Cepero-Rivera v. Fagundo
| Decision Date | 01 July 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 04-1401.,04-1401. |
| Citation | 414 F.3d 124 |
| Parties | Frank CEPERO-RIVERA; Jennifer Cepero-Salgado, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Engineer Fernando E. FAGUNDO, Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Highway Authority (PRHA); Harry Díaz-Vega, Area Director for Human Resources of PRHA; Roberto Santiago-Cancel, Auxiliary Director of Human Resources of PRHA; Eric Ramíreznazario, Samuel De La Rosa, William Vega, All Three Members of the Appeals Committee of the PRHA; Howard Phillip Figueroa, Auxiliary Administrative Officer of the PRHA; Puerto Rico Highway Authority; José Izquierdo-Encarnación, Secretary of the Department of Transportation and Public Works, Defendants, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Jesús Hernández-Sánchez, with whom Raúl Barrera-Morales, Fredeswin Pérez-Caballero and Jesús Hernández-Sánchez Law Firm, were on brief, for appellants.
Gloriana S. Hita-Valiente, with whom Llovet Zurinaga & López, PSC, was on brief, for appellees.
Ineabelle Santiago-Camacho, with whom Beatriz Annexy Guevara and Reichard & Escalera, were on brief, for appellee Puerto Rico Highway Authority.
Before BOUDIN, Chief Judge, TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge, and CARTER,* Senior District Judge.
Plaintiff-appellant Frank Cepero-Rivera was the Director of Labor Affairs of the Human Resources Department of the Puerto Rico Highway Authority ("PRHA"), until he was terminated for violations of the PRHA's Rules and Regulations. Cepero-Rivera and his daughter, Jennifer Cepero-Salgado, claim that Cepero-Rivera's termination was motivated by his political affiliation in violation of his constitutional rights pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 & 1985, and they now appeal the district court's dismissal of their claims against certain defendants, its grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant Fernando Fagundo, and its determination that the procedures followed in Cepero-Rivera's termination did not violate due process. After examining the record, we reject each of appellants' arguments, and affirm the order of the district court.
The chain of events leading to appellant Cepero's firing began on September 24, 2001, when Cepero-Rivera wrote a letter to the former PRHA Executive Director, Fernando Fagundo, requesting a salary increase in accordance with a PRHA regulation that required a one-step pay increase for employees who had not been given a pay raise equivalent to one step in the pay scale over the preceding five years. In the letter, Cepero-Rivera also stated that he possessed a list of the salaries and fringe benefits of several recently-appointed female employees. Based on this information, he alleged gender and age discrimination, and that the salary raises given to those female employees violated the merit principle established in the PRHA Personnel Handbook.
Cepero-Rivera did not receive the response he had hoped for. On January 2, 2002, Fagundo sent Cepero-Rivera a letter denying his request for a salary raise because he had received six pay raises in as many years with the PRHA. In the same letter, Fagundo informed Cepero-Rivera that he had ordered the PRHA's legal department to investigate possible violations of the Puerto Rico Penal Code and several articles of the PRHA's Disciplinary Measures Handbook, including two alleged violations of infraction 37 of the Handbook, which prohibits using confidential personnel records for personal gain. Fagundo's letter outlined the underlying facts relating to Cepero-Rivera's admitted possession of other employees' confidential information in his September letter and a previous instance in which he appended portions of defendant Howard Phillip's confidential personnel records to a memorandum about Phillip. Fagundo's letter additionally alleged insubordination and involvement in various incidents with other PRHA employees. The letter informed Cepero-Rivera of Fagundo's intentions to file disciplinary measures, which could result in dismissal, and that an informal hearing was to be held on January 18, 2002. The January 2, 2002 letter was Cepero-Rivera's first notice of defendants' intentions to take disciplinary measures against him.
On January 10, 2002, Cepero-Rivera sent a letter to Fagundo responding to the allegations that he had misused confidential personnel records and requesting more information about the specific facts underlying the insubordination and misconduct allegations. Cepero-Rivera's request was never answered by defendants. On January 17, 2002, Cepero-Rivera sent Fagundo a handwritten note stating that the January 2 letter did not state the time of the hearing, and thus, he was handing in certain documents "as evidence of [his] appearance in writing to the informal hearing." On February 22, 2002, Cepero-Rivera received a letter officially terminating his employment with the PRHA.
