Vazquez Rios v. Hernandez Colon, 86-1610

• Decision Date: 01 December 1986
• Docket Number: No. 86-1610,86-1610
• Citation: 819 F.2d 319
• Parties: Aurea E. VAZQUEZ RIOS, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Rafael HERNANDEZ COLON, etc., et al., Defendants, Appellants. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 319

819 F.2d 319

Aurea E. VAZQUEZ RIOS, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Rafael HERNANDEZ COLON, etc., et al., Defendants, Appellants.

No. 86-1610.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard Dec. 1, 1986.

Decided April 8, 1987.

Submitted on Motion for Rehearing

April 29, 1987.

Opinion on Denial of Rehearing May 20, 1987.

Pedro Juan Perez Nieves with whom Saldana, Rey, Moran & Alvarado, Santurce, P.R., Hector Rivera-Cruz, Secretary of Justice, and Rafael Ortiz-Carrion, Sol. Gen., San Juan, P.R., were on brief, for defendants, appellants.

Pedro Miranda Corrada, San Juan, P.R., with whom Hector Urgell Cuebas, Santurce, P.R., was on brief, for plaintiffs, appellees.

Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, COFFIN and SELYA, Circuit Judges.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

There has been a steady drumbeat of civil actions involving claimed politically motivated discharges arising out of the change in administration following Puerto Rico's 1984 gubernatorial election. The case at bar deals with several more positions in that litany. There are seven appellees. All of them aver that they were dismissed from their government positions because of their political affiliation with the Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP). ¹ The PNP, after eight years in power, was defeated at the polls by its arch-rival, the Partido Popular Democratico (PDP).

Personnel realignments followed fast and furious on the winds of electoral fortune. These moves included the ousters of the present appellees. After they were dismissed, the seven sued the defendants (appellants before us), Rafael Hernandez-Colon, the newly-inaugurated Governor of the Commonwealth (elected on the PDP ticket), and Alvaro Padial, formerly the special aide in charge of administration of the Office of the Governor. The defendants are alleged to have ordered the discharges in violation of the principles announced by the Court in Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976), and Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980). The plaintiffs sought reinstatement, ² backpay, compensatory and punitive damages, and ancillary relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983.

The appellants moved for partial summary judgment on the issue of qualified immunity in respect to all seven plaintiffs, but the district court denied their motions. This interlocutory appeal followed. At this juncture, we have jurisdiction to consider only the narrow question of whether the denials of partial summary judgment based on defendants' claims of qualified immunity were proper. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2815-17, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985); De Abadia v. Izquierdo Mora, 792 F.2d 1187, 1190 (1st Cir.1986). ³

Rather than retrace the methodology to be employed in cases of this genre, we adopt the analysis set forth in sections II and III of our opinion in Mendez-Palou v. Rohena-Betancourt, 813 F.2d 1255, 1257-1259 (1st Cir. 1987). This permits us to focus solely upon the nature of the affected Although not dispositive of the federal constitutional issues, we note that the seven jobs have been classified as positions of trust and confidence under Sec. 5.10 of the Puerto Rico Public Service Personnel Act. P.R.Laws Ann. tit. 3, Sec. 1350. All of the employees were based at La Fortaleza, the governor's executive mansion. Five of them fall somewhat naturally into a single discrete grouping. These five--Aurea Vazquez-Rios, Margarita Calderon-Andino, Bienvenido Perez-Perez, Enrique Colon-Rivera, and Angel Luis Gonzalez-Robles--all performed labors of an essentially domestic nature. Vazquez-Rios and Calderon-Andino were cleaning women, Perez-Perez and Colon-Rivera were waiters, and Gonzalez-Robles was a supervisor of domestic services. The configuration of their positions is such that their situations can be discussed in the ensemble. The remaining appellees are Matilda Maldonado-Feliciano, an editing assistant in the governor's press office, and Olga Salvatella-Schmidt, an Executive Secretary III in the Office of Cultural Affairs. Each of their cases must be considered separately.

positions and the question of whether these plaintiffs, or any or all of them, were protected against patronage dismissals by a clearly established constitutional right.

I. The Domestic Employees

Vazquez-Rios, Calderon-Andino, Perez-Perez, Colon-Rivera, and Gonzalez-Robles allege that they were dismissed from their respective housework positions on account of their political affiliation. The complaint which they filed in the district court, however, stated only that the posts from which they were removed were of a nonpolicy-making nature and that the proper performance of their duties did not require membership in the PDP. Because these conclusory allegations, without more, do not permit a reasoned finding as to whether these five plaintiffs, given their particular positions, enjoyed a clearly established constitutional right to be protected from politically motivated discharges, we look to other established facts contained in the nisi prius roll. See Mendez-Palou, supra, at 1259-1260; cf. Bonitz, 804 F.2d at 168 n. 4.

