
on an act of the Legislature of Puerto Rico, given that
the Church has its own legal personhood, which is the
same that it had and enjoyed during the Spanish
regime and continued to enjoy when Puerto Rico
became a territory of the United States after the
Spanish-American War.
The maintenance and possession of said legal
personhood was recognized by the Treaty of Paris of
December 10, 1898, in Article 8, paragraph 2, which
prescribed the following:
And it is hereby declared that the
relinquishment or cession, as the case may
be, to which the preceding paragraph refers,
cannot in any respect impair the property or
rights which by law belong to the peaceful
possession of property of all kinds, of
provinces, municipalities, public or private
establishments, ecclesiastical or civic bodies,
or any other associations having legal
capacity to acquire and possess property in
the aforesaid territories renounced or ceded,
or of private individuals, of whatsoever
nationality such individuals may be.”
Based on this provision of the Treaty of Paris, the
Supreme Court of the United States recognized the
legal capacity of the Catholic Church in Municipality
of Ponce v. Catholic Church in Porto Rico, 210 US 296
(1908). The Court expressed the following:
This clause is manifestly intended to guard
the property of the Church against
App-237
1 In the Legal Agreement with the Holy See, the Spanish State
recognizes the legal personhood of the Spanish Episcopal
Conference, in accordance with the Statutes approved by the
Holy See. It is recognized, moreover, that the Church can be
organized freely. In particular, it may create, modify or suppress
dioceses, parishes and other territorial circumscriptions that
shall enjoy civil legal personhood as soon as they are canonical
and this is notified to the competent organs of the State. Marino
Pardo, Francisco Manuel, Legal Regime of Religious Entities and
their Foundations and Associations, (November 3, 2015),
http://www.franciscomarinopardo.es/mistemas/4l-temas-10-27-
parte-gcneral- program-2.
App-239
Appendix G
PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT PARTIES TO THE
PROCEEDING
1. Yalí Acevedo Feliciano, John A. Williams
Bermúdez and their conjugal partnership
2. Juan D. Albarrán Rodríguez
3. Carmen M. Almódovar Oliva
4. Miguel E. Alonso Reyes, Mary L. De Graux
Villafaña and their conjugal partnership
5. Iraida Alvarado Garcés
6. Luis Aponte Santiago, Lourdes Isern and their
conjugal partnership
7. Milagros Arroyo Reyes, José A. Solís Ríos and
their conjugal partnership
8. Enid Ávila Cardona, Boris Corujo Orraca and
their conjugal partnership
9. Ana Ayala Torres, Ramón Ortiz and their
conjugal partnership
10. Esther C. Barrera
11. Gloria Caraballo Figueroa, Jorge Luis Leavitt
and their conjugal partnership
12. Gloria M. Cerra Quiñones, Jaime López Díaz and
their conjugal partnership
13. Ernesto N. Chiesa Figueroa, María E. Báez Bello
and their conjugal partnership
14. Vilmarie Chiroldes Carbia
15. Mayradagmar Colón Nieves
16. Ramonita Covas Bernier
17. Maria M. Cruz Cassé, José F. Umpierre Rivera
and their conjugal partnership
18. Luz D. Cruz Rodríguez
19. Ana Rosa Cuesta Del Valle
App-243