Vázquez v. Surillo-Ruiz

• Decision Date: 07 January 2015
• Docket Number: Civil No. 13–1944 DRD.
• Parties: Wilfredo VÁZQUEZ, et al., Plaintiffs v. Rafael SURILLO–RUIZ, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

76 F.Supp.3d 381

Wilfredo VÁZQUEZ, et al., Plaintiffs

v.Rafael SURILLO–RUIZ, et al., Defendants.

Civil No. 13–1944 DRD.

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

Signed Jan. 7, 2015.

Claudio Aliff–Ortiz, David R. Rodriguez–Burns, Sheila J. Torres–DelgadoIvan M. Castro–Ortiz, Aldarondo & Lopez Bras, PSC, Guaynabo, PR, for Plaintiffs.

Aurea Yadira Rivera–Alvarado, Rafael E. Rivera–Sanchez, Puerto Rico Department of Justice, Lavinia Aparicio–Lopez, Commonwealth Department of Justice, San Juan, PR, for Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

DANIEL R. DOMINGUEZ, District Judge.

Plaintiffs—all of whom are members of the New Progressive Party (“NPP”)—claim to be victims of political discrimination instigated by the newly-elected Popular Democratic Party (“PDP”) administration of the municipality of Yabucoa. Plaintiffs are suing the mayor of Yabucoa, Rafael Surillo–Ruiz, in his official and individual capacities; the human resources director of Yabucoa, Damaris García–Ortega, in her official and individual capacities; the public works director of Yabucoa, Heriberto Vega–Solis, in his official and individual capacities; two other unnamed employees of the municipality of Yabucoa; and the municipality of Yabucoa itself.

Seven of the eight Plaintiffs (“Unemployed Plaintiffs”) had fixed-term employment contracts, which have all since expired, that were not renewed by the newly-elected PDP administration. The nonrenewal of these employment contracts is purportedly an act of political discrimination on the part of Defendants. Ángel A. Rodriguez–Martinez, who is the eighth Plaintiff (“Employed Plaintiff”), is a regular/career employee that—while still working for the municipality of Yabucoa—is supposedly being subjected to political discrimination in the form of harassment. Moreover, Employed Plaintiff avers that he is being deprived of his former employment duties by the newly-elected PDP administration.

Plaintiffs' claims for relief are summarized as follows: a) claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of Plaintiffs' First Amendment rights; b) claims under 31 P.R. Laws §§ 5141, and 5142 for violations of several of Plaintiffs' rights under the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico's constitution; and c) claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 and “other applicable statutes” for attorneys' fees, costs, and litigation expenses.

Pending before the Court are two motions to dismiss, see Docket Nos. 20, and 23, that propose several distinct grounds for dismissal depending on the precise cause of action alleged and the precise Defendant that is allegedly held responsible. The intricacies of Defendants' individual arguments shall be expounded upon in the appropriate subsection in a systematic fashion. To avoid unnecessary repetition, the germane facts will be reserved for the discussion of Defendants' fact-based requests for dismissal. The Court shall begin by elucidating several nuances of the plausibility standard as the same is a common theme in many of Defendants' grounds for dismissal.

I. PLAUSIBILITY STANDARD

Rule 12(b), which contains seven subsections, is the primary source cited by Courts to dismiss a defective complaint. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b). Once confronted with an allegation regarding the sufficiency of a complaint, the Court first turns to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a), which enumerates the minimum requirements of a valid complaint:

(1) a short and plain statement of the grounds for the court's jurisdiction, unless the court already has jurisdiction and the claim needs no new jurisdictional support;

(2) a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief; and

(3) a demand for the relief sought, which may include relief in the alternative or different types of relief.

A 12(b)(6) motion is used to dismiss complaints that do not “state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). The 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss will succeed when the pleadings of a complaint do not comply with Rule 8(a)(2). However, what does and does not comply with Rule 8(a)(2) has been the subject of debate for decades in the legal community.

The Supreme Court weighed in on this discussion in 1957 when called upon to evaluate the sufficiency of an allegedly deficient complaint:

In appraising the sufficiency of the complaint [in this case] we follow, of course, the accepted rule that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief. (emphasis provided).

Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45–46 [78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80] (1957) (overruled by Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 [127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929] (2007) ).

