Pagan-Cuebas v. Vera-Monroig, No. CIV. 97-2772(DRD).

• Citation: 91 F.Supp.2d 464
• Decision Date: 27 March 2000
• Docket Number: No. CIV. 97-2772(DRD).
• Parties: Claribel PAGAN-CUEBAS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Roberto VERA-MONROIG, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

Page 464

91 F.Supp.2d 464

Claribel PAGAN-CUEBAS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Roberto VERA-MONROIG, et al., Defendants.

No. CIV. 97-2772(DRD).

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

March 27, 2000.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Eliezer Aldarondo-Ortiz, Aldarondo & Lopez Bras, Hato Rey, PR, for counter-claimants.

Claudio Aliff-Ortiz, Aldarondo & Lopez Bras, Hato Rey, PR, for defendant.

Jose R. Cintron-Rodriguez, Department of Justice of PR, Federal Litigation Division, San Juan, PR, for defendant.

Johanna M. Emmanuelli-Huertas, Pedro Ortiz Alvarez Law Offices, Ponce, PR, for counterdefendant.

Roberto Lefranc-Romero, Santurce, PR, for defendant.

Jose R. Perez-Hernandez, Pierluisi Law Offices, PSC, Hato Rey, PR, for defendant.

Israel Roldan-Gonzalez, Aguadilla, PR, for plaintiff.

William Vazquez-Irizarry, Municipality of San Juan, Office of Legal Affairs, San Juan, PR, for counterdefendants.

ORDER

DOMINGUEZ, District Judge.

Pending before the Court is Co-defendant's, Germán R. Román-Vélez in his personal capacity ("Román"), motion for summary judgment (Docket No. 48), filed on July 29, 1999. Plaintiffs opposed.¹ (Docket Nos. 73 & 54).

I. BACKGROUND

Román is the Executive Director of the North Central Consortium—Arecibo ("NCCA" or "the Consortium"), an organization of eight municipalities² in the north central region of Puerto Rico. Plaintiffs are Claribel Pagan Cuebas ("Pagan"), Luz Monica Lamboy Lopez ("Lamboy"), Imaris Velaquez Acevedo ("Velaquez"), Lizbeth Mirabal Miro ("Mirabal"), Awilda Alvarado Caraballo ("Alvarado"), Maria D. Gonzalez Luciano ("Gonzalez"), Jaime Barlucea Maldonado ("Barlucea"), David Valentin Luciano ("Valentin"), Onofre Rivera Colondres ("Rivera"), and Javier Molina Millan ("Molina"). They were all employees of the NCCA.³ They claim that they have suffered discrimination because of their political affiliation and that their rights under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution have been violated. They seek monetary and injunctive relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, but also allege 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 & 2000d. Additionally, Plaintiffs invoke the Court's supplemental jurisdiction for their Puerto Rico law claims. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367.

The Court reviews the record in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs and draws all reasonable inferences in their favor. See LeBlanc v. Great Am. Ins. Co., 6 F.3d 836, 841 (1st Cir.1993).

The NCCA is a consortium formed pursuant to Puerto Rico law composed of eight municipalities, including Adjuntas and Arecibo. See P.R. LAWS ANN. tit. 21, § 4051(p) (Supp.1993-94). The Consortium's purpose is to establish training and employment programs for economically disadvantaged individuals in both the private and public sectors. The funding for the programs is provided through the federal Job Training Partnership Act. See 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 1501-1792b (West 1999). The Act's purpose coincides with that of the NCCA: to implement programs to help disadvantaged individuals to find jobs and receive employment training. See 29 U.S.C.A. § 1501.

The NCCA is made up of a Board of Mayors from the eight represented municipalities. The Board provides the norms and guidelines under which the consortium is administrated. The chairman of the Board appoints an executive director, Román whose responsibility is the daily administration and personnel management of the NCCA, including the hiring of personnel.

There is a local NCCA office in each of the member municipalities. Each office is run by a local coordinator. The local coordinator answers to the executive director and an operations specialist. The duties of the local coordinator include overseeing the functions of the local office, managing its activities, supervising its personnel, and promoting in the municipality the programs offered by the office. Pagán was the local coordinator of the Adjuntas office until she was transferred to the central offices. (Docket No. 54, Exhibit 1). Plaintiffs, Alvarado, Valentín, and González, remain employed at the local Adjuntas office of the NCCA. (Docket No. 54, Exhibits 8-10). The remaining plaintiffs, Lamboy, Rivera, Molina, Mirabal,⁴ Barlucea and Velázquez, also worked at the NCCA Adjuntas office, however they allege that they were forced to resign. (Docket No. 54, Exhibits 2-7). They were all employed under one-year contracts with the NCCA that are renewed annually. (Docket No. 54, Exhibits 21-30). All Plaintiffs are activists in the New Progressive Party ("NPP"). (Docket No. 54, Exhibits 1-10).

