Hatfield-Bermudez v. Aldanondo-Rivera

Decision Date06 August 2007
Docket NumberNo. 05-2293.,05-2293.
Citation496 F.3d 51
PartiesRuth HATFIELD-BERMUDEZ, Plaintiff, Appellant/Cross-Appellee, v. José ALDANONDO-RIVERA, in his personal capacity and his official capacity as Director for the Program for the Education of Adults; Aida L. Berríos-Gómez, in her personal capacity and in her official capacity as Director, Caguas Region, Defendants, Appellees/Cross-Appellants, Cesar A. Rey-Hernandez, in his personal capacity and official capacity as the Secretary of Puerto Rico Department of Education; Santos E. Melendez, in his personal capacity and in his official capacity as General Supervisor for the Program for the Education of Adults; Rogelio Campos, in his personal capacity and in his official capacity for the Program for the Education of Adults; Avelina Rivera, in her personal capacity and in her official capacity as General Supervisor for the Program for the Education of Adults, Caguas Region; Margarita Gonzalez, in her personal capacity and in her official capacity as Special Assistant of the Vocational Program, Caguas Region, Defendants, Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Francisco R. González, with whom F.R. González Law Office was on brief, for Ruth Hatfield-Bermudez.

Sarah Y. Rosado-Morales, with whom Luis E. Padrón-Rosado and Sánchez Betances, Sifre, Muñoz Noya & Rivera, P.S.C. were on brief, for José Aldanondo-Rivera, Aida L. Berríos-Gomez, Cesar A. Rey Hernandez, Santos E. Melendez, Rogelio Campos, Avelina Rivera, and Margarita Gonzalez.

Before TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge, SELYA, Senior Circuit Judge, and LYNCH, Circuit Judge.

LYNCH, Circuit Judge.

A jury awarded Ruth Hatfield-Bermudez compensatory and punitive damages after defendants José Aldanondo-Rivera and Aida L. Berríos-Gómez failed to renew Hatfield's position as head of an adult education night school. The jury concluded that this non-renewal violated Hatfield's First Amendment political affiliation rights, as well as her rights under Article 1802 of the Puerto Rico Civil Code. See P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, § 5141. The magistrate judge, presiding with the consent of the parties, vacated the political discrimination verdict for lack of key evidence. The judge also, acting well within his powers, granted a mistrial on the Article 1802 verdict based on improper comments by plaintiff's counsel. On reconsideration, the magistrate judge reversed the grant of the mistrial after deciding that his curative instructions had been sufficient.

Hatfield appeals the grant of the Rule 50(b) motion on her political discrimination claim, as well as the earlier dismissal of a due process claim that she had also brought. Aldanondo and Berríos appeal the judgment against them on the Article 1802 claim. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND & PROCEDURAL HISTORY
A. Dismissal of the Due Process Claim

Hatfield's complaint alleged that she had been working in her position for eight years under successive one-year contracts. Hatfield alleged that when her contract was not renewed for the 2001-2002 school year, the defendants deprived her of a property right without due process of law.

The defendants moved to dismiss the due process claim on the basis that Hatfield's own pleadings demonstrated that she had no property right in her continued employment. In an opinion dated February 11, 2003, the district court agreed and dismissed the due process claim.

For reasons unknown, defense counsel apparently believed the claim was still in the case by the time of trial, and he moved to dismiss this claim pursuant to Rule 50(a) after the close of the evidence. The magistrate judge granted the defendants' motion on the basis that even if the evidence established that Hatfield had a property right in the renewal of her contract, the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because there was sufficient uncertainty that such a property right existed.

B. The Political Discrimination and Tort Claims: The Evidence at Trial

The discrimination and tort claims were tried before a jury. We recount the key testimony.

Hatfield's night school operated under the auspices of the Puerto Rico Department of Education ("PRDE"), and Hatfield had a long career working for this agency. With the exception of a four-year stint working in the Caguas regional office, Hatfield's "day job" since 1980 had been to work as the principal of two different public schools in Cayey, Puerto Rico. In 1993, Hatfield took on an additional post as a school director in a night school for adults. For several years she directed the night program at the Benigno Fernandez Garcia school. Enrollment surged, and that program was transferred to the larger Miguel Melendez Muñoz school. Hatfield continued as director, with her contract being renewed each year through the 2000-2001 school year.

