Pagán-Porratta v. Municipality of Guaynabo
| Decision Date | 27 August 2019 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL NO: 17-1961 (RAM) |
| Parties | Cynthia Pagán-Porratta, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Municipality of Guaynabo, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico |
Pending before the Court is Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 27), alongside a Statement of Uncontested Material Facts (Docket No. 25). Plaintiffs filed a Memorandum in Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment ("Opposition") (Docket No. 34) accompanied by a Response to Defendants' Statement of Uncontested Material Facts ("Response") (Docket No. 35). Lastly, Defendants filed Defendants' Reply to Plaintiffs' Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment and Response to Defendants' Statement of Uncontested Facts ("Reply") (Docket No. 38).
For reasons stated below, the Court GRANTS Defendants' Motion.
On July 14, 2017, Cynthia Pagan-Porrata ("Pagán-Porrata"), Anibal Jiménez-Haddock ("Jiménez-Haddock"), Daniel Cumbas-Aponte ("Cumbas-Aponte"),1 Roberto Santos-Torres ("Santos-Torres"), Carlos Morales-Figueroa ("Morales-Figueroa"), Luis Ortiz-Ojeda ("Ortiz-Ojeda"), and their respective conjugal partnerships (collectively, "Plaintiffs"), filed a Complaint against the Municipality of Guaynabo and Wilfredo Martinez Hernandez, in his official capacity as Police Commissioner of the Guaynabo Municipal Police Department (collectively, "Defendants" or "Municipality").
In the Complaint, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants violated the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"). 29 U.S.C. § 201, et seq. They also invoke supplemental jurisdiction by claiming violations of local labor laws and the Puerto Rico Constitution. During the time-frame alleged (on or around August 2012), Plaintiffs worked as canine unit officers and were allegedly not compensated for overtime work performed.2 Specifically, they request payment for fourteen (14) hours spent taking care of their dogs outside of "working hours." (Docket No. 25 ¶ 63). These duties included feeding, watering, grooming, bathing, exercising, transporting, training, and bonding with the dogs. (Docket No. 1 ¶ 28). Theyalso included cleaning the canine kennels after police interventions by officers. Id. ¶ 37.3
Defendants denied the allegations in the Complaint (Docket No. 11 at 11) and on October 4, 2018, filed a Motion for Summary Judgement. (Docket No. 27). First, they argue that the Defendants have been paying Plaintiffs "0.5" hours per day (3.5 hours per week) for off-duty canine care and Plaintiffs failed to prove that time was insufficient. Id. at 2. Second, they contend that Plaintiffs generally worked overtime and accumulated compensatory time off rather than cash overtime, but Defendants were unaware of additional overtime work because Plaintiffs failed to report it. Id. Moreover, Defendants allege that Plaintiffs failed to evidence that Defendants discouraged or prevented them from reporting overtime work. Third, Defendants assert that although Plaintiffs allege they often worked more than a 35-hour shift, none of them, except Cumba-Aponte, accumulated more than 480 hours in Federal Compensatory Time during the relevant period. Thus, they are not owed cash overtime under the FLSA. Id. at 3. Finally, Defendants argue that Plaintiffs' FLSA claim was limited by FLSA's two-year statute of limitations. Id.
In their Opposition, Plaintiffs argue that Defendants miscalculated their overtime hours and are owed payment for allovertime hours worked by them. (Docket No. 34 at 4). They also contend that the statute of limitations for payment of compensatory time is tolled until each Plaintiff stops working for Defendants and until the Guaynabo Municipal Police Department places a poster of an employee's overtime rights at the station. Id. at 5-6. Plaintiffs' also posit that genuine issues of material fact prevent summary judgment of the case. (Docket No. 35).
Defendants subsequently filed a Reply. (Docket No. 38). They argue that Plaintiffs failed to create an issue of fact regarding the recording of their overtime work performed. Id. at 3-6. They further allege that Plaintiffs failed to create an issue of fact that the Defendants had not been properly compensating the officers for additional canine care. Id. at 6-7. Lastly, they aver that Plaintiffs acknowledged they failed to make Defendants aware of the alleged overtime work performed by Defendants. Id. 8-10.
A motion for summary judgment is governed by Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). This rule entitles a party to judgment if "the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). A dispute is genuine "if the evidence about the fact is such that a reasonable jury could resolve the point in the favor of the non-moving party." Mercado-Reyes v. City of Angels, Inc., 320 F. Supp. 3d 344, 347 (D.P.R. 2018) (quotation omitted). On the other hand, a fact is considered material "if it has the potential of determining the outcome of the litigation." Id.