In 1996, the mayor of Adjuntas was also a member of the NPP. In the mayoral elections that year, Co-defendant, Roberto Vera-Monroig ("Vera"), was the successful candidate. He is a member of the rival Popular Democratic Party ("PDP"). Plaintiffs allege that after Vera took office, in January 1997, they all became subjected to political discrimination.

Plaintiffs state that they requested Román's intervention as executive director of NCCA to protect Plaintiffs from the other defendants illegal actions, but Román failed to investigate or take corrective measures. In June 1997, Román told Plaintiffs at a meeting that they "better start looking for another job" and that hard times awaited them at the NCCA because Vera did not want them working at the local Adjuntas.

Pagán was deprived of her functions relating to the office's summer program; these duties were assigned to PDP member Co-defendant, José A. Vázquez ("Vázquez") appointed by Román. Because Vázquez and the "worksites" were doing her work, Pagán was without duties. Additionally, she began to have problems with Vázquez and the "worksites," the newly-hired participants in NCCA programs. They would not allow Pagán to perform her work. Effective September 1, 1997 Pagán was transferred to the NCCA's central office in Arecibo. Pagán avers that the transfer has been a heavy financial burden and moreover, she has been left without any functions to perform.

The other Plaintiffs also complain that their responsibilities were taken away from them after Vera took office and thus, Plaintiffs spend their days "idling and without any duties." Plaintiffs also complain that they were precluded from applying for the Technician III position.

There is evidence that the issue of political patronage did not go unnoticed by the powers that run the NCCA. Co-defendant, Angel Román Vélez, ("Angel Román") the mayor of Arecibo, testified that after the 1996 elections, the NCCA board agreed that each mayor would name the local coordinator in his or her local office. (Docket No. 54, Exhibit 37, p. 12). In order to allow the newly-elected mayors to fill the local coordinator position, the incumbents were given an unsolicited transfer to the central offices and a raise in salary. Each mayor would then be free to name his or her candidate to the now vacant position in the local office. Some of the newly-elected mayors also had lists of people that they wanted to hire to and fire from their local Consortium office. Román wrote to the Mayors to inform them, including Vera, that notwithstanding the new mayors' desire to remove employees from the local NCCA offices, the mayors had not provided a justifiable reason for such actions, and that therefore the employees' contracts were obliged to be renewed. (Docket No. 48, Exhibits 1-3).

II. SUMMARY JUDGMENT STANDARD

A court should grant summary judgment "if 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 ..." FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c). "In applying this formulation, a fact is `material' if it potentially affects the outcome of the case," Vega-Rodriguez v. Puerto Rico Tel. Co., 110 F.3d 174, 178 (1st Cir.1997), and "`genuine' if a reasonable factfinder, examining the evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences helpful to the party resisting summary judgment, could resolve the dispute in that party's favor." Cortes-Irizarry v. Corporacion Insular, 111 F.3d 184, 187 (1st Cir.1997). The court should "`look at the record ... in the light most favorable to ... the party opposing ... the motion' ... [and] indulge all inferences favorable to the party opposing the motion." Hahn v. Sargent, 523 F.2d 461, 464 (1st Cir.1975) (quoting Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting System, 368 U.S. 464, 82 S.Ct. 486, 7 L.Ed.2d 458 (1962)) (citations omitted). However, the nonmovant must "present definite, competent evidence to rebut the motion." Mesnick v. General Elec. Co., 950 F.2d 816, 822 (1st Cir.1991), cert. denied, 504 U.S. 985, 112 S.Ct. 2965, 119 L.Ed.2d 586 (1992). "The court may consider any material that would be admissible or usable at trial." See 10A CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT, ARTHUR R. MILLER & MARY KAY KANE, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 2721, at 361 (3d ed.1998). "But the court should do no more than this in reviewing the quality of the evidence. Most critically, it must never `weigh the evidence and determine the truth of the matter ....'" Lipsett v. University of P.R., 864 F.2d 881, 895 (1st Cir.1988) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2511, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)). Furthermore, "[n]o credibility assessment may be resolved in favor of the party seeking summary judgment." Woodman v. Haemonetics Corp., 51 F.3d 1087, 1091 (1st Cir.1995) (citations omitted). "If, after this canvassing of the material presented, the district court finds that some genuine factual issue remains in the case, whose resolution one way or another could affect its outcome, the court must deny the motion." Lipsett v. University of P.R., 864 F.2d at 895 (citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. at 242, 106 S.Ct. at 2505).

"We believe that summary judgment procedures should be used sparingly ... where the issues of motive and intent play leading roles ... It is only when the witnesses are present and subject to cross-examination that their credibility and...