Ayuso-Figueroa v. Rivera-Gonzalez

• Citation: 456 F.Supp.2d 309
• Decision Date: 18 November 2005
• Docket Number: Civil No. 02-1606(SEC).
• Parties: Janet AYUSO-FIGUEROA, Plaintiff v. Victor RIVERA-GONZALEZ, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

456 F.Supp.2d 309

Janet AYUSO-FIGUEROA, Plaintiff v. Victor RIVERA-GONZALEZ, et al., Defendants.

Civil No. 02-1606(SEC).

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

November 18, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Maria De Los A. Maldonado-Nieves, Maria Maldonado Nieves, for Plaintiff.

Edward W. Hill-Tollinche, Tessie Leal-Garabis, Quinones, Sanchez & Guzman, PSC, Jo-Ann Estades-Boyer, Department of Justice, San Juan, PR, for Defendants.

Yassmin Gonzalez-Velez, Quinones, Sanchez & Guzman, PSC, San Juan, PR.

OPINION AND ORDER

SALVADOR E. CASELLAS, Senior District Judge.

Pending before the Court are Co-defendants Ronald Golderos', Glidden Maldonado's, Laura Rivera's and Nilda Rivera's motion for summary judgment (Docket # 77) and Co-defendant Carlos Torres' motion for summary judgment (Docket # 79). Plaintiff has filed an opposition to both motions (Dockets ## 111 & 112)¹ Defendants replied (Docket # 124) and Plaintiff sur-replied (Docket # 129). After carefully examining the parties' arguments, the case record and the applicable law, Co-defendants Golderos', Maldonado's, L. Rivera's and N. Rivera's motion will be GRANTED in part and DENIED in part and Co-defendant Torres' motion will be DENIED.

Factual Background

Prior to July 20, 1989, Puerto Rico Law 116 of July 22, 1974 ("Law 116") provided that all convicted persons who observed good conduct and assiduousness were entitled to receive certain reductions and time credits to their prison terms. 4 P.R. Laws Ann. § 1161. Law 116 also provided that certain convicts could receive, at the discretion of the Corrections Administrator, credits for time spent working and/or studying. 4 P.R. Laws Ann. § 1162. Then, on July 20, 1989 the Puerto Rico Legislature amended said statute by expressly excluding aggravated second offenders and habitual second offenders from receiving reductions and time credits to their prison terms for good conduct and/or work/study. Puerto Rico Law 27 of July 20, 1989, 4 P.R. Laws Ann. § 1112(b) & (e), 1136 & 1161-1163 ("Law 27"). Upon reviewing the application of said amendment, on January 31, 1992, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court issued a decision by which it established that Law 27 could not have retroactive application. Pueblo de Puerto Rico v. Pizarro Solis, 129 D.P.R. 911, 1992 WL 754984 (1992). Specifically, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court held that a retroactive application of said law would violate prisoners' constitutional rights and that as such, any habitual offender sentenced prior to July 20, 1989, the date of the enactment of Law 27, would be entitled to receive time credits and reductions to their prison terms in accordance with the previous aforementioned provisions of Law 116. Id. at 927-28.

Against this backdrop, we recount the facts of the instant case. On July 19, 1989 Plaintiff was sentenced as an aggravated second offender² to twenty (20) years in prison for robbery, assault and breaking and entry. Plaintiff was incarcerated first at the Vega Alta Correction Center (herein "Vega Alta facility") and then at the Women's Complex of the Ponce Correctional Center (herein "Ponce facility"), both under the jurisdiction of the Corrections Administration of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. During the time that Plaintiff was incarcerated at the Vega Alta facility she received the credits and reductions for good behavior and work/study. However, upon being transferred to the Ponce facility, and after the issuance of the Pizarro Solis decision, Plaintiff's sentence was recalculated and she was denied the credits and time reductions provided under Law 116, in effect reinstating her previous sentence of twenty (20) natural years. After various procedural hurdles, on April 24, 2001 Plaintiff was summarily released from the Ponce facility, as her previous time credits and reductions were reinstated. In fact, taking into account Plaintiffs' time credits and reductions, her sentence had been extinguished since approximately March 1999.

Plaintiff has filed the instant suit claiming relief for the temporary denial of the time credits and reductions which resulted in the substantial lengthening of her imprisonment term. Accordingly, Plaintiff has pled causes of action under Section 1983 for violations to the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Plaintiff has also pled supplemental law claims under Articles 1802 and 1803 of the Puerto Rico Civil Code, 31 P.R. Laws Ann. §§ 5141-42.

