V&aacute v. Borges-Rodr&iacute

• Decision Date: 14 October 2014
• Docket Number: CIVIL NO.: 12-1972 (MEL)
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico
• Parties: DAMARIS A. VÁZQUEZ-PAGÁN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. MIGUEL BORGES-RODRÍGUEZ, et al., Defendants.

DAMARIS A. VÁZQUEZ-PAGÁN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. MIGUEL BORGES-RODRÍGUEZ, et al., Defendants.

CIVIL NO.: 12-1972 (MEL)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

October 14, 2014

OPINION AND ORDER

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On September 23, 2014, the court filed an opinion and order granting in part and denying in part a motion for summary judgment filed by Miguel Borges-Rodríguez ("Borges-Rodríguez") and Elin Cintrón-González ("Cintrón-González") (collectively "defendants"), dismissing all claims in this case with the exception of plaintiff Damaris Vázquez-Pagán's ("Vázquez-Pagán") political discrimination claim filed pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, regarding the failure to hire her to the School Director position at the Agustín-Ortiz school ("Agustín-Ortiz") based on interviews that took place on August 3, 2012. ECF No. 56. On October 2, 2014, defendants moved for reconsideration of the partial denial of summary judgment, seeking a full dismissal of the case of caption. ECF No. 63. On October 6, 2014, Vázquez-Pagán and her minor child K.F.V. (collectively "plaintiffs") moved for the court to reconsider the dismissal of K.F.V.'s derivative claim brought pursuant to P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, § 5141 ("Article 1802"). ECF No. 65. Pending before the court are the parties' motions for reconsideration, their responses in opposition, and defendants' reply. ECF Nos. 63; 64; 65; 66; 71.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Political Discrimination

1. Prima Facie Case

In the opinion filed on September 23, 2014, the court found that Vázquez-Pagán met her burden of establishing a prima facie case of political discrimination, including that she had produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that political animus was a substantial or motivating factor in the decision to appoint Olga Arroyo-García ("Arroyo-García") in favor of Vázquez-Pagán. Defendants argue that Vázquez-Pagán has not produced sufficient evidence regarding what factors the Secretary of Education considered in appointing Arroyo-García or that the three-person Interview Committee was influenced by Cintrón-González's political animus in reaching its unanimous recommendation for Arroyo-García.¹ ECF Nos. 63; 71. They assert that it was plaintiff's burden to adduce additional evidence and if the case proceeds to trial based on theevidence in the summary judgment record then the jury will be forced to impermissibly speculate as to these two theories.

Defendants' arguments compel a closer examination of the requisite causation standard for a prima facie case of political discrimination. As stated by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, the causation analysis asks "whether a plaintiff was denied, or banished from, public employment for political reasons" and "requires the plaintiff to show that political affiliation was a substantial or motivating factor in the decisional calculus." Gómez v. Rivera Rodríguez, 344 F.3d 103, 110 (1st Cir. 2003) (citing Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287 (1977)). In Staub v. Proctor Hosp., the United States Supreme Court elaborated on what constitutes a "motivating factor in the employer's action" in employment discrimination cases involving cases in which the ultimate decisionmaker lacks discriminatory animus, but is influenced by the discriminatory animus of a supervisor who is not charged with making the ultimate employment decision.² 131 S.Ct. 1186 (2011) ("An employer's authority to reward, punish, or dismiss is often allocated among multiple agents. The one who makes the ultimate decision does so on the basis of performance assessments by other supervisors.").

In Staub, the Supreme Court instructed that general tort-law principle of proximate causation applies to the analysis of whether something is a motivating factor in a particular adverse employment action.³ See Staub, 131 S.Ct at 1187-88 (citations omitted). It noted that "[a]nimus and responsibility for the adverse action can both be attributed to the earlier agent . . . if the adverse action is the intended consequence of that agent's discriminatory conduct." 131 S.Ct. at 1192. The elaboration on what constitutes a motivating factor from Staub sheds light on plaintiff's burden with regard to the substantial or motivating factor causation prong. Staub explains that "[p]roximate cause requires only 'some direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct alleged." Staub, 131 S.Ct. at 1192 (quoting Hemi Grp., LLC v. City of New York, 559 U.S. 1 (2010)). Proximate cause "[e]xcludes only those 'link[s] that are too remote, purely contingent, or indirect.'" Id. (quoting Hemi Grp., 559 U.S. at 1). Furthermore, the Supreme Court explicitly noted that "it is axiomatic under tort law that the decisionmaker's exercise of judgment does not prevent the earlier agent's action from being the proximate cause of the harm. Nor can the ultimate decisionmaker's judgment be deemed a superseding cause of the harm." Id. That is, the decisionmaker's discretion does not "render[] the link to the supervisor's bias remote or purely contingent." Id. (internal citations omitted). Instead, as it is"common for injuries to have multiple proximate causes . . ." both the supervisor's biased action and the decisionmaker's exercise of judgment can be "proximate cause[s] of the employment decision." Id.

