Davila v. Corporacion De Puerto Rico

• Decision Date: 07 August 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-2353.,06-2353.
• Citation: 498 F.3d 9
• Parties: Ernesto DÁVILA, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. CORPORACIÓN DE PUERTO RICO PARA LA DIFUSIÓN PÚBLICA, Defendant, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

498 F.3d 9

Ernesto DÁVILA, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. CORPORACIÓN DE PUERTO RICO PARA LA DIFUSIÓN PÚBLICA, Defendant, Appellee.

No. 06-2353.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Submitted June 7, 2007.

Decided August 7, 2007.

Eli B. Arroyo on brief for appellant.

Juan M. Frontera-Suau on brief for appellee.

Before LYNCH, Circuit Judge, SELYA, Senior Circuit Judge, and LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

SELYA, Senior Circuit Judge.

In this age discrimination case, plaintiff-appellant Ernesto Dávila challenges the entry of summary judgment in favor of his former employer, defendant-appellee Corporación de Puerto Rico para la Difusión Pública (the Station). Discerning no reversible error, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

The critical facts are uncomplicated. The Station is Puerto Rico's public broadcasting outlet. On August 1, 2000, it hired the appellant as a temporary worker in its engineering department. One month later, the appellant received an appointment as chief engineer, subject, however, to an explicit 10-month probationary period. During that interval, the appellant was to be trained in the duties of the position and periodically evaluated.

Evaluations were conducted on three occasions during the probationary period: in December 2000, March 2001, and May 2001. These reviews, composed by the Station's director of engineering, Jorge E. González-Fonseca, were generally unfavorable. According to González-Fonseca, the appellant lacked a working knowledge of the Station's equipment, neglected to complete his assigned tasks in a timely manner, and proved to be in constant need of instruction.

Relying on these negative evaluations, the Station's president, Linda Hernández, chose not to extend a permanent appointment to the appellant and, instead, terminated his employment at the end of the probationary period.

The appellant sued, asserting that the Station had discriminated against him because of his age in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634, and Puerto Rico's anti-discrimination statute, P.R Laws Ann. tit. 29, § 146 (Law 100). He claimed in substance that he was terminated solely because González-Fonseca thought he was too old for the job. The Station denied the pivotal allegations of the complaint.

At the conclusion of discovery, the Station moved for summary judgment. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56. The district court granted the motion over the appellant's objection, concluding that there was no probative evidence of discriminatory animus. Dávila v. Corporación De P.R. Para La Difusión Pública, Civ. No. 04-2002, 2006 WL 2092570 (D.P.R. July 26, 2006). As an alternative ground, the district court ruled that the Station was immune from the appellant's claims for damages. See U.S. Const. amend. XI. This timely appeal ensued.

II. DISCUSSION

We subdivide our analysis into several segments. First, we briefly limn the standard of review and, relatedly, the summary judgment standard. Next, we deal with an evidentiary question concerning certain untranslated Spanish-language documents. Third, we explain why we eschew any inquiry into the question of Eleventh Amendment immunity. When these preliminaries have been completed, we turn to the merits of the discrimination claims.

A. Standards.

We review a district court's entry of summary judgment de novo. See Iverson v. City of Boston, 452 F.3d 94, 98 (1st Cir.2006). Like the district court, we must take the facts of record in the light most flattering to the nonmovant (here, the appellant) and draw all reasonable inferences in that party's favor. See id.

The object of summary judgment is "to pierce the boilerplate of the pleadings and assay the parties' proof in order to determine whether trial is actually required." Acosta v. Ames Dep't Stores, Inc., 386 F.3d 5, 7 (1st Cir.2004) (quoting Wynne v. Tufts Univ. Sch. of Med., 976 F.2d 791, 794 (1st Cir.1992)). Thus, summary judgment is appropriate only when the record "show[s] 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).

For this purpose, an issue is genuine if "a reasonable jury could resolve the point in favor of the nonmoving party." Suárez v. Pueblo Int'l, Inc., 229 F.3d 49, 53 (1st Cir.2000). By like token, a fact is material if it has the potential to determine the outcome of the litigation. See Calvi v. Knox County, 470 F.3d 422, 426 (1st Cir. 2006). Where, as here, the nonmovant has the burden of proof and the evidence on one or more of the critical issues in the case "is . . . not significantly probative, summary judgment may be granted." Acosta, 386 F.3d at 8 (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249-50, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)).

