RodrÍguez-garcÍa v. Miranda-marÍn

• Decision Date: 21 June 2010
• Docket Number: 08-2320.,No. 08-2319,08-2319
• Citation: 610 F.3d 756
• Parties: Carmen L. RODRÍGUEZ-GARCÍA, Plaintiff, Appellee, Cross-Appellant,v.William MIRANDA-MARÍN, Municipality of Caguas, Defendants, Appellants, Cross-Appellees,Wilfredo Puig, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

610 F.3d 756

Carmen L. RODRÍGUEZ-GARCÍA, Plaintiff, Appellee, Cross-Appellant,v.William MIRANDA-MARÍN, Municipality of Caguas, Defendants, Appellants, Cross-Appellees,Wilfredo Puig, Defendant.

Nos. 08-2319, 08-2320.

United States Court of Appeals,

First Circuit.

Heard Nov. 5, 2009.

Decided June 21, 2010.

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Luis Pabón-Roca, with whom Grisselle González-Negrón and Faccio & Pabón-Roca were on brief, for the Municipality of Caguas.

José Enrico Valenzuela-Alvarado, Assistant Solicitor General, with whom Irene S. Soroeta-Kodesh, Solicitor General, Leticia Casalduc-Rabell, Deputy Solicitor General, and Zaira Z. Girón-Anadón, Deputy Solicitor General, were on brief, for William Miranda-Marín.

Godwin Aldarondo-Girald for Carmen L. Rodríguez-García.

Before LIPEZ, BALDOCK ^* and HOWARD, Circuit Judges.

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

Carmen Rodríguez-García, a career employee of the Municipality of Caguas, brought suit against Mayor William Miranda-Marín, Vice Mayor Wilfredo Puig, and the municipality, alleging violations of the First Amendment and Puerto Rico law. She claimed, inter alia, that she was transferred from her position in the Public Works Department (“Public Works”) ¹ to the Office of Federal Funds (“Federal Funds”) in retaliation for testimony she gave before the Puerto Rico Government Ethics Office. In a prior appeal, we affirmed a jury verdict in favor of Puig, but remanded for a new trial against Miranda-Marín and the municipality. Rodríguez-García v. Municipality of Caguas (“ Rodríguez II ”), 495 F.3d 1 (1st Cir.2007).² On remand, a magistrate judge presided over the trial by the consent of the parties see 28 U.S.C. § 636(c), and the jury found in Rodríguez-García's favor and awarded her $350,000 in compensatory damages.

Miranda-Marín and the municipality appeal from the judgment and the denial of several of their post-trial motions. Rodríguez-García cross-appeals from the grant of defendants' post-trial motion to alter or amend the judgment, which had the effect of preventing the recovery of double damages pursuant to a provision of Puerto Rico law. We affirm in all respects.

I.

A. Factual Background

For the purpose of background, we recite here some of the relevant facts in the light most favorable to the jury verdict. Visible Sys. Corp. v. Unisys Corp., 551 F.3d 65, 69 (1st Cir.2008).³ We recount the trial evidence in more detail when we analyze defendants' challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence.

1. Transfer

Rodríguez-García served as an executive secretary to Luisa Flores, director of Public Works, from 1998 until her transfer in 2000. In the course of processing incoming mail, Rodríguez-García noticed that Flores was receiving tickets to political fundraisers and invitations to meetings for the Popular Democratic Party (“PDP”), the party to which the mayor and Flores belonged. Rodríguez-García was concerned that the receipt of this material violated ethics rules prohibiting the use of government resources to further political campaigns. Nevertheless, she duly logged the materials and delivered them to Flores.

On two occasions in 1999, Rodríguez-García raised her concerns with Flores about the receipt of political materials in the office. Flores ignored her complaints and continued to receive political materials; sometimes, she stapled political fundraiser tickets to office employees' paychecks. Rodríguez-García next raised her concerns with Roberto Carrasquillo, a distant relative and municipal assemblyman for the Puerto Rican Independence Party (“PIP”). Carrasquillo confirmed the merits of her concerns and reported the matter to the Puerto Rico Government Ethics Office. Carrasquillo also denounced the complained-of practice in press releases, newspaper columns, and media interviews.

On December 21, 1999, Rodríguez-García was summoned to appear before the Ethics Office, where she provided sworn testimony regarding her complaint. As part of its investigation, the Ethics Office issued summonses to a number of other municipal employees, including Flores, who notified Mayor Miranda-Marín that she had been summoned.

