Mariani-Giron v. Acevedo-Ruiz, MARIANI-GIRON

• Decision Date: 31 October 1988
• Docket Number: No. 88-1588,MARIANI-GIRON,ACEVEDO-RUIZ,88-1588
• Citation: 877 F.2d 1114
• Parties: William, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Heriberto, etc., et al., Defendants, Appellants. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 1114

877 F.2d 1114

William MARIANI-GIRON, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Heriberto ACEVEDO-RUIZ, etc., et al., Defendants, Appellants.

No. 88-1588.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Heard Oct. 31, 1988.

Decided June 23, 1989.

Paul B. Smith, Jr., San Juan, P.R., with whom Hector Rivera Cruz, Secretary of Justice, Rafael Ortiz Carrion, Sol. Gen., Jose Hamid Rivera and Saldana, Rey, Moran & Alvarado, Hato Rey, P.R., were on brief, for defendants, appellants.

Frank Rodriguez Garcia, Ponce, P.R., for plaintiffs, appellees.

Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, COFFIN and TORRUELLA, Circuit Judges.

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff William Mariani Giron brought this action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 (1982) alleging that the defendant, Heriberto Acevedo Ruiz, the director of Puerto Rico's Commonwealth Civil Defense Agency ("CDA"), violated his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments in discharging him from his position as a zone coordinator for the CDA. After the district court denied Acevedo Ruiz's motion for summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity, Acevedo Ruiz filed this interlocutory appeal. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 524-30, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2814-17, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985); Unwin v. Campbell, 863 F.2d 124, 130-33 (1st Cir.1988). We hold that Acevedo Ruiz is entitled to qualified immunity and reverse the district court.

On April 18, 1980, Mariani Giron, an active member of Puerto Rico's New Progressive Party ("NPP"), was appointed zone coordinator of the Ponce region for the CDA which encompasses 16 municipalities. In the November 1984 gubernatorial election in Puerto Rico, the Popular Democratic Party ("PDP") defeated the NPP. Shortly thereafter, the newly elected Governor appointed Acevedo Ruiz, a member of the PDP, as director of the CDA. In a letter dated March 28, 1985, Acevedo Ruiz discharged Mariani Giron, stating as the reason for the discharge only that the position of CDA zone coordinator was classified as a "trust or confidence" position under P.R.Laws Ann. tit. 3, Secs. 1349-1351 (1978). On April 11, 1985, Mariani Giron's former position was filled by a member of the PDP.

Mariani Giron subsequently brought this action alleging that Acevedo Ruiz violated his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments in discharging him from his position. ¹ Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980); Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976). See generally Jimenez Fuentes v. Torres Gaztambide, 807 F.2d 236 (1st Cir.1986) (en banc), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1014, 107 S.Ct. 1888, 95 L.Ed.2d 496 (1987). Seeking damages and reinstatement to his former position, Mariani Giron alleged he was terminated because of his affiliation with the NPP. After a hearing, the district court granted Mariani Giron's motion for a preliminary injunction of reinstatement. This court affirmed the issuance of the preliminary injunction. Mariani Giron v. Acevedo Ruiz, 834 F.2d 238 (1st Cir.1987). ² Acevedo Ruiz then moved in the district court for summary judgment, arguing that he was entitled to qualified immunity from Mariani Giron's claim for damages. The district court denied this motion, and Acevedo Ruiz filed this interlocutory appeal.

I.

A threshold issue is whether this appeal is within our appellate jurisdiction. A court of appeals lacks power to entertain an appeal from a party who is not specified in the notice of appeal. Torres v. Oakland Scavenger Co., --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 2405, 2408-09, 101 L.Ed.2d 285 (1988); Kaiser v. Armstrong World Industries, Inc., 872 F.2d 512 (1st Cir.1989); Gonzalez Vega v. Hernandez Colon, 866 F.2d 519, 519 (1st Cir.1989); Santos Martinez v. Soto Santiago, 863 F.2d 174, 175 (1st Cir.1988). See Fed.R.App.P. 3(c). In this case, the caption of the notice of appeal dated May 18, 1988, identified defendants as follows:

HERIBERTO ACEVEDO-RUIZ, ET AL

Defendants

The body of the notice provided in pertinent part,

Notice is given that defendants hereby appeal to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from the order entered in this action on April 19, 1988, denying a motion for summary judgment filed by defendants on February 22, 1988. Said summary judgment motion is based on defendants' assertion of the qualified immunity of public officials, Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511 [105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411] (1985).

