Collazo Rivera v. Torres Gaztambide

• Citation: 812 F.2d 258
• Decision Date: 25 February 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-1308,86-1308
• Parties: Jorge Hiram COLLAZO RIVERA, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Hon. Jaime TORRES GAZTAMBIDE, et al., Defendants, Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 258

812 F.2d 258

Jorge Hiram COLLAZO RIVERA, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Hon. Jaime TORRES GAZTAMBIDE, et al., Defendants, Appellants.

No. 86-1308.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Argued Nov. 6, 1986.

Decided Feb. 25, 1987.

Marcos A. Ramirez, with whom Marcos A. Ramirez Lavandero, Hector Rivera Cruz, Secretary of Justice, and Ramirez & Ramirez, Hato Rey, P.R., were on brief, for appellants.

Frank Rodriguez-Garcia, Ponce, P.R., for appellees.

Before COFFIN, BOWNES and TORRUELLA, Circuit Judges.

BOWNES, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-appellee Jorge Hiram Collazo Rivera filed a civil rights suit in district court alleging that defendants-appellants Cosme Hernandez Silva and Jaime Torres Gaztambide violated the first and fourteenth amendments when they dismissed plaintiff from his government position. The district court granted plaintiff's request for a preliminary injunction, ordering that Collazo Rivera be reinstated. We reverse the grant of the preliminary injunction.

I. BACKGROUND

In June 1981 Collazo Rivera was appointed Utuado District Regional Director of the Rural Housing Administration (RHA), an agency of the Puerto Rico Department of Housing. In January 1985 the Partido Popular Democratico (PPD), having won the gubernatorial election, supplanted the Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP), of which plaintiff was a member, as the party in control of the Commonwealth Administration. ¹ On February 19, 1985, Hernandez Silva, Director of the RHA, transferred Jaime Barcelo, a PPD member, to take over plaintiff's functions as Regional Director, and on March 19, 1985, Hernandez Silva and Torres Gaztambide, the Secretary of the Department of Housing and a PPD member, notified plaintiff in writing that he had been replaced and his services would no longer be required.

Plaintiff brought suit in district court alleging that the firing violated his constitutional rights, and asking for damages and an injunction ordering his reinstatement as Regional Director with back pay. The district court held that the requirements for a preliminary injunction had been met; it ordered reinstatement and enjoined defendants from altering plaintiff's employment status on the basis of political affiliation pending a hearing and a determination on the request for a permanent injunction.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We need not decide at this stage of the proceedings whether, as defendants urge, we must make an independent examination of the whole record under Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of the United States, Inc., 466 U.S. 485, 104 S.Ct. 1949, 80 L.Ed.2d 502 (1984). This is not an appeal from a judgment on the merits. We are deciding only whether it was proper to issue a preliminary injunction. The appropriate standard for such review is abuse of discretion. Jimenez Fuentes v. Torres Gaztambide, 807 F.2d 236, 239 (1st Cir.1986) (en banc); see also De Choudens v. Government Development Bank of Puerto Rico, 801 F.2d 5, 7 (1st Cir.1986) (en banc); National Tank Truck Carriers, Inc. v. Burke, 608 F.2d 819, 823 (1st Cir.1979). We have described this standard as follows:

The decision to grant or deny a preliminary injunction is a matter for the discretion of the district court and is reversible, of course, only for an abuse of discretion. It is also well-settled, however, that the application of an improper legal standard in determining the likelihood of success on the merits is never within the district court's discretion. Similarly, misapplication of the law to particular facts is an abuse of discretion. In either of these circumstances, the denial of the preliminary injunction should be reversed and the injunction entered if necessary to protect the rights of the parties.

Planned Parenthood League of Mass. v. Bellotti, 641 F.2d 1006, 1009 (1st Cir.1981) (citations omitted) (quoting Charles v. Carey, 627 F.2d 772, 776 (7th Cir.1980), appeal dismissed sub nom. Diamond v. Charles, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 1697, 90 L.Ed.2d 48 (1986)). We note also that because we are reviewing a preliminary injunction, "our 'conclusions' and 'holdings' as to the merits of the issue presented are to be understood as statements as to probable outcomes." Jimenez Fuentes, 807 F.2d at 239.