The moving party has "the initial burden of 'demonstrat[ing] the absence of a genuine issue of material fact' with definite and competent evidence." Id. (quoting Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986)). Once this occurs, the burden shifts to the nonmovant. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ("First Circuit") has stated that a non-moving party must "with respect to each issue on which he has the burden of proof, [...] demonstrate that a trier of fact reasonably could find in his favor." Woodward v. Emulex Corp., 714 F.3d 632, 637 (1st Cir. 2013) (quotation omitted).
While a Court will draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-movant, it will disregard unsupported or conclusory allegations. See Johnson v. Duxbury, Massachusetts, 2019 WL 3406537, at *2 (1st Cir. 2019). The United States Supreme Court has stated that the existence of "some alleged factual dispute between the parties will not affect an otherwise properly supported motion for summary judgment." Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 379 (2007) (quotation omitted). A court should review the record "as a whole," and "may not make credibility determinations or weigh the evidence" as that is a job for the jury. Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 135 (2000).
Finally, Local Rule 56 also governs summary judgement. See D.P.R. Civ. R. 56. Per the rule, a motion for summary judgement must include "a separate, short, and concise statement of material facts, set forth in numbered paragraphs, as to which [...] there is no genuine issue of material fact to be tried." Id. A nonmoving party must then "admit, deny or qualify the facts supporting the motion [...] by reference to each numbered paragraph of the moving party's statement of material facts." Id. The First Circuit has highlighted that "[p]roperly supported facts [...] shall be deemed admitted unless controverted in the manner prescribed by the local rule." Advanced Flexible Circuits, Inc. v. GE Sensing & Inspection Techs. GmbH, 781 F.3d 510, 520 (1st Cir. 2015) (quotation omitted). "[L]itigants ignore [those rules] at their peril". Gautier v. Brennan, 2019 WL 2754673, at *2 (D.P.R. 2019) (quotation omitted).
Before discussing the undisputed facts, the Court must address several compliance issues which arose when reviewing Plaintiffs' Response to the Statement of Uncontested Material Facts ("SUMF"). (Docket No. 35). In general, Plaintiffs admitted, denied or qualified the facts presented in the SUMF filed by Defendants.4However, Plaintiffs failed to include a response for proposed undisputed Facts Nos. 3, 4, 5, 64 and 81. (Docket No. 35 at 2, ¶¶ 3-5, at 24-25, ¶ 64 and at 29, ¶ 81). Consequently, these facts are deemed admitted per Local Rule 56 and Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e), the latter of which states that "[i]f a party fails to properly support an assertion of fact or fails to properly address another party's assertion of fact [...], the court may [...] consider the fact undisputed for purposes of the motion."
Plaintiffs sought to create a material issue of fact concerning accrual of compensatory time by asserting that most calculations of their hours worked are wrong because Defendants counted a quarter of an hour as ".15" of an hour, rather than the requisite ".25" minutes of an hour. (Docket No. 35 ¶ 28). Defendants allegedly also miscounted a half-hour as ".30" of an hour rather than the requisite ".5", and so forth. Id. This caused Plaintiffs Pagán-Porrata (Docket No. 35 ¶¶ 35-36), Jiménez-Haddock (Id. ¶¶ 44-45), Cumba-Aponte (Id. ¶¶ 53-54), Santos-Torres (Id. ¶¶ 62-63), Morales-Figueroa (Id. ¶¶ 70-71) and Luis Ortiz-Ojeda (Id. ¶¶ 72-73) to have incorrect hourly balances in accrued compensatory time. As proof, however, Plaintiffs only submitted handwritten comments as to how many hours were allegedly unrecorded. (Docket Nos. 35-2, 35-3, 35-4, 35-5, 35-6 and 35-7). In their Reply, Defendants contend that these calculations of hours, even if done in the most favorable manner towards the nonmovants, would still fail to pass for most Plaintiffs, Cumba-Aponte excluded, the 480-hour FLSA threshold which would justify a cash compensation for overtime. (Docket No. 38 at 4-6). The Court notes that no other evidence, neither affidavit nor sworn statement, was provided which could attest to these differences in hourly calculations. The same occurred regarding Fact No. 85. (Docket No. 35 at ¶ 85).
The First Circuit has stated that a "nonmovant can thwart the motion [for summary judgement] only by showing through materials of evidentiary quality that a genuine dispute exists about some material fact." Acosta v. Ames Dep't Stores, Inc., 386 F.3d 5, 8 (1st Cir. 2004). Similarly, summary judgment is appropriate when a nonmoving party rests upon "conclusory allegations [...] and unsupported speculation." Johnson, 2019 WL 3406537, at *2 (...
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