445 F.

3d 50

Antonio APONTE-TORRES et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants,

v.
UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO et al., Defendants,
Appellees.
No. 05-1534.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard March 6, 2006.
Decided April 14, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED COPYRIGHT MATERIAL

OMITTED Juan P. Rivera-Romn, for appellants.
Roberto Ariel Fernndez, with whom Jos Luis Gonzlez-Castaer and
Gonzlez Castaer & Morales Cordero were on brief, for appellees.
Before BOUDIN, Chief Judge, TORRUELLA and SELYA, Circuit
Judges.
SELYA, Circuit Judge.

In this case, several employees of the University of Puerto Rico (U.P.R.)

complain that their employer maintained "suspicious" files about their activities
and used those files to inform employment decisions. The district court
dismissed their action. After careful review, we conclude, as did the court
below, that the plaintiffs' amended complaint fails to articulate a cognizable
federal claim. We also conclude that the district court did not err either in
denying the plaintiffs leave to file a second amended complaint or in staying
discovery for a brief interval pending its decision on the defendants' dispositive
motion. Consequently, we affirm.
I. THE FACTS ALLEGED

For reasons that shortly shall become apparent, we glean the relevant facts from
the plaintiffs' amended complaint.

The fourteen plaintiffs are full-time employees at U.P.R.'s Mayaguez campus.

Within the last decade, they all have worked in the Cooperative State Research
Education and Extension Service, which is connected with U.P.R.'s College of
Agricultural Science and, more particularly, its Agricultural Extension Service
Program (AESP). The defendants include U.P.R. and its president, the
Mayaguez campus and its chancellor, and the interim deans of both the College
of Agricultural Science and the AESP.1 The individual defendants are sued in
their official and personal capacities.

The plaintiffs allege in substance that the AESP has, for the last ten years,
gathered information about eighty to ninety employees without their consent
and "in a suspicious manner." The plaintiffs are part of that complement.
Though saved, the information is not part of the plaintiffs' official personnel
records.2 These "illegal files" have the ostensible purpose "of identifying and/or
classifying plaintiffs based on their membership in" some unidentified
"professional association[s]" and/or the plaintiffs' "expressions against the
[d]efendants" (not otherwise described). The files supposedly "contain[]
information about alleged complaints against [p]laintiffs" and have been "used
to deny hiring [and] promotions," as well as to shape employment termination
decisions.
II. TRAVEL OF THE CASE

The plaintiffs filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of
Puerto Rico on December 16, 2002. The following April, the court held a status
conference, arranged for the plaintiffs to inspect the "suspicious" files, and
directed them to inform the court by the end of May whether they wished to
continue prosecuting the case. On June 11, the plaintiffs stated that they had
reviewed the files and wished to go forward. They proceeded to file an
amended complaint.

The amended complaint supplemented the original complaint by confirming

that the plaintiffs had accessed the files and adding some general allegations
about their contents and use. Significantly, the amended complaint offered no
specifics; for example, it neither limned any identified employment action nor
related the files to the plaintiffs in any particularized way. After the defendants
seasonably answered the amended complaint, the district court approved a
discovery plan.

On July 9, 2004 nine months after the filing of the amended complaint
the defendants moved to dismiss for, inter alia, failure to state an actionable

claim. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). Approximately one month later, they served
the plaintiffs with hard copies of the disputed files. Then, on August 25, the
defendants filed a motion to stay discovery. The plaintiffs opposed the motion
to dismiss and sought leave to file a second amended complaint. Shortly
thereafter, they filed an opposition to the requested stay of discovery.
8

On December 1, 2004, the district court stayed discovery pending a ruling on

the motion to dismiss. It granted that motion on February 14, 2005. Treating the
motion to dismiss as a motion for judgment on the pleadings, see Fed.R.Civ.P.
12(c) apparently because the defendants already had answered the amended
complaint the court held that the plaintiffs had failed to state an actionable
federal claim. The court simultaneously denied the plaintiffs' request to file a
second amended complaint, reasoning that they had been "afforded discovery
precisely to supplement their allegations and [had] failed to adequately do so";
thus, the court found "no reason [to] expend scarce judicial resources" in a
situation in which the plaintiffs had "already twice failed to state a claim." This
timely appeal followed.
III. ANALYSIS

In this venue, the plaintiffs challenge the dismissal of the amended complaint,
the refusal to allow a second amended complaint, and the stay of discovery. We
address these points sequentially.

