Diaz-Rivera v. Rivera-Rodriguez

• Decision Date: 03 August 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-1565.,No. 03-1833.,No. 03-1832.,03-1565.,03-1832.,03-1833.
• Citation: 377 F.3d 119
• Parties: Sergio DIAZ-RIVERA, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants/Cross-Appellees, Eliud Morales-Candelaria, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Jose A. RIVERA-RODRIGUEZ, et al., Defendants-Appellees/Cross-Appellants, Quintilio Colon-Diaz, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

377 F.3d 119

Sergio DIAZ-RIVERA, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants/Cross-Appellees Eliud Morales-Candelaria, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Jose A. RIVERA-RODRIGUEZ, et al., Defendants-Appellees/Cross-Appellants Quintilio Colon-Diaz, et al., Defendants.

No. 03-1565.

No. 03-1832.

No. 03-1833.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard March 4, 2004.

Decided August 3, 2004.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, Gelpi, United States Magistrate Judge.

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Claudio Aliff-Ortiz, with whom Aldarondo & López Bras was on brief, for plaintiffs-appellants/cross-appellees.

Ismael Rodríguez-Izquierdo, with whom Consuelo Sifre-García, and Sánchez Betances & Sifre, P.S.C., were on brief, for defendants-appellees/cross-appellants.

Before TORRUELLA, SELYA and LIPEZ, Circuit Judges.

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs-appellants Díaz-Rivera, et al. ("plaintiffs"), all former employees of the Municipality of Gurabo, Puerto Rico ("Gurabo"), appeal the district court's judgment in favor of defendants-appellees Rivera-Rodríguez, et al. ("defendants"), arguing that the district court erred in refusing to admit evidence in support of a failure to rehire claim. Defendants cross-appeal from the district court's award of attorney's fees to plaintiffs.¹ After careful review, we affirm both the judgment and the attorney's fees award.

I. Background

Prior to the events at issue in these appeals, plaintiffs were employees of Gurabo, holding irregular appointments for fixed periods. During the course of their employment, plaintiffs' contracts had generally been renewed by Gurabo on a continual and uninterrupted basis. All were affiliated with the New Progressive Party ("NPP"). On January 19, 2001, following a change of administration brought about by the Popular Democratic Party's ("PDP") victory in the November 7, 2000, general elections, Gurabo terminated plaintiffs' contracts, which would have expired on June 30, 2001, without a prior hearing. Defendants explained the terminations as a product of budgetary and fiscal considerations. Plaintiffs allege that the terminations were motivated by discriminatory animus on account of their political affiliation.

Following plaintiffs' terminations, new positions became available at Gurabo financed with funds available due to the approval, on February 14, 2001, of a proposal submitted by Gurabo under 29 P.R. Laws Ann. § 711c ("Law 52"), "a vehicle through which the Commonwealth subsidize[s] locally managed programs to ameliorate unemployment." Gómez v. Rivera Rodríguez, 344 F.3d 103, 107 (1st Cir.2003).² None of plaintiffs was hired to the Law 52 positions.

On April 2, 2001, plaintiffs filed this political discrimination suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. During pre-trial proceedings, on June 6, 2002, the district court granted plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment on the Fourteenth Amendment due process claim, holding that plaintiffs' continued expectation of employment until June 30, 2001 was terminated without due process of law in violation of Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 84 L.Ed.2d 494 (1985).

On January 16, 2002, plaintiffs submitted a proposed pre-trial order, which included the following:

The Irregular Plaintiffs claim that the financial reason advanced on the Irregular Plaintiffs' termination letter is a mere pretext to conceal the true motive behind their dismissal; i.e., a political affiliation which is different from defendants' one. Defendants, however, played their politically discriminatory chips shrewdly, and did not hire replacements for the Irregular Plaintiffs; instead, the functions formerly performed by the Irregular Plaintiffs are now carry-out by newly hired employees affiliated to the P.D.P., who were hired on other employment bases, such as Law 52, or transitory contract employments.

On November 21, 2002, the district court issued an order excluding evidence of the Law 52 hirings. On November 27, the district court vacated the order and ruled to permit the introduction of the Law 52 hirings at trial, on the following basis:

Upon further consideration and analysis, the Court has reconsidered its previous ruling, and shall permit the introduction of such evidence at trial. The Court is convinced that plaintiffs are entitled to have a jury (or judge) determine at trial whether their layoffs were pretextual, as well as whether these were intended to subsequently hire individuals of different political affiliation (pursuant to Law 52) who sympathized with the new municipal administration.

