Zappa v. Cruz, CIV. 88-692 (JP).

• Decision Date: 23 November 1998
• Docket Number: No. CIV. 88-692 (JP).,CIV. 88-692 (JP).
• Citation: 30 F.Supp.2d 123
• Parties: Joanna DiMarco ZAPPA, Plaintiff, v. Hector Rivera CRUZ, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

30 F.Supp.2d 123

Joanna DiMarco ZAPPA, Plaintiff, v. Hector Rivera CRUZ, et al., Defendants.

No. CIV. 88-692 (JP).

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

November 23, 1998.

Arturo Aponte Pares, San Juan, PR, for Plaintiffs.

Ana M. Otero Cintron, Department of Justice of Puerto Rico Federal Litigation Division San Juan, PR, for Defendants.

FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW, AND ORDERS

PIERAS, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

The Court held a bench trial on September 18, 1997 to determine the amount of damages owed by Defendants to the remaining Plaintiff, Joanna DiMarco Zappa ("DiMarco").¹ This Order will (1) address the issue of immunity, (2) set forth the Court's findings of fact and conclusions of law regarding damages, (3) address the propriety of punitive damages and, finally, (4) address DiMarco's right to attorneys' fees. Prior to that, however, the Court believes a summary of this protracted and convoluted litigation is in order.

The Complaint in this case was filed on April 12, 1988, by John Fulcher Harris ("Harris"). Harris's Complaint alleged that he had taken the examination to become a realtor in Puerto Rico in October 1987; that the exam had been given in English; and that he had been notified in February 1988 that he had not passed the exam. Harris' Complaint further alleged that when he asked an employee at the Real Estate Examining Board when he could take the exam again, he was told that the exam would no longer be given in English, even though it had been given in both English and Spanish each of the prior seven years. Harris sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Puerto Rico law, alleging that the Defendants had (1) violated his right to take the exam in English, protected by P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 1 § 51,² and (2) violated his right to equal protection of the law, protected by the Fourteenth Amendment³ to the Constitution of the United States. He sought injunctive relief in the form of an order directing Defendants to give the realtor's exam in English, compensatory damages for mental anguish, and attorneys' fees.

On April 18, 1988, Harris filed an Amended Complaint joined by DiMarco.⁴ The Amended Complaint restated Harris' original allegations and further asserted that DiMarco had also taken the October examination and been informed that she had failed. The Amended Complaint also charged that DiMarco had requested and been denied reconsideration, leaving her with no ability to determine if the exam had been properly graded. Plaintiffs also asserted that the English version of the exam had been different from the Spanish version and that no person who had taken the English version had passed. Moreover, when DiMarco had gone to the Examining Board's offices, she had been told, "how do you think you are going to sell real estate in Puerto Rico if you don't speak Spanish?" When she asked why the exam would no longer be given in English, she was told that "we have to worry about our people eating rice and beans," clearly indicating that the Board was protecting jobs in Puerto Rico from usurpation by continental Americans. Plaintiffs' Amended Complaint again asserted a violation of P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 1, § 51 and their right to equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment; it included the new allegation that their right to due process, also protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, had been violated as well. Plaintiffs again sought injunctive and monetary relief.

On July 15, 1988, the Court heard the parties' arguments with respect to Plaintiffs' request for injunctive relief. On March 27, 1989, the Court issued a preliminary injunction and ordered Defendants to give the realtor's exam in both English and Spanish. At a status conference held in March, 1990, Defendants agreed to continue giving the exam in English, nullifying the need for a permanent injunction. On April 23, 1991, after several years of protracted legal wrangling, the Court found that Defendants had violated Plaintiffs' constitutional right to equal protection of the law by giving them different exams than the exams given to native, Spanish speaking Puerto Ricans applying for brokers licenses and by grading their exams incorrectly and unfairly. The Court analyzed Plaintiffs' exams and found that both had actually passed the exam. Indeed, although Defendants had initially given DiMarco a score of 64, the Court determined she had actually earned a score of 97. The Court, finding that Plaintiffs' rights had been violated, ordered Defendants to issue Plaintiffs the licenses they had been wrongly denied. Believing all issues had been resolved, the Court entered judgment. On July 1, 1991, the Court ordered Defendants to pay costs in the amount of $614.00.