B. Spanish-Language Documents.

We next address a threshold matter. In support of its motion for summary judgment, the Station submitted an array of papers. These included several Spanish-language documents unaccompanied by corresponding English translations. Submission of these documents contravened a local rule requiring all litigation papers to be submitted in English. See D.P.R.R. 10(b). The district court granted the Station leave to file these Spanish-language writings but ordered certified translations to be furnished within one month's time. The Station failed to comply.

More than two months after ordering the filing of translations, the district court entered summary judgment for the Station. Dávila, 2006 WL 2092570, at *7. In its decision, the court did not allude to the missing translations. The appellant contends that the rendering of summary judgment with the untranslated documents in the record constituted reversible error.

"It is well settled that federal litigation in Puerto Rico [must] be conducted in English." González-De-Blasini v. Family Dep't, 377 F.3d 81, 88 (1st Cir. 2004) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see 48 U.S.C. § 864 (requiring that "all pleadings and proceedings in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico . . . be conducted in the English language"). When a district court accepts foreign-language documents without the required English translations, an appellate court cannot consider the untranslated documents on appeal. See Estades-Negroni v. Assocs. Corp. of N. Am., 359 F.3d 1, 2-3 (1st Cir.2004); Fed. R.App. P. 10. Where the record shows that English translations were used in the trial court but somehow were not put into the record as they should have been, the parties may invoke Fed. R.App. P. 10 to correct the record. See, e.g., United States v. Vazquez Guadalupe, 407 F.3d 492, 498 (1st Cir.2005). That is not the situation here. If the untranslated documents are or may be essential to the resolution of an issue raised on appeal, and are not subject to cure by means of Fed. R.App. P. 10, the lack of translation may undermine meaningful appellate review. United States v. Rivera-Rosario, 300 F.3d 1, 10 (1st Cir. 2002).

The documents in question here, translations of which have been made available on appeal, consist of the appellant's performance evaluations, letters from the Station's president notifying him of his appointment and termination respectively, and excerpts from his deposition testimony. It is crystal clear that none of these documents bear on any of the issues that the court found dispositive in adjudicating the summary judgment motion. In any event, in addition to the untranslated documents, the Station submitted other documents with its motion for summary judgment. These included a sworn statement, in English, from Nancy Piñero, the director of the Station's legal division. In that statement, Piñero summarized the contents of the appellant's personnel file, including the three performance reviews. Whatever additional information might exist in the untranslated documents is wholly extraneous and, therefore, inconsequential to the district court's resolution of the matter. In short, the existence of the Piñero statement makes it readily evident that nothing contained in the documents had any bearing on the district court's ratio decidendi.

That ends this aspect of the matter. Because the untranslated documents had no potential to affect the disposition of the case at the summary judgment stage, we conclude that the mere presence of the untranslated documents in the district court record cannot support a claim of reversible error. See González-De-Blasini, 377 F.3d at 89.

C. Eleventh Amendment Immunity.

The district court found, as an alternate ground of decision, that the Station enjoys Eleventh Amendment immunity. The appellant not only disputes that finding but also advances a claim of waiver.

This contretemps might easily be mistaken as a threshold issue. After all, the Eleventh Amendment has been described as implicating subject-matter jurisdiction. See, e.g., Wis. Dep't of Corr. v. Schacht, 524 U.S. 381, 394, 118 S.Ct. 2047, 141 L.Ed.2d 364 (1998) (Kennedy, J., concurring). This is potentially important because, in many instances, colorable challenges to a court's subject-matter jurisdiction must be adjudicated prior to adjudicating the merits of a case. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 93-95, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998).

Here, however, controlling circuit precedent allows us to defer thorny Eleventh Amendment questions in cases in which it is perfectly clear that the state entity will prevail on the merits.¹ See Parella v. Ret. Bd. of R.I. Employees' Ret. Sys., 173 F.3d 46, 53-57 (1st Cir.1999). This is such a case. Consequently, we avail ourselves of this bypass option and proceed directly to the merits of the appellant's claims.

D. The Merits.

The appellant seeks to recover on three causes of action. First, he claims that the Station violated his procedural due process rights in failing to provide him with notice and a hearing prior to his discharge. Second, he claims...