On February 1, 2000, Flores had a discussion with Rodríguez-García, unrelated to the Ethics Office investigation, about the assignment of a particular job task. Rodríguez-García left the office upset and did not come to work the following day. When she returned on February 3, she had a heated discussion with Flores about the missed day of work. Shortly after that discussion, Rodríguez-García fainted and required medical treatment. ⁴ On the recommendation of her doctor, she rested at home for several weeks. On February 18, she delivered a copy of her medical release to Human Resources and then met with Vice Mayor Puig to discuss her absence and planned return to work. She returned to work several days later, on February 21 or 22.

On the morning of her return, Rodríguez-García called Puig's office to explain that she was back at the Public Works office. She was instructed to leave Public Works and report to Human Resources, where she was informed that she would be transferred to another department. After initial assignment to the Education Department, which had no work or space for her, Rodríguez-García was transferred to Federal Funds. She had not requested a transfer and asked to return to her position in Public Works. Although Rodríguez-García retained the same job title and salary in Federal Funds, her job responsibilities were significantly reduced.

2. Attempted Reinstatement

On March 3, 2000, Rodríguez-García wrote a letter to Human Resources requesting a written explanation for her transfer.⁵ In the months that followed, her attorney, Eladio Cartagena, wrote three letters on her behalf to Mayor Miranda-Marín, who had the final authority to transfer and reinstate municipal employees. Cartagena's first letter to the mayor, dated March 8, requested Rodríguez-García's reinstatement to Public Works and suggested that her transfer was motivated by the Ethics Office complaint. Cartagena received a reply from Human Resources dated March 27 that began, “The Hon. William Miranda Marín, Mayor, has referred to us your letter dated March 8, 2000 concerning the transfer of Mrs. [Rodríguez-García].” The letter stated that the transfer had been made at Rodríguez-García's request, that it was considered a temporary transfer, and that “we would have no inconvenience in newly reinstating Mrs. [Rodríguez-García] to her former position” in Public Works.

Cartagena sent a second letter to the mayor on April 10 requesting the offered reinstatement. A copy of the letter was also sent to Heriberto Martínez, director of the Legal Advisor's Office. In a conversation on April 10, Martínez informed Cartagena that Rodríguez-García's reinstatement was pending and there would be a meeting between the personnel department and Rodríguez-García's supervisor in Public Works, Flores. Cartagena sent a third letter to Miranda-Marín dated May 31, informing him that, on the basis of the offered reinstatement, Rodríguez-García had met with the interim Human Resources director and the director of Public Works and they had refused to reinstate her. The May 31 letter further notified the mayor of Rodríguez-García's intention to file a civil action based on the retaliatory transfer and refusal to reinstate her.

Later that year, in September 2000, Rodríguez-García happened upon Mayor Miranda-Marín in a public square. She approached him, grabbed his arm, shook him, and asked about her case. He asked what was happening to her. Before she could elaborate, she was escorted away by his assistants.

In October 2000, Rodríguez-García filed a petition against the municipality and Flores in the Superior Court of Puerto Rico.⁶ Cartagena spoke to the press about the suit, explaining Rodríguez-García's allegations that she had been unlawfully transferred in retaliation for her Ethics Office complaint. Miranda-Marín responded to Rodríguez-García's claims in a television interview.

On June 27, 2001, Rodríguez-García wrote to Miranda-Marín a final time, complaining that she lacked significant work responsibilities and was depressed. She entreated him to resolve her complaint and reinstate her to her former position. She was never reinstated to her position at Public Works. She remained in her position at Federal Funds until sometime in 2003, when she was transferred to the Department of Building Conservation.

B. Procedural History

On November 7, 2001, Rodríguez-García filed this action in federal court against the municipality, Mayor Miranda-Marín, and Vice Mayor Puig. She alleged that the defendants transferred and refused to reinstate her because of her political affiliation and in retaliation for her testimony before the Ethics Office, in violation of the First Amendment and Puerto Rico law. She brought her federal law claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983 and 1985.

In August 2004, the district court granted partial summary judgment to defendants, dismissing Rodríguez-García's political discrimination claim and her claims under §§ 1981 and 1985. In December 2004, Rodríguez-García proceeded to trial on her surviving retaliation claim. In a pretrial evidentiary ruling, the court ruled that Cartagena's March 8, April 10 and May 31 letters to the mayor, and the March 27 letter in response, could be offered as evidence only for the limited purpose “of negating defendants' contention that plaintiff herself requested a transfer,” and not as evidence of the mayor's knowledge of Rodríguez-García's claim. At the close of Rodríguez-García's case, the court granted judgment as a matter of law to Miranda-Marín in his personal capacity under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a), concluding that the remaining evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to establish that the mayor knew of Rodríguez-García's employment situation, and therefore he could not be held personally...