Rodríguez-Marín; v. Rivera-González

• Decision Date: 16 February 2006
• Docket Number: No. 04-1492.,04-1492.
• Citation: 438 F.3d 72
• Parties: Mirla Mireya RODRÍGUEZ-MARÍN; Ana I. Escobar-Pabón, Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Víctor RIVERA-GONZÁLEZ, in his personal capacity and in his official capacity as Secretary of Corrections and Administrator of the Administration of Corrections of Puerto Rico; and Ana T. Dávila-Lao, in her personal capacity and in her official capacity as Counsel to the Administration of Corrections of Puerto Rico, Defendants, Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

438 F.3d 72

Mirla Mireya RODRÍGUEZ-MARÍN; Ana I. Escobar-Pabón, Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Víctor RIVERA-GONZÁLEZ, in his personal capacity and in his official capacity as Secretary of Corrections and Administrator of the Administration of Corrections of Puerto Rico; and Ana T. Dávila-Lao, in her personal capacity and in her official capacity as Counsel to the Administration of Corrections of Puerto Rico, Defendants, Appellants.

No. 04-1492.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard November 8, 2005.

Decided February 16, 2006.

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Isabel M. Rodríguez-Casellas, with whom Sánchez Betances, Sifre, Muñoz-Noya & Rivera P.S.C. and Milagros del Carmen López, were on brief, for appellants.

Francisco R. González-Colón, with whom F.R. González Law Office, was on brief, for appellees.

Before TORRUELLA, LIPEZ and HOWARD, Circuit Judges.

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs are employees of the Administration of Corrections in Puerto Rico. They filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that defendants demoted them in violation of their First Amendment and due process rights. The case went to trial, and a jury found in favor of plaintiffs, awarding them compensatory and punitive damages. Defendants now appeal. We affirm.

I. Background

Defendants are contesting the jury's verdict in favor of the plaintiffs. In considering the issues raised on appeal, we do not evaluate the credibility of the witnesses or weigh the evidence. Vázquez-Valentín v. Santiago-Díaz, 385 F.3d 23, 29 (1st Cir.2004). Rather, we construe all rational inferences in favor of the jury's verdict. Id. at 29-30. We now summarize the evidence presented at trial.

Discrimination based on political-party affiliation is rampant in government employment in Puerto Rico. See, e.g., Pérez v. Zayas, 396 F.Supp.2d 90 (D.P.R.2005); Román Román v. Delgado Altieri, 390 F.Supp.2d 94 (D.P.R.2005); Padilla Román v. Hernández Pérez, 381 F.Supp.2d 17 (D.P.R.2005); Sueiro Vázquez v. Torregrosa De la Rosa, 380 F.Supp.2d 63 (D.P.R.2005); Rovira Rivera v. P.R. Elec. Power Auth., 364 F.Supp.2d 154 (D.P.R. 2005); Irizarry-López v. Torres-González, 363 F.Supp.2d 7 (D.P.R.2005). It has cost Puerto Rican taxpayers dearly in verdicts paid from public funds. P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, § 5142. In an effort to combat political discrimination, Puerto Rico has an Electoral Moratorium that prohibits certain "appointments, promotions, demotions, transfers and changes in the category of the employees" for the two months before and after a general election. P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 3, § 1337. In the year 2000, general elections were held on November 8, 2000, so the Moratorium commenced on September 8, 2000 and ended on January 8, 2001.

Before the 2000 election, the Governor of Puerto Rico was a member of the New Progressive Party ("NPP"). Immediately prior to the commencement of the Electoral Moratorium, at least thirty-four personnel changes took place in the Administration of Corrections ("AOC"). These personnel changes were authorized by the Administrator of the AOC, Zoé Laboy ("Laboy"), who had been appointed by the NPP Governor.

In the 2000 election, a member of the Popular Democratic Party ("PDP") was elected Governor. The new Governor appointed defendant Víctor Rivera-González ("Rivera-González") as Administrator of the AOC, who in turn appointed defendant Ana Dávila-Lao ("Dávila") as his Chief Legal Advisor. The human resources director under the former administration, who later became Rivera-González's assistant, told Rivera-González that some appointments made by the previous administration may have been unlawful. Rivera-González asked Dávila to investigate the matter. Dávila then proceeded to conduct a review of the thirty-four personnel changes that took place immediately before the Electoral Moratorium. This list of thirty-four included every member of Laboy's staff, except for one who was a PDP member.¹ It was determined that eighteen of these thirty-four personnel changes were illegal, and these personnel changes were revoked. Two of the eighteen people affected were plaintiffs Mirla M. Rodríguez-Marín ("Rodríguez") and Ana I. Escobar-Pabón ("Escobar"). Dávila asserts that this review was objective and denied knowing either Rodríguez's or Escobar's political affiliation.