A. Dismissal of the Action.

10

Because the defendants previously had answered the amended complaint, the
district court appropriately treated their motion to dismiss as one for judgment
on the pleadings. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c). This conversion does not affect our
analysis inasmuch as the two motions are ordinarily accorded much the same
treatment. See Collier v. City of Chicopee, 158 F.3d 601, 602 (1st Cir.1998);
Lanigan v. Vill. of E. Hazel Crest, 110 F.3d 467, 470 n. 2 (7th Cir.1997). We
view the facts contained in the pleadings in the light most flattering to the
nonmovants (here, the plaintiffs) and draw all reasonable inferences therefrom
in their favor. Rivera-Gomez v. de Castro, 843 F.2d 631, 635 (1st Cir.1988).
Like Rule 12(b)(6), Rule 12(c) does not allow for any resolution of contested
facts; rather, a court may enter judgment on the pleadings only if the
uncontested and properly considered facts conclusively establish the movant's
entitlement to a favorable judgment. Rivera-Gomez, 843 F.2d at 635.

11

There is, of course, a modest difference between Rule 12(c) and Rule 12(b)(6)

motions. A Rule 12(c) motion, unlike a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, implicates the
pleadings as a whole. See 5C Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal
Practice and Procedure 1368 (3d ed.2004). Here, however, the parties agree
that the source of the pertinent facts is the plaintiffs' amended complaint. We
turn, then, to that document, affording the district court's assessment of it de
novo review. See Gulf Coast Bank & Trust Co. v. Reder, 355 F.3d 35, 37 (1st
Cir.2004).
12

There is no heightened pleading standard in civil rights cases. Educadores

Puertorriqueos en Accin v. Hernndez, 367 F.3d 61, 66-67 (1st Cir.2004).
Consequently, we ask whether the amended complaint satisfies the basic notice
pleading requirements of the Civil Rules. See Centro Medico del Turabo, Inc. v.
Feliciano de Melecio, 406 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 2005). To meet those
requirements, a complaint must contain "a short and plain statement of the
claim showing that the pleader[s are] entitled to relief," Fed. R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2),
and must "give the defendant[s] fair notice of what the plaintiff[s'] claim is and
the grounds upon which it rests," Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct.
99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). For this purpose, we may draw upon documents
annexed to the amended complaint or incorporated into it, as well as matters
subject to judicial notice. Centro Medico, 406 F.3d at 5. We ought not,
however, credit "bald assertions, unsupportable conclusions, periphrastic
circumlocutions, and the like." Aulson v. Blanchard, 83 F.3d 1, 3 (1st
Cir.1996).

13

In this instance, the plaintiffs shape their central cause of action around 42
U.S.C. 1983. To state a viable section 1983 claim, a plaintiff first must
identify "an act or omission undertaken under color of state law." Rogan v. City
of Boston, 267 F.3d 24, 27 (1st Cir.2001). That precondition is easily satisfied
here: Puerto Rico is considered equivalent to a state for section 1983 purposes,
Redondo-Borges v. U.S. Dep't of Hous. & Urban Dev., 421 F.3d 1, 7 (1st
Cir.2005), and the amended complaint alleges actions attributed to U.P.R. and
its functionaries. Since the case law establishes that U.P.R. is an arm of the
Commonwealth, see Pinto v. Universidad De P.R., 895 F.2d 18, 18 (1st
Cir.1990), the amended complaint adequately alleges state action.