Hatfield is a member of the New Progressive Party ("NPP"). From 1993 until early 2001, the NPP controlled Puerto Rico's governorship. After the 2000 elections, the Popular Democratic Party ("PDP") took power. The new administration quickly appointed new individuals to trust positions within the PRDE, including defendant Aldanondo, who was named the Director of Puerto Rico's Adult Education Program ("AEP"). Hatfield's night school operated within the AEP.

AEPs are partially funded with federal grant money. See 34 C.F.R. § 461.1. In Puerto Rico, the PRDE administers the AEP and decides which projects should be funded, but it must also comply with various procedural regulations issued by the federal government. As a result, the PRDE annually requires night school directors to fill out detailed funding proposals in order for their particular programs to continue in operation. The proposals must discuss the program, the needs of its students, the progress the program had made, the objectives for the coming year, and a number of other subjects. These proposals for continuing programs, along with any proposals for new programs, are then submitted to the PRDE for approval. See id. §§ 461.30-33 (discussing the procedures that states must use for selecting the recipients of AEP funds).

In the spring of 2001, the new PDP administration initiated the proposal process for the coming 2001-2002 school year. Orientations were held in April to advise interested persons on how to prepare proposals.

Hatfield attended one of these orientations. At that session, a director asked whether the process for selecting school directors would be the same as it had been in previous years. Hatfield testified that Aldanondo answered the question by saying: "As you well know, there has been a change in administration. I recommend to you that you go by the regional office, to your regional director, . . . you go and stroke them." This last comment, to "go and stroke them," was an in-court translation of the Spanish phrase "pasarle la mano" — a phrase that Aldanondo emphatically disputed using when he later testified. Hatfield testified that there was a big commotion immediately after Aldanondo made these comments. School directors "got up, started speaking out loud, and practically that was the end of the meeting."

Hatfield prepared a proposal for the 2001-2002 school year. The cover of the proposal lists Hatfield as the "Provider" of the proposal, and it lists the "School or Institution" as the Miguel Melendez Muñoz High School. Another school director, Victor Ayala, submitted a proposal for the nearby Augustin Fernandez Colon School. Both proposals were approved, and these approvals were forwarded to the relevant regional office. These were the only two proposals submitted within the Cayey school district.

After the proposals had been approved, the PRDE began the process of hiring staff for the schools, including directors. Hatfield testified that in prior years, school directors would go for an interview, at the end of which each would be asked if he or she wished to continue directing. If the director answered "yes," and that director's proposal had been approved, the director would be given the position. If the director said "no," then the regional office would consider other candidates for that position. Hatfield's description of the old hiring process was reinforced by another witness.

This process changed in 2001. After a proposal was approved, the director was nevertheless required to compete for the school for which he had prepared the proposal. Hatfield's experience confirmed that the policy change was put into effect in the Caguas region, which encompassed Cayey.

Within that region, the hiring process after June 2001 was headed by the PRDE's Regional Director, defendant Berríos. Berríos is a member of the PDP, and the hiring for the 2001-2002 school year was the first hiring cycle in which she participated. She testified that she had looked for documents explaining how the hiring process had previously operated in the region, and that the only useful document she found was a 1996 PRDE circular letter. This letter explained that regional directors had to prepare a list of interested and qualified candidates, from which the selection was to be made by a three-person committee. That committee was to consider the "academic background, experience, participation in training[,] and disposition of the candidate." Because this letter provided only limited guidance, Berríos met with her operations manager, Ramona Nieves, to design procedures for interviewing and selection. Nieves is the wife of the Mayor of Comerío and a PDP activist.

Berríos and Nieves devised a point system to rank candidates, with a maximum of 90 available points. Some 30 points would be based on a candidate's academic qualifications, experience within the PRDE generally, and experience teaching adults. The remaining 60 points would be based on how the committee evaluated the candidate's response to one written and one oral question, with 30 points allocated to each question. The two questions were open-ended...

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