This passage, embraced by our highest Court at the time, had been interpreted by many judges and commentators to mean that “a wholly conclusory statement of claim would survive a [12(b)(6) ] motion to dismiss whenever the pleadings left open the possibility that a plaintiff might later establish some ‘set of [undisclosed] facts' to support recovery.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 561, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (2007) (describing the infirmity created by the controversial Conley passage). Such an interpretation harshly affects the desire of a defendant—who is genuinely not responsible for the claims in the complaint—to defend himself in a civil suit. “[T]he threat of discovery expense [would] push cost-conscious defendants to settle even anemic cases[.]” Id. at 559, 127 S.Ct. 1955. Hence, many other judges and commentators, wary of these negative implications, declined to construe the Supreme Court's words in such a literal manner. The debate between these two schools of thought raged on for 50 years. Finally, the Supreme Court ended this controversy in 2007: “[A]fter puzzling the profession for 50 years, this famous observation has earned its retirement.” Id. at 563, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (followed by Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) ).

The Supreme Court cleared the smoke and established that, in order to comply with Rule 8(a)(2), a complaint must state a “plausible” claim for relief, as opposed to merely stating a possible claim for relief. “[W]here the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged —but it has not ‘show[n]’ —that ‘the pleader is entitled to relief.’ ” (emphasis provided) Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (using the language of Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8(a)(2) to explain plausibility). In order to “nudge [a claim] across the line from conceivable to plausible, ” the complaint must contain enough facts to support a claim for relief. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (emphasis provided).

“This plausibility standard has become the ‘new normal’ in federal civil practice.” Garcia–Catalan v. United States, 734 F.3d 100, 101 (1st Cir.2013) (citing A.G. v. Elsevier, Inc., 732 F.3d 77, 78–79 (1st Cir.2013) ). In other words, while Conley (arguably) states that a complaint with a conclusory allegation need not have any supporting facts in order to comply with Rule 8(a)(2), both Iqbal and Twombly take the opposite point of view. “Rule 8 marks a notable and generous departure from the hyper-technical, code-pleading regime of a prior era, but it does not unlock the doors of discovery for a plaintiff armed with nothing more than conclusions.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678–79, 129 S.Ct. 1937.

The doors of discovery only open when a complaint has “factual allegations [that] are sufficient to support ‘the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.’ ” Garcia–Catalan, 734 F.3d at 103 (citing Haley v. City of Boston, 657 F.3d 39, 46 (1st Cir.2011) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 )); see also Garcia–Catalan, 734 F.3d at 103 (“The circumstances in the complaint create a reasonable expectation that discovery may yield evidence of the government's allegedly tortious conduct”; citing Ocasio–Hernández v. Fortuño–Burset, 640 F.3d 1, 17 (1st Cir.2011) ). The First Circuit further describes the relationship between plausibility and discovery in more detail:

[T]he plausibility inquiry properly takes into account whether discovery can reasonably be expected to fill any holes in the pleader's case. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (requiring, as a hallmark of plausibility, that a complaint contain “enough fact[s] to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence”).

Garcia–Catalan, 734 F.3d at 104–05.

Notwithstanding, the First Circuit has been cautious when applying the plausibility analysis to certain types of cases. Garcia–Catalan, 734 F.3d at 104 (citing Menard v. CSX Transp., Inc., 698 F.3d 40, 45 (1st Cir.2012) ). “Generally speaking, these are cases in which a material part of the information needed [by the plaintiff] is likely to be within the defendant's control.” Garcia–Catalan, 734 F.3d at 104. This caution is not in contravention with the Supreme Court's detailed plausibility standard:

Because precise knowledge of the chain of events leading to the [claim] may often be unavailable to a plaintiff at this early stage of the litigation, we take to heart the Supreme Court's call to “draw on our ‘judicial experience and common sense’ as we make a contextual judgment about the sufficiency of the pleadings.” See Sanchez v. Pereira–Castillo, 590 F.3d 31, 48 (1st Cir.2009) (quoting Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950 ).

Ocasio–Hernandez, 640 F.3d at 16

However, both the Supreme Court and the First Circuit have cautioned against equating a plausibility analysis with an analysis of a plaintiff's likely success on the merits. “The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,’ but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 ; see also Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (“[A] well-pleaded complaint may proceed even...