Nereida-Gonzalez v. Tirado-Delgado

Citation990 F.2d 701
Decision Date01 March 1993
Docket NumberTIRADO-DELGADO,NEREIDA-GONZALE,P,No. 92-2084,92-2084
PartiesCarmenlaintiff, Appellant, v. Cirilo, et al., Defendants, Appellees. . Heard
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)

Hector Urgell Cuebas, San Juan, PR, for plaintiff, appellant.

Vannessa Ramirez, Asst. Sol. Gen. with whom Reina Colon de Rodriguez, Acting Sol. Gen., San Juan, PR, was on brief, for defendants, appellees.

Before BREYER, Chief Judge, TORRUELLA and SELYA, Circuit Judges.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

In this case, plaintiff-appellant Carmen Nereida-Gonzalez (Nereida), a veteran government employee displeased by a series of adverse employment actions, sued two of her superiors. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment. Nereida appeals. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.

I. Background

We limn the facts in the light most advantageous to the summary judgment loser, consistent with record support, as Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 requires. See, e.g., Amsden v. Moran, 904 F.2d 748, 749 (1st Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1041, 111 S.Ct. 713, 112 L.Ed.2d 702 (1991).

Appellant, a known member of the New Progressive Party (NPP), started working for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in the 1960s. By 1984, she occupied a career position in the State Insurance Fund (SIF), a government agency. 1 In November of that year, the incumbent NPP governor lost the gubernatorial election to a member of the rival Popular Democratic Party (PDP). Hot on the heels of the change in command two PDP loyalists, defendants Cirilo Tirado-Delgado (Tirado) and Rafael Rivera Gonzalez (Rivera), received high-level SIF appointments--Tirado as Administrator of the SIF, Rivera as Director of Personnel.

Once ensconced at the agency, the defendants allegedly informed appellant that she would be demoted because of her political affiliation. The prophecy soon became a reality. By letter dated June 20, 1985, Rivera advised appellant that her position was being eliminated as part of a departmental reorganization and that, consequently she was being transferred to a different SIF position as assistant to the Director of the Systems and Procedures Office. Rivera's letter acknowledged that "[t]his transfer represents a demotion."

Although the defendants now struggle to portray the reassignment as a lateral transfer, the record bears out Rivera's initial characterization of the move. The base salary for appellant's new position ($1565 per month) was significantly lower than the base salary for her former position ($1915 per month). The terms of her employment provided that, until the gap was closed, she would continue to be paid at her accustomed rate, but the difference between her new base salary and her actual pay would absorb any raises or bonuses she otherwise would have been eligible to collect. Thus, while appellant's pay was not reduced outright, it was effectively frozen and her ability to earn more money was circumscribed. This situation lasted at least until February 3, 1987, when Tirado informed appellant by letter that, in terms of salary and classification, her new position was being upgraded to the level of her previous position.

The demotion damaged appellant's pride as well as her pocketbook. Her new job, unlike her old one, did not entail supervisory responsibilities. What is more, even the modest functions and duties corresponding to the new job title were placed beyond her reach as she was asked to perform only clerical tasks. As a final indignity, although the defendants abolished appellant's former position on paper, its functions remained essentially intact and were performed by an employee with ties to the PDP.

Asserting that she had been constructively discharged, or, alternatively, demoted because of her exercise of First Amendment rights, and contending that the adverse personnel actions undertaken at defendants' direction deprived her of property without due process of law, appellant brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1988). She sought both equitable relief and money damages. The district court gave her cold gruel, entering summary judgment in defendants' favor on all claims. This appeal followed.

II. Discussion
A Summary Judgment

Summary judgment exists to "pierce the boilerplate of the pleadings and assay the parties' proof in order to determine whether trial is actually required." Wynne v. Tufts Univ. Sch. of Medicine, 976 F.2d 791, 794 (1st Cir.1992), petition for cert. filed, 61 U.S.L.W. 3586 (U.S. Feb. 3, 1993) (No. 92-1334). Such a disposition is appropriate 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). A genuine issue exists when there is evidence sufficient to support rational resolution of the point in favor of either party. See, e.g., Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); United States v. One Parcel of Real Property, Etc., 960 F.2d 200, 204 (1st Cir.1992). A genuinely disputed issue concerns a material fact if the fact carries with it the potential to affect the outcome of the suit under the applicable law. See Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248, 106 S.Ct. at 2510; Rivera-Muriente v. Agosto-Alicea, 959 F.2d 349, 352 (1st Cir.1992). This framework remains intact when qualified immunity issues are presented despite the potential of such defenses, in other ways, to "create strange procedural configurations." Amsden, 904 F.2d at 752.