III. THE PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

In this circuit there are four criteria that must be satisfied for a plaintiff to be entitled to a preliminary injunction:

The Court must find: (1) that plaintiff will suffer irreparable injury if the injunction is not granted; (2) that such injury outweighs any harm which granting injunctive relief would inflict on the defendant; (3) that plaintiff has exhibited a likelihood of success on the merits; and (4) that the public interest will not be adversely affected by the grant of the injunction.

Planned Parenthood League of Mass. v. Bellotti, 641 F.2d at 1009 (quoting Women's Community Health Center, Inc. v. Cohen, 477 F.Supp. 542, 544 (D.Me.1979)). The district court held that all four criteria were met and granted plaintiff's request for a preliminary injunction. We hold that plaintiff has not established the third criterion--a likelihood of success on the merits--because we find that party affiliation is an appropriate requirement for the Regional Director position and, therefore, it was permissible for the Administration to dismiss Collazo Rivera. If the court abused its discretion in making its decision on any criterion, we must reverse. See Jimenez Fuentes, 807 F.2d at 239. Thus, we have no cause to address the other criteria.

In our en banc opinion in Jimenez Fuentes v. Torres Gaztambide, ² this court analyzed Supreme Court precedent, particularly Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976), and Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980), and surveyed lower court interpretations of the law governing politically motivated discharges, to formulate a two-step inquiry for determining when a position is exempt from the prohibitions on firing someone for partisan political reasons. Jimenez Fuentes, 807 F.2d at 239-242. We noted that party loyalty is a permissible basis for selecting officials to fill certain positions on which the Administration relies for facilitating its programs and policies. Id. at 242. The first step in determining whether a particular position plays such a role is to ask if it "relates to 'partisan political interests.... [or] concerns.' That is, does the position involve government decisionmaking on issues where there is room for political disagreement on goals or their implementation? Otherwise stated, do party goals or programs affect the direction, pace, or quality of governance?" Id. at 242 (citation omitted) (quoting Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. at 519, 100 S.Ct. at 1295). The second step is to "examine the particular responsibilities of the position to determine whether it resembles a policymaker, a privy to confidential information, a communicator, or some other office holder whose function is such that party affiliation is an equally appropriate requirement." Jimenez Fuentes, 807 F.2d at 242. Our function is "to weigh all relevant factors and make a common sense judgment in light of the fundamental purpose to be served." Id.

The district court held that "[o]ther than defendants' reliance on the fact that plaintiff's position is one of trust and confidence and the citing of some cases which the Court finds inapposite, there is no evidence the post entailed a degree of policy-making sufficient for political affiliation to qualify as an appropriate requirement." It found that there were "no responsibilities that may be even remotely considered of a policy-making nature." Our analysis of the Regional Director's functions in the light of the teaching of Jimenez Fuentes leads us to the opposite conclusion.

A. Relationship to Partisan Political Concerns

Our first inquiry is whether the Regional Director position relates to partisan political concerns. In Jimenez Fuentes, we held that the Regional Director of the Puerto Rico Urban Development and Housing Corporation was such a position. 807 F.2d at 243-244. The Urban Development and Housing Corporation is a subgroup of the Department of Housing, responsible for providing housing in urban areas. The RHA is also a subgroup of the Department of Housing, responsible for administering housing programs in rural areas. The Regional Director implements RHA programs of significant economic and geopolitical impact. For instance, the RHA has the responsibility of distributing land to certain agricultural laborers (the agregados ). See P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 28, Secs. 521, 555 (1985). It administers programs to encourage family farm ownership and to distribute lots and construction materials to low-income families. Id. Secs. 521, 711.

The RHA, therefore, administers important agrarian reform programs that impact on the fabric of Puerto Rico's rural life. The governing political party's ideological orientation on social and economic issues could affect the approach taken in carrying out these programs. The position, therefore, is essentially similar to one involving "the provision of housing to low and middle income city residents[, which] is a vital political issue, at least as important to partisan program goals as the provision of water discussed in Tomczak [v. City of Chicago, 765 F.2d 633 (7th Cir.1985) ]." Jimenez Fuentes, 807 F.2d at 243. In other words, it is a position in an agency rendering economic and social services of broad impact involving "government decisionmaking on issues where there is room for political disagreement on goals or their implementation[.]" Id. at 242. An official with regional authority to implement rural social and economic reforms could, because of political disagreement with the Administration over fundamental issues, hinder the accomplishment of the elected Administration's goals. We hold, therefore, that the RHA Regional Director position is substantially related to...