In this regard, the record on appeal includes so-called "Class Concept" materials, that is, classification criteria prepared by the Puerto Rico Central Office of Personnel Administration (COPA), describing the general nature of particular grouped positions. The ossature of the workplace is fleshed out by job description forms, also originating with COPA, which illuminate in finer detail the actual duties corresponding to each post. With respect to "Cleaning Persons" (the titular rubric under which Vazquez-Rios and Calderon-Andino fell), the Class Concept described the positions thusly:

Simple housework which includes performing cleaning and maintenance tasks within the Executive Mansion.

The employee receives general instructions from the Supervisor of Executive Mansion Affairs and his/her work is reviewed based on the results obtained.

The job description questionnaires for these positions demonstrated that the scope of the work subsumed the following constituent chores:

1. Clean doors.

2. Clean mirrors in rooms and bathrooms.

3. Dispose of garbage and clean trashcans.

4. Clean and polish tiles in stairs and bathrooms.

5. Clean and polish marble.

6. Clean windows.

7. Change light bulbs.

8. Vacuum rugs.

9. Clean stairs.

10. Clean and polish adornments and decorative objects.

11. Change candles.

12. Clean, organize and give maintenance to broom closet.

13. Inform of imperfections in equipment.

14. Maintain the assigned work area clean at all times.

15. Maintain bathrooms stocked at all times.

16. Clean file cabinets and shelves.

Regarding the position of "Waiter," the slot occupied by Perez-Perez and by Colon-Rivera, the Class Concept provided in relevant part:

The employees in this class serve food in the Executive Mansion and other official places to the Governor, the First Lady and children, in addition to the guests and visitors.

The employees receive specific instructions from the Supervisor of Domestic Services and their work is evaluated based on the results obtained.

According to the questionnaire which enumerated the particular tasks of the position, a waiter must:

1. Serve the Governor, the First Lady and children.

2. Serve meals to guests and visitors.

3. Chill wines, serve cordials and snacks.

4. Serve in the Governor's waiting room, in the Office of the Governor and that of the First Lady.

5. Serve and clean up in the activities that are carried out in the small theater, internal patio and [outer] walls [area].

6. Know how to distinguish the utensils to be used at each type of meal, depending on the occasion, if it is formal or informal.

7. Inform whenever any material is needed.

The last of the five clustered positions is that of "Supervisor of Domestic Services". The Class Concept described the job's responsibilities as follows:

Work of some complexity and responsibility, supervising the work of the waiters or cooks of the Executive Mansion.

The employee in this class sees that the instructions given are carried out in order to obtain the best service from waiters and cooks within the Executive Mansion.

He/She receives general instructions from the Director of the Executive Mansion, who evaluates his/her work on the basis of the results obtained.

In turn, the job description listed for the position reflected its components as:

1. Supervise the waiters.

2. Assign shifts to the waiters daily.

3. Serve the Governor personally when it is his shift.

4. Assist Mrs. Vallecillo [staff director at the Executive Mansion] in doing the shopping.

5. In Mrs. Vallecillo's absence, he is the one who supervises the kitchen.

6. Do any other work assigned to him.

From the foregoing descriptions, it seems abundantly clear that these five employees performed ministerial functions of a purely domestic nature. None of them were involved in policymaking, the communication of political ideas, or sensitive tasks connected with the policymaking function, i.e., the partisan goals of the governor's office. The duties of each were of the sort which "are measured solely by strictly technical or professional criteria." Mendez-Palou, supra, at 1258. Gonzalez-Robles, to be sure, had some supervisory authority, but only over the conduct of housekeeping matters--and mundane operational ones at that. Ideology cannot plausibly be said to have the remotest bearing on how food should be served or how doorknobs should be polished. It has equally little bearing on a majordomo's oversight of such tasks.

We have remarked before that "the law seems clear at either end of the Elrod-Branti spectrum." Mendez-Palou, supra, at 1258 (quoting De Abadia, 792 F.2d at 1194, Campbell, C.J., concurring). These hirelings clearly toil at or near the (nonpolitical) terminus of that spectrum. They are modern-day equivalents of the "hewers of wood and drawers of...