Appellants make four distinct arguments on appeal. First, appellants claim that district court erred in requiring Cepero-Rivera to present a prima facie case of political discrimination against Eric Ramírez-Nazario, Samuel De La Rosa, and William Vega. Second, appellants argue that the district court erred in dismissing, sua sponte, the claims against Harry Díaz-Vega, Roberto Santiago-Cancel, and Howard Phillip Figueroa. Third, appellants challenge the grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant Fernando Fagundo for failure to rebut defendants' proffered nondiscriminatory basis for Cepero-Rivera's dismissal. Finally, Cepero-Rivera argues that the procedure leading to his termination did not afford him due process of law. We address each of plaintiffs' claims in turn.
Appellants contend that the district court incorrectly applied a heightened pleading standard to Ramírez's, De la Rosa's, and Vega's motion to dismiss. Although the district court in large part correctly described the motion to dismiss standard, see Rivera v. Fagundo, 301 F.Supp.2d 103, 106 (D.P.R.2004), it also stated that appellants' claims should be dismissed for failure to "establish a prima facie case of political discrimination," id. at 108. Appellees concede that appellants did not have the burden of establishing a prima facie case in order to survive a motion to dismiss. However, they argue that appellants nevertheless clearly failed to meet their burden under the proper Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2) standard, and thus, the ultimate decision to dismiss should be affirmed. We agree.
"For years, courts in this circuit [had] required plaintiffs to satisfy a heightened pleading standard in civil rights actions." Educadores Puertorriqueños en Acción v. Hernández, 367 F.3d 61, 62 (1st Cir.2004). However, in Hernández, this court recognized that the Supreme Court's decision in Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N. A., 534 U.S. 506, 122 S.Ct. 992, 152 L.Ed.2d 1 (2002), "sounded the death knell for the imposition of a heightened pleading standard except in cases in which either a federal statute or specific Civil Rule requires that result." Hernández, 367 F.3d at 66. "In all other cases, courts faced with the task of adjudicating motions to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) must apply the notice pleading requirements of Rule 8(a)(2)." Id. Since there is no federal statute or specific Federal Rule of Civil Procedure mandating a heightened pleading standard for civil rights actions such as the political discrimination claims at issue in this appeal, the notice pleading standard, not the heightened pleading standard formerly applied in this circuit, governs motions to dismiss.
The case before us appears at first glance to present precisely the same situation that we resolved in Hernández. As in Hernández, the district court in this case dismissed plaintiffs' political discrimination claims on the basis that plaintiffs failed to establish a prima facie case. Compare Rivera, 301 F.Supp.2d at 108, with Hernández, 367 F.3d at 63. On this basis, in Hernández, we remanded the case to the district court to proceed in light of the proper standard. 367 F.3d at 68. Appellants ask that we follow suit in the instant case.
Notwithstanding the citations to the "prima facie case" standard, it does not, however, appear that the district court in this case applied a heightened pleading standard. Rather, it looked to the complaint and found that the allegations therein failed to make out a claim against these defendants. Furthermore, we find that remand would be unnecessary, because appellants' claims in question clearly fail to survive the proper Rule 8(a)(2) notice pleading standard.
Under Rule 8(a)(2), a complaint need only include "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Id. at 66. "This statement must `give the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiff's claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.'" Id. (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)). Under this standard, "a court confronted with a Rule 12(b)(6) motion `may dismiss a complaint only if it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations.'" Id. (quoting Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73, 104 S.Ct. 2229, 81 L.Ed.2d 59 (1984)).
Appellants' allegations against defendants Ramírez, De la Rosa, and Vega are not simply vague or lacking in specificity. Rather, they consist entirely of speculation about possible future conduct by the defendants. Defendants are members of PRHA's Appeals Committee, which is to hear the administrative complaints Cepero-Rivera filed as a result of the actions taken against him. Cepero-Rivera claims that these defendants "will entertain a pending appeal. . . and will carry out the public policy of discrimination because of their political ideology against plaintiff and are ready to rubber stamp the decision of co-defendant...
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