When Defendants finally issued Plaintiffs' certificates, the certificates stated, on their face, that they had been issued pursuant to court order.⁵ On March 30, 1992, the Court ordered Defendants to rectify the situation by supplying Plaintiffs with licenses exactly like those issued to any other passing applicant. Defendants failed to comply, and on August 10, 1992 the Court found Defendants in contempt. Only then did Defendants comply by issuing the proper certificates — over four years after denying Plaintiffs' right to equal protection and over a year after the Court had entered judgment ordering Defendants to desist from discriminating against Plaintiffs and to issue their rightfully achieved certificates.

On February 8, 1993, DiMarco⁶ asked for a hearing on damages. The Court, under the impression that all of the issues had been resolved by the parties' mutual consent when the Court issued its injunction and entered judgment, held that Plaintiffs had waived any right to compensatory, monetary relief. DiMarco appealed, and the United States Court of Appeals held (1) that Defendant had the burden of proving that DiMarco had indeed waived any right to monetary relief and (2) that Defendants had not carried their burden. Harris v. Rivera Cruz, 20 F.3d 507, 511-12 (1st Cir.1994). On remand, the Court held a hearing to determine whether DiMarco had actually waived her right to further compensatory damages. On February 20, 1996, the Court held that DiMarco had not waived her right to damages and set a bench trial on damages. On September 18, 1997, the Court heard the parties' evidence and arguments regarding DiMarco's damages. The Court will now address Defendants' immunity defense and issue its findings of fact and conclusion of law on the issue of damages.

II. IMMUNITY

A. Eleventh Amendment Immunity

The Eleventh Amendment bars this Court from hearing claims for damages against the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. De Leon Lopez v. Corporacion Insular de Seguros, 931 F.2d 116, 121 (1st Cir.1991) ("the Eleventh Amendment, despite the absence of any express reference, pertains to Puerto Rico in the same manner, and to the same extent, as if Puerto Rico were a State"). Figueroa-Rodriguez v. Aquino, 863 F.2d 1037, 1044 (1st Cir.1988) (Puerto Rico has not waived Eleventh Amendment immunity to be sued for damages in federal court); Ursulich v. Puerto Rico National Guard, 384 F.Supp. 736, 737 (D.P.R.1974) (Puerto Rico has consented to be sued for damages only in the Courts of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico) Suits against state officials qua state officials are actually suits against the state. Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 71, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989). Therefore, Defendants in the case at bar cannot be held liable in their official capacities for monetary damages.

B. Qualified Immunity

"Qualified immunity shields government officials performing discretionary functions from civil liability for money damages when their conduct does not violate `clearly established' statutory authority or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Roldan-Plumey, 115 F.3d at 65 (quoting Nereida-Gonzalez v. Tirado-Delgado, 990 F.2d 701, 704 (1st Cir. 1993)); see also Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). Defendants assert that they are protected from liability by qualified immunity because the federal law they violated was not clearly established. But in reaching this conclusion, Defendants muddle the right at issue in this case — the right to equal protection of the law — with laws "regarding a state's prerogative in establishing an official language in which all state government transactions have to be conducted." It is in that misunderstanding of the right at issue that Defendants' qualified immunity argument fails.

The Amended Complaint alleged violations of (1) a Puerto Rico statute establishing English as one of its two official languages and (2) the federal constitutional guarantee that persons in the United States will be afforded equal protection of the law. Although Defendants purport to direct their attention toward the DiMarco's equal protection claim, they confuse it with her Puerto Rico law claim, asserting that no federal law clearly establishes that, "as a matter of equal protection law, or principles of due process of law, a state is barred from establishing Spanish or English for that matter as the official language in which all government business is to be conducted." Whether a state's prerogative to chose an official language is circumscribed by federal law, however, is of no moment to the case at bar. That is so because the Constitution of the United States expressly forbids state actors from discriminating against persons based on invidious classifications, and that is what Defendants in this case did. In other words, the constitutional violation committed by Defendants was not their failure to provide the real estate brokers test in English,⁷ but the disparate treatment given to Plaintiffs based on an impermissible classification — Plaintiffs' status as continental Americans.

The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits state action which favors or...