14

The next precondition presents more of an obstacle. A plaintiff seeking to

recover under section 1983 must allege what is colloquially known as
"constitutional injury," that is, he or she must identify a deprivation of some
federally secured right. Rogan, 267 F.3d at 27. In this case, the plaintiffs put
forward three theories of constitutional injury. As we shall see, the same factual
inadequacies plague them all.

15

1. The First Amendment Theory. Although not well elucidated in the amended
complaint, the plaintiffs' First Amendment theory, read charitably, focuses on
adverse employment actions that supposedly were taken in response to
protected associations or expressions (as documented in the "suspicious" files).
While it is beyond cavil "that a State may not discharge an employee on a basis
that infringes that employee's constitutionally protected interest in freedom of
speech," Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 383, 107 S.Ct. 2891, 97 L.Ed.2d
315 (1987), the amended complaint does not sufficiently allege any such action
here.

16

To state an actionable claim of this kind, an employee's complaint would have

to give some concrete indication that the interdicted conduct was both
constitutionally protected and a substantial or motivating factor in the adverse
employment decision. See Bd. of County Comm'rs v. Umbehr, 518 U.S. 668,
675, 116 S.Ct. 2342, 135 L.Ed.2d 843 (1996). The amended complaint fails to
meet either part of this binary requirement.

17

In the first place, the amended complaint wholly fails to identify the
associations or expressions about which the defendants gathered information.
This shortcoming is all the more glaring because the plaintiffs had courtordered access to the "suspicious" files prior to the framing of their amended
complaint. Despite this review, the plaintiffs have given us no factual basis
not even a skeletal one on which to determine whether the defendants
targeted any constitutionally protected expressive or associational conduct.

18

In the second place, the amended complaint utterly fails to identify any
particular adverse employment action(s). It is, therefore, impossible to
determine whether the defendants took any impermissible steps at all. The short
of it is that the amended complaint contains a manifestly insufficient factual
foundation to support a First Amendment claim.

19

2. The Due Process Theory. The plaintiffs' remaining two theories of

constitutional injury are grounded in the Fourteenth Amendment. Initially, the
plaintiffs argue that, by basing adverse employment actions on information
contained in the "suspicious" files, the defendants deprived them of due
process.

20

This theory is replete with problems. First, the amended complaint does not
indicate whether the due process claim is of a procedural or substantive stripe.
The plaintiffs' appellate brief is equally inscrutable on this point. There is
obviously no grounding in the amended complaint for a substantive due process

claim. Thus, following the district court's lead, we treat the claim as a
procedural one.
21

To establish a procedural due process violation, a plaintiff must identify a

protected liberty or property interest, Redondo-Borges, 421 F.3d at 7, and allege
"that the defendants, acting under color of state law, deprived [them] of that . . .
interest without constitutionally adequate process," PFZ Props., Inc. v.
Rodriguez, 928 F.2d 28, 30 (1st Cir.1991). Assuming, without deciding, that
the amended complaint identifies a protected property interest in employment,
it nonetheless fails adequately to allege a deprivation. This is so because, as we
already have emphasized, the amended complaint contains only general
allusions to adverse employment actions, without a glimmer of specificity
about particular actions taken against particular plaintiffs. That degree of
extreme generality renders the amended complaint susceptible to dismissal.
See, e.g., Educadores, 367 F.3d at 68.

22

Nor is this all. The amended complaint is devoid of any information about the
process afforded to the plaintiffs at the time any adverse actions were taken.
Without this rudimentary factual underpinning, no cognizable due process
claim can be culled from the meanderings of the amended complaint. See
Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 126, 110 S.Ct. 975, 108 L.Ed.2d 100 (1990)
(explaining that a court undertaking a section 1983 inquiry must "ask what
process the State provided, and whether it was constitutionally adequate").