With regard to the uncontested fact that the Secretary of Education makes the ultimate decision about which candidate to appoint as School Director, the principles discussed in Staub are directly applicable to the instant case. As a preliminary matter, there is evidence in the summary judgment record from which a rational jury could find that Cintrón-González intended to use whatever influence he had to cause Arroyo-García to be appointed at the expense of Vázquez-Pagán, because of their respective political affiliations. Staub illustrates that even if the Secretary of Education exercised his or her own judgment in selecting Arroyo-García rather than Vázquez-Pagán, that exercise of judgment would not necessarily sever the causal link between Cintrón-González's politically-motivated recommendation and the choice to appoint Arroyo-García. As noted in the opinion denying in part summary judgment, the record contains evidence that prior to the August 3, 2012 interviews Cintrón-González intended to "name" Arroyo-García to the School Director position at Agustín-Ortiz. He served as the Regional Director's delegate on the Interview Committee for that position, the Interview Committee recommended Arroyo-García for the position, and the Secretary of Education ultimately appointed her to the position. To establish a prima facie case of political discrimination, a plaintiff need not evince that political animus was the determining factor in a decision, but rather that it was a substantial or motivating factor. Since Arroyo-García was the only candidate recommended it is indeed foreseeable that she was the candidate ultimately appointed. From this evidence, even in the absence of testimony as to the Secretary of Education's particular considerations it cannot be saidthat no reasonable jury could find that Cintrón-González's role or influence was not a proximate cause—i.e. a motivating factor—in Arroyo-García's appointment.

The more difficult question with respect to causation pertains to the fact that the recommendation for Arroyo-García was rendered by a three-person Interview Committee, which based on the evidence before the court appears to have made a unanimous recommendation for Arroyo-García. See ECF No. 47-11. It is uncontested that the Interview Committee may recommend up to three candidates to the Secretary of Education for the School Director position. ECF Nos. 32-1, ¶ 19; 40-1, ¶ 19. As defendants indicate, the evidence in the record suggests that Regional Director has a 50% vote as to the recommendation(s) made by the Interview Committee and the vote of the other two members of the Interview Committee, the parent's representative and the teacher's representative, is each worth 25% of the total. ECF Nos. 56, at 6 n. 7; 63, at 7. Defendants are correct in their assertion that the representative of the Regional Director cannot "bypass" the vote of the other two members of the committee if they are in agreement—that is, the Regional Director does not have a majority vote on the committee. Thus, guided by the proximate cause analysis elaborated on in Staub, the first question is whether the fact that the Interview Committee was comprised of three members, with the vote of the other two members carrying equal weight to that of Cintrón-González as representative of the Regional Director, "automatically renders the link to [Cintrón-González's] bias 'remote' or 'purely contingent.'" 131 S.Ct. 1186 (2011). As previously noted, it is possible for injuries to have numerous proximate causes. Even assuming for argument's sake that the other two members of the Interview Committee recommended Arroyo-García for reasons unrelated political animus, or in other words because they each thought she was the "best candidate" based on permissible and relevant considerations and that Cintrón-González did not coerce or strong-arm the unanimous recommendation, the same would not serve to render Cintrón-González's bias too remote to serve as a proximate cause. A reasonable inference can be made that both the supervisor's and other Interview Committee members' recommendations were made with the intent that they be used by the Secretary of Education in forming his appointment decision and that Cintrón-González's intent was politically motivated. The jury could infer that the supervisor's recommendation, the other Interview Committee members' recommendations, and the Secretary of Education's exercise of judgment were all concurrent causes of the decision to appoint Arroyo-García. Although the Regional Director only held 50% of the voting power, the summary judgment record does not...