Defendants moved for reconsideration, and during a hearing on December 3, 2002, the court denied the motion, stating:

I heard arguments. My ruling is that I will allow this evidence as evidence of pretext.

Obviously it's not a second cause of action, and obviously, damages issues that go to the jury will go. But it's not a separate cause of action as to the failure to rehire. I am allowing it as evidence of pretext.

During trial, the jury was instructed thus:

Now, this First Amendment claim which you have before you, this is not a case about failure to rehire. It's a case for dismissal based on political discrimination; however, you may consider evidence of failure to rehire as evidence of pretext or of no pretext for the dismissal.

You are to determine whether that failure to rehire was a pretext or not based on the overall evidence and the facts. But this is not a case about failure to rehire. This is a case about whether the plaintiffs on January 19, 2001, were dismissed based on political discrimination.

On December 23, 2002, the jury returned a verdict in favor of defendants on the First Amendment claim and awarded no compensatory damages to plaintiffs as to their successful Fourteenth Amendment claim. On January 8, 2003, the district court entered judgment for defendants on the First Amendment claim and awarded nominal damages in the amount of one dollar per plaintiff for the due process violation.

On March 14, 2003, the district court entered an order awarding plaintiffs attorney's fees under the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976 ("Fees Act"), 42 U.S.C. § 1988, in connection with the due process claim. The court reduced the fees by 33% "since the plaintiffs obtained limited claims-based success and relief." Both parties filed motions for reconsideration of the attorney's fees order.

While the attorney's fees motions remained pending, plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal from the judgment, arguing that the district court erroneously limited the scope and use at trial of the evidence regarding defendants' failure to hire plaintiffs to the Law 52 positions. On April 30, 2003, the district court ruled on plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration of the attorney's fees award and increased the hourly rates, again "reduc[ing] the total fee award by 33% since plaintiffs obtained limited claims based success and relief." Defendants appeal this order.

II. Analysis

A. Evidence of Law 52 hirings

We review the district court's evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. Cummings v. Standard Register Co., 265 F.3d 56, 62 (1st Cir.2001)(citing Sheek v. Asia Badger, Inc., 235 F.3d 687, 695 (1st Cir.2000)).

Plaintiffs argue that the district court erred in admitting evidence regarding the Law 52 hirings only as evidence of pretext, thus precluding its use to support an independent failure to rehire cause of action. Plaintiffs contend that evidence that none of the plaintiffs was hired to the Law 52 positions supports a failure to rehire claim under Rutan v. Republican Party of Ill., 497 U.S. 62, 110 S.Ct. 2729, 111 L.Ed.2d 52 (1990). While conceding that their original complaint did not include and was never amended to include a failure to rehire claim, plaintiffs assert that the failure to rehire cause of action was referred to in the pretrial memorandum of January 16, 2002, amended in November 2002, which was adopted by the trial court in its pretrial order, and thus that evidence of the Law 52 hirings should have been allowed in support of a failure to rehire cause of action. Plaintiffs base this argument on the principle that "[p]retrial statements are to be liberally construed to cover any of the legal or factual theories that might be embraced by their language." Rodrigues v. Ripley Indus., Inc., 507 F.2d 782, 787 (1st Cir.1974)(citing 6A Wright & Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 1527 at 609 & n. 47 (1971)).

Defendants argue that their due process rights are in jeopardy, as plaintiffs never amended the complaint and defendants were therefore denied notice and were not provided an opportunity to submit a responsive pleading regarding the failure to rehire claim until days before trial. Although plaintiffs referred to the Law 52 hirings in pretrial memoranda in relation to the question of pretext, defendants contend that this did not amount to sufficient notice of plaintiffs' intent to include a new cause of action and instead appeared as an isolated statement in relation to the pretext aspect of their discriminatory discharge claim, and thus the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing evidence of the Law 52 hirings only as to pretext. We agree.

Plaintiffs had ample time to move to amend their pleadings under Rule 15 to include a failure to rehire cause of action. Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a). They chose not to do so. They contend that their reading of Rodrigues led them to believe that such an amendment was unnecessary and yet they do not, and cannot, provide any authority for the proposition that pretrial statements can routinely be used to augment the claims pleaded in the complaint. In Rodrigues itself, this court affirmed the district court's exclusion of evidence because "we cannot hold that the district court abused its discretion in ruling that plaintiff's murky...