Valiente v. Rivera

• Decision Date: 05 June 1992
• Docket Number: Nos. 91-2277,91-2332,s. 91-2277
• Citation: 966 F.2d 21
• Parties: Iris Violeta VALIENTE, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Hon. Ramon Luis RIVERA, etc., et al., Defendants, Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 21

966 F.2d 21

Iris Violeta VALIENTE, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Hon. Ramon Luis RIVERA, etc., et al., Defendants, Appellants.

Nos. 91-2277, 91-2332.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Submitted May 13, 1992.

Decided June 5, 1992.

Reina Colon De Rodriguez, Acting Sol. Gen., and Carlos Lugo-Fiol, Asst. Sol. Gen., on brief, for defendants, appellants.

Jesus Hernandez Sanchez and Hernandez Sanchez Law Firm, on brief, for plaintiffs, appellees.

Before BREYER, Chief Judge, CAMPBELL, Senior Circuit Judge, and CYR, Circuit Judge.

PER CURIAM.

Claiming qualified immunity, defendant moved for summary judgment. Without reaching the merits of the immunity claim, the district court denied the motion because it was "filed on the eve of trial" and "comes too late." Defendant has appealed. For reasons which follow, we do not agree that the motion was filed too late.

I

Eight plaintiffs, employees of the municipality of Bayaman, filed a complaint in October 1986 against the municipality and its mayor. The lead plaintiff, Mrs. Violeta Valiente, stated that she was a member of the same political party as the mayor, but, because she had refused to discriminate on the basis of political affiliation, the mayor had classified her and her associates (the other plaintiffs) as dissenters and had discriminated against them. According to the complaint, Mrs. Violeta Valiente had been demoted in 1985, moved to a small room next to the toilet, given no work, and harassed. Other plaintiffs had been denied raises granted to employees with less experience and fewer credentials, had been transferred to work places more distant from their homes, had suffered a cut in hours, and had been harassed and persecuted.

After initial settlement negotiations failed, trial was originally scheduled for March 13, 1990, but was postponed to July 31, 1990. On July 26, 1990, defendants filed their request for jury instruction, which included instruction on qualified immunity. The July 31, 1990 trial date was vacated when the parties informed the court that promising settlement negotiations were underway. When, by mid-September, no settlement had materialized, trial was rescheduled for May 7, 1991. On May 2, 1991, several days before trial, defendants sought a three-month continuance because of the mayor's health problems. The motion was granted the next day, but no new trial date was immediately set.

On May 10, 1991, defendant mayor filed the motion which is the subject of this appeal. He requested permission to file a motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. Accompanying the motion was a lengthy memorandum arguing that in 1985 and 1986 when the acts in question had taken place, the law was not clearly established that politically motivated personnel actions short of discharge were constitutionally proscribed. The motion was not immediately acted upon. On May 28, trial was rescheduled to December 2, 1991. On November 4, 1991, the court denied the May 10, 1991 request to file a motion for summary judgment. The court stated as follows:

Denied. Although a pre-trial motion for summary judgment is the best instrument for disposing of a qualified immunity defense, this motion, filed on the eve of trial, comes too late in this 1986 litigation.

Given the Court's congested trial calendar, to allow this filing will inevitably lead to a continuance of the trial.

Defendant mayor has appealed from that order.

II

We reject plaintiffs' contention that the order refusing permission to file a motion for summary judgment is not appealable. Orders denying pre-trial claims of qualified immunity are immediately appealable as collateral orders in accordance with Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). To be sure, the district court here did not deny defendant's claim to qualified immunity on the merits, but rather refused to address the merits of the motion at all. Nevertheless, as an asserted right not to stand trial is lost no less by a court's refusal to entertain a pre-trial immunity claim as by an erroneous denial of it on the merits, we see no basis--at least not in the circumstances of the present case--for distinguishing between the two for appellate jurisdictional purposes. See Zayas-Green v. Casaine, 906 F.2d 18, 23 (1st Cir.1990) ("Without question, defendants had ... a right to appeal from the district court's announced refusal to entertain any further pre-trial motions raising the qualified immunity defense."). We have jurisdiction to hear this appeal.

III

Contrary to the court's ruling, the motion requesting permission to file a motion for summary judgment was not filed on the eve of trial. Rather, when the motion was filed, the court had already vacated the May trial date and granted defendants' request for a substantial continuance. As the new trial date was not until December, the motion ended up having been filed almost seven months in advance of trial. Seven months in advance is not the eve of trial. There was sufficient time for the court to rule on the summary judgment request. ¹

Moreover, it is clear that to the extent defendant's motion asserted qualified immunity from damages liability for politically motivated personnel actions short of dismissal, the motion should have been granted. Government officials are not liable for monetary damages in § 1983 suits unless their...