Borges Colon v. Roman-Abreu

• Decision Date: 06 February 2006
• Docket Number: No. 04-1221.,04-1221.
• Citation: 438 F.3d 1
• Parties: Samuel BORGES COLÓN, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, Lisa Marie de Jesus Flores, et al., Plaintiffs, v. José R. ROMÁN-ABREU; Juan A. Norat-Flores, Defendants, Appellants, Iraida Hornedo, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 1

438 F.3d 1

Samuel BORGES COLÓN, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, Lisa Marie de Jesus Flores, et al., Plaintiffs, v. José R. ROMÁN-ABREU; Juan A. Norat-Flores, Defendants, Appellants, Iraida Hornedo, Defendant.

No. 04-1221.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard December 5, 2005.

Decided February 6, 2006.

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José J. Sánchez Vélez and Rafael A. Robles Díaz, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Department of Justice, Civil Rights Legal Task Force, with whom Yldefonso López Morales and O'Neill & Borges Law Firm were on brief, for appellants.

Claudio Aliff-Ortiz, with whom Pablo Landrau Pirazzi and Aldarondo & López Bras were on brief, for appellees.

Before BOUDIN, Chief Judge, STAHL, Senior Circuit Judge, and LYNCH, Circuit Judge.

LYNCH, Circuit Judge.

This is the latest in a series of cases which involve the tension between a newly elected administration's ability to reorganize government, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, two constitutional limitations — the First Amendment's prohibitions against discriminating against government employees based on their political affiliation and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments' prohibitions against depriving such employees of property interests in their employment without due process of law.

This court has had to address these tensions in cases, usually from Puerto Rico, in which the newly elected officials represent a particular party and the reorganization results in the termination of employment of workers of another political party. See, e.g., Sanchez-Lopez v. Fuentes-Pujols, 375 F.3d 121 (1st Cir. 2004); Angulo-Alvarez v. Aponte de la Torre, 170 F.3d 246 (1st Cir.1999). The mere fact that the impact falls mainly on members of the party which has lost power is not, of course, sufficient to warrant federal court interference with the policy choices of a new administration which reflects the voters' choice that changes are desirable. Sanchez-Lopez, 375 F.3d at 140. By the same token, a new administration cannot cloak political discrimination merely by labeling the change a legitimate reorganization. Id. at 132. Nor may it deliberately effectuate a legitimate reorganization in a politically discriminatory manner. Id. at 140.

Here, the reorganization involved a new Popular Democratic Party (PDP) administration in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, headed by defendant Mayor José R. Román-Abreu (Mayor Román). The new administration chose to "privatize" the sanitation division, with the result that thirty-six career employees, almost all New Progressive Party (NPP) members, were laid off. A jury found that these career employees, as well as one non-career employee from a different department, were unconstitutionally terminated from employment. As to the career employees, the jury awarded a total of $887,097 compensatory damages against defendants Mayor Román and Juan A. Norat-Flores ("Norat"), the director of the Municipality's Department of Public Works; it also awarded $108,000 in punitive damages against Mayor Román. As to the one non-career employee, the jury awarded $28,400 compensatory damages and $3,000 punitive damages against Mayor Román. The court, post-verdict, denied the defendants qualified immunity, denied motions for judgment as a matter of law and adjustment of damages, and ordered the career employees reinstated. We affirm the district court's judgment in full.

I.

Mayor Román and Norat appeal on five grounds. They argue that (1) there was insufficient evidence as to causation to support a finding of political discrimination, (2) both defendants were entitled to qualified immunity, (3) the district court abused its discretion in ordering the career employees reinstated, (4) the compensatory damages were excessive, and (5) the punitive damages against Mayor Román were unwarranted. We recount the facts in favor of the verdict as a reasonable jury could have found them. Whitfield v. Melendez-Rivera, 431 F.3d 1, 2 (1st Cir.2005).

A. The Career Employees

Román was elected mayor of the Municipality of San Lorenzo on November 7, 2000, and took office on January 9, 2001. He defeated incumbent NPP Mayor Víctor Figueroa Orozco. He then appointed Norat, previously a Public Works employee in another city, to head San Lorenzo's Department of Public Works. The Department had several divisions, including sanitation, which was responsible for garbage collection and other cleaning tasks.