A. Mirla M. Rodríguez-Marín

Rodríguez began working for the AOC in 1994 in the position of Social-Penal Technician I, a career position.² Over the years, she was promoted to a number of trust positions: Special Assistant II, Director of Legal Affairs, and Executive Aide of Correctional Services. In the summer of 2000, the AOC implemented a Classification and Compensation Plan ("the Plan"), whereby employees were evaluated and reclassified into appropriate positions. Under the Plan, Rodríguez was classified as Director of the Legal Division, a trust position. Rodríguez met with Laboy and requested to be classified into the career position of attorney. On September 7, 2000, one day before the commencement of the Electoral Moratorium, Rodríguez received four letters notifying her of changes in her employment status. The first letter reinstated her to the career position of Social-Penal Technician I; the second promoted her to the career position of Attorney I, with a one-year probationary period; the third raised her salary to the maximum allowable for that position; and the fourth ordered her to continue serving in her current trust position, indicating that her probation term for the Attorney I position would begin at the conclusion of the trust position.

When Rivera-González was appointed Administrator in January 2001, he became Rodríguez's direct supervisor. She testified that during this time, Rivera-González made several comments to her to the effect that he was under political pressure for leaving too many NPP members in cushy positions at the AOC. Rivera-González denied making such statements. In March 2001, Rivera-González removed Rodríguez from her trust position and reinstated her to her career position of Attorney I. Rodríguez does not contest the removal from her trust position.

Rodríguez alleges that she was mistreated because of her political affiliation. At one point, she went to her office and discovered that her desk had been taken away, with her computer and other belongings strewn across the floor. After she complained, an old, surplus desk was placed in the office. The person in charge of maintenance refused to clean her office because she was a member of the NPP. Because of this mistreatment, Rodríguez asked to be transferred to Ponce.

In Ponce, Rodríguez was litigating cases for the AOC and Dávila was her supervisor. In June 2001, four agents came to her desk to deliver a letter annulling her promotion to Attorney I and reinstating her as a Social-Penal Technician I. She found it humiliating that four agents would be sent, implying that she was a dangerous person. She was not given a hearing or any warning before being demoted. She received another letter assigning her to the Ponce maximum security facility, where dangerous criminals were held and against whom she had litigated cases. Because of this, she feared working there.

Rodríguez went to see Rivera-González, and he referred her to Dávila because she was the chairperson of the committee reviewing the promotions and she had issued the recommendation that the promotion was unlawful. Dávila told her that she was not entitled to a hearing because the appointment was illegal. Rodríguez testified that Dávila told her that she could not be left in such a cushy position with such a high salary, but Dávila denied saying this.

The demotion letter stated that "there [was] no evidence on file of compliance with the due process of law in the recruitment and selection for [her] appointment." When Rodríguez went to examine her personnel file, she discovered that it was being held by Dávila, even though access to a personnel file requires the employee's authorization, and Rodríguez had not given authorization. Rodríguez discovered that papers documenting her promotion were missing from her file. This was corroborated by Marie Rivera, an employee in the human resources office, who testified that documents were missing from Rodríguez's file. Rodríguez had the original versions of these missing papers, and she showed them to Rivera-González. Rodríguez threatened legal action over the missing documents, and the missing documents mysteriously reappeared in her file. Dávila insisted that even though the missing documents had been replaced, Rodríguez's appointment was still illegal. The director of recruitment, Héctor Rivera-Rivera, testified that he certified that Rodríguez's appointment to Attorney I had been lawful.

In July 2002, one year after she had been demoted, Rodríguez filed this suit. In September 2002, after learning from Héctor Rivera-Rivera that the appointment had been lawful, Rivera-González ordered that Rodríguez be reinstated. Rivera-González testified that she was a competent employee. She received a letter informing her of the reinstatement, which stated that her salary would be determined later. For the first two months after being reinstated, she was not paid and was not given an office. She then went to Rivera-González, and he assigned attorney Gloria Ortiz-Martínez to evaluate the situation. Ortiz testified that she was unable to work on the case because she needed Rodríguez's personnel file and Dávila did not give it to her despite being asked to do so. Rodríguez testified that, after again going to Rivera-González, he advised her to wait until Dávila's forthcoming transfer to another government agency. He denied making this statement.

Rodríguez also testified as to Dávila's personal involvement in revoking her promotion. She testified that Rivera-González and Raymond Mira, the director of human resources, stated in depositions that Dávila was a member of...