Acevedo-Garcia v. Vera-Monroig

• Decision Date: 16 September 1999
• Docket Number: ET,VERA-MONROI,No. 99-1137,ACEVEDO-GARCI,99-1137
• Citation: 204 F.3d 1
• Parties: (1st Cir. 2000) LUIS A.AL., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. ROBERTOAL., Defendants, Appellants Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 1

204 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2000)

LUIS A. ACEVEDO-GARCIA, ET AL., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. ROBERTO VERA-MONROIG, ET AL., Defendants, Appellants

No. 99-1137

United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

Heard September 16, 1999

Decided February 17, 2000

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Orlando Fernandez, with whom Juan Carlos Garay and Garcia & Fernandez were on brief, for appellants Roberto Vera-Monroig and Irma Gonzalez in their personal capacities.

Johanna M. Emmanuelli-Huertas, with whom Pedro E. Ortiz Alvarez was on brief, for appellants Municipality of Adjuntas and Roberto Vera-Monroig and Irma Gonzalez in their official capacities.

Israel Roldan-Gonzalez for appellees.

Before Selya, Circuit Judge, Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge, and Lipez, Circuit Judge LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

This case requires us to consider claims of immunity from suit and liability raised by Roberto Vera-Monroig, the mayor of Adjuntas in Puerto Rico, Irma Gonzalez, Adjuntas's Director of Human Resources, and the municipality of Adjuntas in response to a lawsuit filed by eighty-eight former and current employees of the municipality, all members of the New Progressive Party ("NPP"), in the wake of an election in November 1996. Alleging violations of their First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the plaintiffs fall into two groups: those who allege that they were discharged from their positions and replaced with workers from the mayor's political party; and those who allege that they suffered changed work conditions and responsibilities, including removal of job functions, relocation to distant or substandard office facilities, assignment of menial duties to supervisory staff, and restrictions on bathroom breaks. These actions occurred after the election of Mayor Vera of the Popular Democratic Party ("PDP") in November 1996 and almost exclusively affected employees affiliated with the NPP.

The individual defendants sought summary judgment from the district court on the basis of absolute immunity for their legislative activities and qualified immunity for the performance of discretionary government functions. The municipality sought summary judgment on the grounds that liability was unavailable under § 1983 because the plaintiffs had not established a policy of harassment and because the municipality followed the laws of Puerto Rico. The defendants also moved for summary judgment on more traditional grounds, arguing that the plaintiffs failed to provide sufficient evidence of discrimination based on political affiliation to warrant a jury trial. The district court rejected the absolute and qualified immunity defenses of the individual defendants and the grounds asserted by the municipality for summary judgment, thereby prompting this appeal. See Acevedo-Garcia v. Vera-Monroig, 30 F. Supp. 2d 141 (D.P.R. 1998).

We affirm the denial of summary judgment for two reasons: (1) the district court's ruling on the unavailability of absolute immunity for the non-legislative acts of the individual defendants was correct; and (2) we lack jurisdiction to consider the challenges to the district court's rulings on qualified immunity and municipal liability.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Summary

Drawing upon the district court's opinion, we first set forth the uncontested facts. We then set forth the contested facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, cognizant of the principle that we must take the record in the light most favorable to the party opposing summary judgment. See Buenrostro v. Collazo, 973 F.3d 39, 41 (1st Cir. 1992).

1. Uncontested Facts

Mayor Vera of the PDP won the November 1996 elections in Adjuntas. See Acevedo-Garcia, 30 F. Supp. 2d at 143-44. The previous mayor had been a member of the NPP, and during his tenure from 1989 to 1997 only two of the 114 employees he hired had been members of the PDP. According to an April 1996 audit report from the Puerto Rico Comptroller's Office, Adjuntas had operated with an annual deficit of at least $1,000,000 for over a decade. Mayor Vera requested a further financial study of municipal operations from a private certified public accountant. The financial report prepared by the accountant showed a cumulative deficit of over $5,000,000 as well as long-term debt of $2,000,000. Mayor Vera decided that the municipal departments were overstaffed and that the municipality could not maintain the same levels of employment. He hired a private human resources consulting firm to evaluate all personnel files and prepare a layoff plan. See id. at 144.