Standard of Review

Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(b) provides that: "A party against whom a claim . . . is asserted . . . may, at any time, move with or without supporting affidavits for a summary judgment in the party's favor as to all or any part [of the claims asserted against him/her]." The Court may grant the movant's motion for summary judgment when "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); See also Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202(1986); NASCO, Inc. v. Pub. Storage, Inc., 29 F.3d 28 (1st Cir.1994). "The principal judicial inquiry required by Rule 56 is whether a genuine issue of material fact exists." 10A Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil 3d § 2725, p. 401.

In this regard, the First Circuit Court of Appeals has noted that for a dispute to be "genuine," there must be sufficient evidence to permit a reasonable trier of fact to resolve the issue in favor of the non-moving party. U.S. v. One Parcel of Real Prop., 960 F.2d 200, 204 (1st Cir.1992); see also Boston Athletic Assn. v. Sullivan, 867 F.2d 22, 24 (1st Cir.1989); Medina-Muñoz v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, 896 F.2d 5, 8 (1st Cir.1990) ("[a] `genuine' issue is one that must be decided at trial because the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmovant, would permit a rational factfinder to resolve the issue in favor of either party.") (citations omitted).

By like token, "material" means that the fact is one that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law. Morris v. Gov't Dev. Bank of P.R., 27 F.3d 746, 748 (1st Cir.1994). "A fact is material if it tends to resolve any of the issues that have been properly raised by the parties." 10A Wright, Miller & Kane, supra, § 2725 at p. 419. "Not every genuine factual conflict necessitates a trial. It is only when a disputed fact has the potential to change the outcome of the suit under the governing law if found favorably to the nonmovant that the materiality hurdle is cleared." Martínez v. Colón, 54 F.3d 980, 983-84 (1st Cir.1995).

In addition, when determining whether to grant summary judgment, the Court may not weigh the evidence. Casas Office Machs., Inc. v. Mita Copystar Am., Inc., 42 F.3d 668 (1st Cir.1994). Summary judgment "admits of no room for credibility determinations, no room for the measured weighing of conflicting evidence such as the trial process entails." Id. (citing Greenburg v. P.R. Mar. Shipping Auth., 835 F.2d 932, 936 (1st Cir.1987)). Accordingly, if the facts permit more than one reasonable inference, the court on summary judgment may note adopt the inference least favorable to the non-moving party. Casas Office Machs., 42 F.3d at 684.

While the moving party has the burden of initially establishing that there is "an absence of evidence to support the nonmoving party's case," Maldonado-Denis v. Castillo-Rodríguez, 23 F.3d 576, 581 (1st Cir.1994); the nonmovant has a "corresponding obligation to offer the court more than steamy rhetoric and bare conclusions." Lawton v. State Mut. Life Assurance Co. of Am., 101 F.3d 218, 223 (1st Cir.1996). Furthermore, "the nonmovant must `produce specific facts, in suitable evidentiary form' sufficient to limn a trial— worthy issue . . . . Failure to do so allows the summary judgment engine to operate at full throttle." Id.; see also Kelly v. United States, 924 F.2d 355, 358 (1st Cir. 1991) (warning that "the decision to sit idly by and allow the summary judgment proponent to configure the record is likely to prove fraught with consequence."); Medina-Muñoz, 896 F.2d at 8, (quoting Mack v. Great Atl. & Pac. Tea Co., 871 F.2d 179, 181 (1st Cir.1989)) (holding that "[t]he evidence illustrating the factual controversy cannot be conjectural or problematic; it must have substance in the sense that it limns differing versions of the truth which a factfinder must resolve.")

Local Rule 56(b), moreover, requires the moving party to file annexed to the motion "a separate, short, and concise statement of material facts, set forth in numbered paragraphs, as to which the moving party contends there is no genuine issue of material fact to be tried." Unless the nonmoving party controverts this statement, all the material facts set forth therein "shall be deemed to be admitted." Id.; Cosme-Rosado v. Serrano-Rodriguez, 360 F.3d 42 (1st Cir.2004). This is the so-called "anti-ferret rule." See, e.g., Orbi, S.A. v. Calvesbert & Brows 20 F.Supp.2d 289, 291 (D.P.R.1998). While failure to comply with this rule does not automatically warrant the granting of summary judgment, "it launches the nonmovant's case down the road toward an early dismissal." Tavárez v. Champion Prods., Inc., 903 F.Supp. 268, 270 (D.P.R.1995).

Applicable Law and Analysis

I. Section 1983

Section 1983 in itself does not confer substantive rights, but provides a venue for vindicating federal rights elsewhere conferred. See Graham v. M.S. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 393-394, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). In order to establish liability under Section 1983, a plaintiff must first show that "the conduct complained of was committed by a person acting under color of state law." Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 535, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981), overruled on other...