Because the granting of summary judgment necessarily involves applying a legal standard to facts which must, by definition, be undisputed, appellate review of a district court order under Rule 56 is plenary. See Wynne, 976 F.2d at 794; Amsden, 904 F.2d at 752.

B Constructive Discharge

We need not tarry over appellant's most touted initiative: her claim that she was constructively discharged in reprisal for the free exercise of her First Amendment rights. We have ruled, squarely and recently, that a "claim of constructive discharge due to a demotion or transfer cannot succeed when a claimant, in fact, has not left employment." Pedro-Cos v. Contreras, 976 F.2d 83, 85 (1st Cir.1992) (per curiam) (collecting cases); accord Rodriguez-Pinto v. Tirado-Delgado, 982 F.2d 34, 37 (1st Cir.1993). In this instance, appellant concedes that she never left the SIF payroll. Accordingly, her constructive discharge claim fails as a matter of law.

C Transfer and Demotion

Next, appellant claims that she was transferred and demoted for the same (impermissible) reason: to punish her for exercising prerogatives of free association and the like guaranteed to her by the First Amendment. Because this claim is scissile, its component parts are best treated separately.

The Claim for Money Damages

Insofar as appellant's First Amendment transfer-and-demotion claim is one for compensatory damages, we conclude that the doctrine of qualified immunity bars recovery. Qualified immunity shields government officials performing discretionary functions from civil liability for money damages when their conduct does not violate "clearly established" statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). The determination is time-critical. See, e.g., Goyco de Maldonado v. Rivera, 849 F.2d 683, 684 (1st Cir.1988). Here, the key actions of which appellant complains occurred before 1989. This court had not yet decided Agosto-De-Feliciano v. Aponte-Roque, 889 F.2d 1209 (1st Cir.1989) (en banc) and the Supreme Court had not yet decided Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois, 497 U.S. 62, 110 S.Ct. 2729, 111 L.Ed.2d 52 (1990). As we explain below, this chronology gets the grease from the goose.

Before 1989, that is, throughout the period when the present defendants allegedly acted to appellant's detriment, 2 it was a subject of much conjecture whether the constitutional prohibition against politically motivated firings extended to other personnel actions, such as refusals to hire, demotions, and failures to promote. See Rodriguez-Pinto, 982 F.2d at 38; Aviles-Martinez v. Monroig, 963 F.2d 2, 6 (1st Cir.1992); Roque-Rodriguez v. Lema Moya, 926 F.2d 103, 107-09 (1st Cir.1991); Nunez-Soto v. Alvarado, 918 F.2d 1029, 1030 (1st Cir.1990). In the absence of a clearly established right on the part of public employees--even civil servants--to engage in politics without fear of demotion, the irresistible conclusion is that the instant defendants are entitled to don the cloak of qualified immunity. Therefore, the lower court appropriately scotched appellant's claim for compensatory damages at the summary judgment stage. 3

The Claim for Equitable Relief

The remaining furculum of appellant's First Amendment transfer-and-demotion claim has more meat on its bones. A primary purpose of providing officials with qualified immunity is to ensure that fear of personal liability will not unduly influence or inhibit their performance of public duties. See, e.g., Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 638, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3038, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987); Harlow, 457 U.S. at 814, 102 S.Ct. at 2736; Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 21 n. 7, 100 S.Ct. 1468, 1473 n. 7, 64 L.Ed.2d 15 (1980). This purpose is achieved when the official is held harmless from personal liability. Not surprisingly, then, qualified immunity confers immunity only from individual-capacity suits, such as suits for money damages, that have been brought against government actors.

Here, Nereida sued the defendants both individually and in their official capacities. As we have explained, the doctrine of qualified immunity sets the individual-capacity claims to rest. But, the official-capacity claims are qualitatively...

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