Pursuant to Puerto Rican law, P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 21, §4551, the Mayor submitted the layoff plan (Ordinance No. 25) to the Adjuntas Municipal Assembly for approval; the Assembly approved it in April 1997. The layoff plan detailed procedures for the selection of employees for discharge and any ensuing appeals of the municipality's decisions. See id. After meeting with the municipal officials and the private consultants responsible for the financial study and layoff plan, Mayor Vera instructed his staff to implement the plan. Municipal staff evaluated personnel files to determine seniority, notified employees of their seniority status, and provided an opportunity for employees to contest their status. On September 11, 1997, letters of severance were sent to affected employees, informing them of their anticipated discharge and their right to appeal the decision to the Personnel Administration Systems Board of Appeals. Municipal officials posted employee seniority status and listed employees affected by the layoff plan. See id. Employees listed for termination received a second letter informing them again of their right to appeal. See id. at 145.

Pursuant to Puerto Rican law, the elimination of municipal positions occurs through a legislative act. On November 19, 1997, the municipality enacted Ordinance No. 20 which eliminated 102 positions. See id. at 144. Almost all of the employees discharged were members of the NPP. After the layoff, Mayor Vera hired 77 new contract employees for positions in state-funded programs.¹ See id. at 145. Most of the contract workers were affiliated with the PDP.

2. Contested Facts

While the plaintiffs concede that the defendants' actions were taken pursuant to the layoff plan, they claim that the defendants implemented the layoff plan in a discriminatory manner. The municipality did not always observe the plan's seniority criteria, sometimes retaining employees with less seniority than the plaintiffs who were fired. Moreover, the most senior terminated employees were not always offered open municipal positions for which they qualified, contrary to the provisions of the plan. Indeed, many whose positions were eliminated were replaced by less senior contract workers from the PDP who performed the same job functions but under different titles. Plaintiffs who retained their positions were treated differently than PDP workers while they remained on the job. They experienced a variety of indignities, such as deprivation of job functions, bathroom breaks, and office furniture. See id.

B. The District Court's Decision

In a lengthy written opinion, the district court rejected all of the immunity and municipal liability defenses. The individual defendants were not entitled to immunity for legislative acts because the alleged political discrimination took place in the administration of the layoff plan and not in its legislative adoption. See id. at 148. The municipality could not prevail on summary judgment because its liability hinged on disputed material facts. See id. at 152.

In rejecting the qualified immunity defense of the individual defendants, the court first noted that the defendants would be shielded by qualified immunity if the jobs in question "potentially concerned matters of a partisan political interest and involved at least a modicum of policymaking responsibility, access to confidential information, or official communication." Id. at 149 (quoting Figueroa-Rodriguez v. Lopez-Rivera, 878 F.2d 1478, 1480 (1st Cir. 1989)). The defendants, however, did not invoke qualified immunity because of the nature of the plaintiffs' jobs. Instead, Mayor Vera and Director Gonzalez argued that they were entitled to qualified immunity because they "acted in an objectively reasonable manner and in conformance with relevant legal standards by proposing and implementing the Layoff Plan based on Puerto Rico Law 81."

The court found this argument legally insufficient: "Even if the Court 'objectively' considers the fact that Defendants allegedly followed Law 81 in the analysis of qualified immunity, Plaintiffs have proffered evidence of a triable issue of fact regarding a potentially discriminatory application of the Layoff Plan." Id. The court's finding of a triable issue of fact on political motivation applied both to the claims of plaintiffs who had lost their jobs and plaintiffs who claimed political harassment because of changes in their work conditions and responsibilities. In addition, by rejecting qualified immunity for the political harassment claims of plaintiffs who still had jobs, the court implicitly determined that the law protecting them from the politically-motivated changes in work conditions and responsibilities was "clearly established." See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818-19 (1982) ("If the law was clearly established, the immunity defense ordinarily should fail . . . .").

After disposing of the qualified immunity issues, the court turned to the defendants' traditional summary judgment argument that the individual plaintiffs had not generated genuine issues of material fact on either their termination or political harassment claims. With respect to the allegations of unlawful termination, the trial court denied the defendants summary judgment as to the claims of seven of the plaintiffs.² For this group of claims, the court found that the defendants'...