Soon after taking office, Mayor Román and other municipal officials, including Norat, began planning the possible privatization of the sanitation division. The officials testified that they did so because of lackluster garbage collection, and that they conducted a cost-benefit analysis and determined that privatization would save San Lorenzo hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. However, two PDP-affiliated witnesses — plaintiff Samuel Borges Colón ("Borges"), a former sanitation supervisor, and Sandra González Díaz ("González"), defendant Iraida Hornedo's predecessor as municipal human resources director — testified that Mayor Román had said in their presence that the privatization plan was a device to force NPP workers out of government employment. Further, González testified that in privatizing the sanitation division, the Municipality did not follow its 1997 Layoff Plan, which required that transitory workers be fired first in the event of layoffs. She testified that Mayor Román and "other fellow officers . . . [and] ranking employees" had said that "with this privatization process, they were going to be able to get rid of employees that were not belonging to the political party of the people in power." She also testified, based on her experience as municipal human resources director, that the criteria used to appoint personnel in San Lorenzo after Mayor Román took office were as follows: "[t]o be affiliated with the PDP, to be acquaintances of the mayor or relatives of the mayor, to be friends with some high-ranking functionary."

Borges testified that soon after the mayoral election he met with Mayor Román, who told him "that he needed me there at public works, to help him, because the first thing he wanted to do was to take the NPP's out of the municipality." Asked about Mayor Román's attitude toward public works employees, Borges testified as follows:

A: Well, his attitude was that, since they were NPP's, he didn't want them there.

Q: And how did you know that?

A: Because they would tell me, the engineer would tell me,^[1] Mr. Martin Davila would tell me, that they wanted to get rid of the NPP employees in order to place Popular Democratic Party followers.

Q: When, if at any time, did the mayor tell you that those were his intentions after he became mayor of San Lorenzo, you know?

A: On numerous occasions at Public Works, when we would meet with Mr. Norat.

Q: Do you recall what were his words?

A: That he had to get rid of the NPP employees because he had to place his people.

In the summer of 2001, Norat took the privatization proposal and the favorable cost-benefit analysis to the Municipal Assembly for approval. On August 30, 2001, the Assembly approved Municipal Ordinance No. 7 ("the ordinance"), authorizing Mayor Román to negotiate the privatization of the sanitation division. Mayor Román signed the ordinance the next day.

In the ordinance, the Municipal Assembly set conditions on the privatization process. It stated that the company with which the Municipality contracted for privatization had to agree, when hiring, "to consider all of the municipal employees who qualify within their standards of selection of employees pursuant to its Human Resources regulations." It also added a second requirement:

The remaining employees belonging to the sanitation area will be retained in their positions or will be relocated to other dependencies of the municipality pursuant to the needs of the service. . . .

The Municipality of San Lorenzo agrees to protect and guarantee the vested rights of the regular employees who are working in the Department of Sanitation.

The city began soliciting privatization proposals. Five companies submitted proposals; the municipal bids board selected a firm called ARB and arranged for ARB to take over the Municipality's sanitation service.

On January 23, 2002, Mayor Román wrote a letter to thirty-six sanitation employees (the "career plaintiffs"), informing them that their jobs were terminated effective February 25. Though the events leading up to privatization had taken months, this was the career plaintiffs' first official notice of potential privatization or its possible effect on their jobs. Of the thirty-six career plaintiffs, thirty-five were affiliated with the NPP,² while the last, Borges, was a PDP member who had had a falling-out with Mayor Román over Borges' sympathy for NPP co-workers. Most of the career plaintiffs testified that Mayor Román knew their political affiliation, either because they were neighbors or because Mayor Román had seen them participating in NPP electioneering activities.

The January 23 letter, signed by Mayor Román, stated:

As a result of the privatization . . . the sanitation program of the Municipal Department of Public Works is eliminated, which entails the lay-off and elimination of all the positions assigned to said program.

Pursuant to the above, you are laid off from your position effective February 25, 2002. You have 30 days as of the date of this communication to appeal this decision before the Board of Appeals of the Personnel System of the Government.

The letter also stated, however, that the ordinance and the contract between San Lorenzo and ARB "provide[] for the recruitment and job security of the personnel affected by this negotiation." It added that "[t]he Municipality will coordinate this process and will notify the day and time of the job interviews."

All of the affected workers were "career...