Martinez-Baez v. Rey-Hernandez, No. Civ. 02-1503(SEC).

• Decision Date: 14 June 2005
• Docket Number: No. Civ. 02-1503(SEC).
• Citation: 394 F.Supp.2d 428
• Parties: Juan E. MARTINEZ-BAEZ, et al. Plaintiffs v. Cesar REY-HERNANDEZ, et al. Defendants
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

394 F.Supp.2d 428

Juan E. MARTINEZ-BAEZ, et al. Plaintiffs v. Cesar REY-HERNANDEZ, et al. Defendants

No. Civ. 02-1503(SEC).

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

June 14, 2005.

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Hector J. Quijano-Borges, Mendez Mendez & Quijano Borges, Hato Rey, PR, Monique Guillemard-Noble, Andres Guillemard-Noble, Nachman & Guillemard, Rene Pinto-Lugo, Pinto-Lugo, Oliveras & Ortiz, PSC, San Juan, PR, for Plaintiffs.

Mariana Negron-Vargas, Commonwealth Department of Justice Federal Litigation Division, Tessie Leal-Garabis, Quinones & Sanchez, PSC, Gary H. Montilla-Brogan, Humberto Guzman-Rodriguez, San Juan, PR, Carlos E. Lopez-Lopez, Zuleika Llovet-Zurinaga, Luisselle Quinones-Maldonado, Marie L. Cortes-Cortes, Llovet Zurinaga & Lopez, PSC, Hato Rey, PR, for Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

CASELLAS, District Judge.

Before the Court is Defendants' motion for summary judgment (Docket # 70).¹ Plaintiffs have opposed Defendants' request (Docket # 86). After reviewing the parties' filings and the applicable law, for the reasons set herein, Defendants' motion will be GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.

Factual Background

Plaintiffs, Juan E. Martínez-Baez, Norma G. Santana-Irizarry, and Nilsa Y. Vazquez, formerly occupied the transitory positions of Administrative Law Judges for Special Education with the Department of Education ("DE"). They each enjoyed one year contracts which were renewed yearly until 2001. Plaintiffs allege that the non-renewal of their contracts was due to their affiliation to the New Progressive Party ("NPP"). Thus, they have brought suit against Defendants Cesar Rey-Hernández, Secretary of the DE; Lizette Pillich-Otero,² Director of Human Resources at the DE; Carmen I. Motta-Montañez, Director of the Legal Division of the DE; Licely Falcón-del Toro, Auxiliary Secretary of Special Education at the DE; and the DE pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985(3), and 1988 (Docket # 1).

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." Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary K. 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 (1^st 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." 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." Martinez v. Colon, 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 not 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-Rodriguez, 23 F.3d 576, 581 (1st Cir.1984); 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 trialworthy 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-Munoz, 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 non-moving 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 & Brown, 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." Tavarez v. Champion Prods., Inc., 903 F.Supp. 268, 270 (D.Puerto Rico 1995).

Applicable Law and Analysis

Defendants have moved for summary judgment averring that: (1) as contract employees, Plaintiffs do not have a property interest in continued public employment; (2) Plaintiffs have failed to establish a prima facie case of political discrimination; (3) Plaintiffs' contracts were not renewed because their performance was inadequate; (4) Defendants, in their personal capacity, are entitled to qualified immunity; (5) Defendants, in their official capacity, are entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity (Docket # 72). We will address each in natural order, as well as Plaintiffs' opposition thereto, to the extent necessary.

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 grounds by Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986); Gutierrez-Rodriguez v. Cartagena, 882 F.2d 553, 559 (1st Cir.1989); Saugus v. Voutour, 474 U.S. 1100, 106 S.Ct. 879, 88 L.Ed.2d 916 (1986); Voutour v. Vitale, 761 F.2d 812, 819 (1st Cir.1985).

Second, a plaintiff must show that the defendant's conduct deprived a person of rights, privileges or immunities secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States. See Parratt, 451 U.S. at 535, 101 S.Ct. 1908; Gutierrez-Rodriguez, 882 F.2d at 559. This second prong has two aspects: (1) there must have been an actual deprivation of the plaintiff's federally protected rights; and (2) there must have been a causal connection between the defendant's conduct and the deprivation of the plaintiff's federal rights. Gutierrez-Rodriguez, 882 F.2d at 559; Voutour, 761 F.2d at 819. In turn, this second element of causal connection requires that the plaintiff establish: (1) for each defendant, that the defendant's own actions deprived the plaintiff of his/her protected rights, Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 n. 58, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978); Gutierrez-Rodriguez, 882 F.2d at 562; Figueroa v. Aponte-Roque, 864 F.2d 947, 953 (1st Cir.1989); and (2) that the defendant's conduct was intentional, Simmons v. Dickhaut, 804 F.2d 182, 185 (1st Cir.1986), grossly negligent, or amounted to a reckless or callous indifference to the plaintiff's constitutional rights. See Gutierrez-Rodriguez, 882 F.2d at 562.

A. Due Process

In their complaint Plaintiffs claimed to have a property interest in their continued employment and that they were divested of their entitlement as a result of political discrimination. In their motion for summary judgment, Defendants rightfully aver that Plaintiffs did not have a property interest in their positions since they were hired on a...