There were a total of three defendants in the action below: Heriberte Acevedo Ruiz his wife, Mabel Perez Acevedo; and "their Conjugal Partnership." Neither the caption nor the body of the notice of appeal mentioned the wife or the partnership.

Because of this lack of specificity, Mariani Giron has moved to dismiss the appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction. While we apparently lack jurisdiction over his wife and their conjugal partnership, as they are nowhere specified in the notice of appeal, ³ we do have jurisdiction over Acevedo Ruiz. The presence of his name in the caption, coupled with the statement in the body of the notice of appeal that "defendants hereby appeal," which incorporated by reference those defendants named in the caption, satisfied as to him the specificity requirement of Rule 3(c); we cannot say that Acevedo Ruiz "was never named or otherwise designated, however inartfully, in the notice of appeal" even though the "ET AL" and the plural use of "defendants" left us in doubt as to the remaining defendants seeking to appeal. Torres, 108 S.Ct. at 2409. This court has implicitly held on previous occasions that it has appellate jurisdiction over a party named in the caption of the notice of appeal. Marin-Piazza v. Aponte-Roque, 873 F.2d 432 (1st Cir.1989); Santos Martinez v. Hernandez Colon, 863 F.2d 174 (1st Cir.1988); Kaiser v. Armstrong World Industries, Inc., 872 F.2d 512, 514 (1st Cir.1989). In these three cases, the intent to appeal of the party named in the caption was manifest from a reading of the body of the notice of appeal and the caption. See also Ford v. Nicks, 866 F.2d 865, 869-70 (6th Cir.1989) (ruling, without discussion, that a party named only in the caption had been specified as a party taking an appeal); Cotton v. U.S. Pipe & Foundry Co., 856 F.2d 158, 160-63 (11th Cir.1988) (court has jurisdiction over parties "named on face of the appeal"). While each situation must be looked at separately, we disagree with the blanket generalization in Allen Archery, Inc. v. Precision Shooting Equipment, Inc., 857 F.2d 1176, 1177 (7th Cir.1988), that "naming [appellant] in the caption ... will not do." The caption should be looked at as a part of the entire notice. Since the present notice, including its caption, names as appellant the principal defendant, Acevedo Ruiz, we hold that we have jurisdiction over Acevedo Ruiz's appeal.

II.

As a general rule, government officials performing discretionary functions are "shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982) (citations omitted). A court must look to the "objective legal reasonableness of an official's conduct, as measured by reference to clearly established law," to determine whether the doctrine of qualified immunity applies. Id. See also Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). Mariani Giron's section 1983 action arises under the First Amendment which prohibits the patronage discharge of public employees except where "party affiliation is an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of the public office involved." Branti, 445 U.S. at 518, 100 S.Ct. at 1294. See also Elrod, 427 U.S. at 367-68, 96 S.Ct. at 2686-87. Acevedo Ruiz argues that he is entitled to qualified immunity because, at the time of Mariani Giron's discharge in March 1985, the law was not clearly established that political affiliation was not an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of the position of CDA zone coordinator for the Ponce region.

This court has recently described the qualified immunity inquiry in the context of political firings which occurred in 1985 the question ... is "whether [at the time of dismissal] it was clearly established that employees in the particular positions at issue, in light of the responsibilities inherent in those positions, were protected from patronage dismissal." ... [A] defendant enjoys "qualified immunity" as long as the job in question "potentially concerned matters of partisan political interest and involved at least a modicum of policymaking responsibility, access to confidential information, or official communication." ... And, we have said that "defendants will normally enjoy qualified immunity from damage liability in upper-level, managerial-type job dismissal cases, cases where the jobs in question are not purely technical or scientific in nature."

Figueroa-Rodriguez v. Lopez-Rivera, 878 F.2d 1478, 1480 (1st Cir. 1989) (en banc) (emphasis in original) (quoting Mendez-Palou v. Rohena-Betancourt, 813 F.2d 1255, 1259 (1st Cir.1987), and Juarbe-Angueira v. Arias, 831 F.2d 11, 14 (1st Cir.1987), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 1222, 99 L.Ed.2d 423 (1988)). See also Figueroa-Rodriguez v. Aquino, 863 F.2d 1037 (1st Cir.1988).

Applying these criteria to the instant case, we do not think it was clearly established in March 1985 that political affiliation was not a requirement for Mariani Giron's job. The Puerto Rico Civil Defense Act states that it is the public policy of the Commonwealth to provide

all necessary measures for the protection and safety of the Puerto Rican people in any situation of emergency or disaster that may affect them. To such ends, the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico contemplates to keep in constant preparation a well-trained and...