23

3. The Equal Protection Theory. The plaintiffs' final theory which invokes
the Equal Protection Clause suffers a similar fate. In effect, the plaintiffs
claim that they were treated differently than other, similarly situated employees
because the AESP compiled "suspicious" files about them and used those files
in making employment decisions. The legal premise on which this claim rests
is impeccable: under the Equal Protection Clause, similarly situated persons are
entitled to receive similar treatment at the hands of government actors. See City
of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432, 439, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 87
L.Ed.2d 313 (1985). The amended complaint, however, lacks a factual
foundation adequate to bring this premise into play.

24

To plead a viable equal protection claim, a plaintiff must allege facts indicating
selective treatment "compared with others similarly situated . . . based on
impermissible considerations such as race, religion, intent to inhibit or punish
the exercise of constitutional rights, or malicious or bad faith intent to injure a
person." Barrington Cove Ltd. P'ship v. R.I. Hous. & Mortg. Fin. Corp., 246
F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir.2001) (emphasis omitted). The amended complaint fails to
satisfy this requirement.

25

Assuming for the sake of argument that the amended complaint sufficiently
pleads that other non-surveilled employees constitute a similarly situated group
and that is by no means clear it certainly fails adequately to allege the
other prerequisites of a valid equal protection claim. Without a more specific
account of the associations and expressions about which information
supposedly was gathered, no court conceivably could determine whether the
plaintiffs received differential treatment based on either their membership in a
sheltered class or their protected expressions. And even if the "suspicious" files
did classify the plaintiffs on prohibited bases, the utter absence of any specific
instances of discriminatory conduct sounds the death knell for this claim. Given
the paucity of hard facts in the amended complaint, there is simply no way to
ascertain whether intentional discrimination occurred or, if it did, whether there
was any link between that conduct and the allegedly unconstitutional
classification.

26

To sum up, notice pleading imposes minimal requirements on the pleader

but minimal requirements are not the same as no requirements at all. Gooley v.
Mobil Oil Corp., 851 F.2d 513, 514 (1st Cir.1988). The plaintiffs' pleading
must "at least set forth minimal facts as to who did what to whom, when, where,
and why." Educadores, 367 F.3d at 68. As to the federal civil rights claims, the
amended complaint fails to surpass even that relatively low bar.

27

4. The Regulatory Claim. The plaintiffs also advance an additional federal

cause of action in the form of a regulatory claim under 5 C.F.R. 293.302. That
sortie need not detain us for long.

28

The regulation requires that an "agency" maintain only one official personnel
folder for each employee. See 5 C.F.R. 293.302. For purposes of this rule, the
term "agency" is defined as "each executive department and independent
establishment of the Federal Government, each corporation wholly owned or
controlled by the United States, and with respect to positions subject to civil
service rules and regulations, the legislative and judicial branches of the
Federal Government." Id. 293.301.

29

That definition does not fit this case: U.P.R. is an instrumentality of the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, not a part of the federal government. It is,
therefore, not an agency within the ambit of the regulation. See id. By the same
token, the individual defendants, none of whom is alleged to be a federal civil
servant, are beyond the regulation's reach. See id. The regulation is, therefore,
inapposite.

B. Leave to Amend.

30

The plaintiffs also challenge the lower court's denial of their request for leave to
file a second amended complaint. This challenge lacks merit.

31

By way of background, it is important to note that the plaintiffs amended their

complaint once without incident. In the absence of consent, their subsequent
request to file a second amended complaint needed leave of court, which as a
general proposition will be "freely given when justice so requires."
Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a).

32

This does not mean, however, that a trial court must mindlessly grant every
request for leave to amend. When a proffered amendment comes too late,
would be an exercise in futility, or otherwise would serve no useful purpose,
the district court need not allow it. See Steir v. Girl Scouts, 383 F.3d 7, 12 (1st
Cir.2004); Correa-Martinez v. Arrillaga-Belendez, 903 F.2d 49, 59 (1st
Cir.1990); Quaker State Oil Ref. Corp. v. Garrity Oil Co., 884 F.2d 1510, 1517
(1st Cir.1989).

33

We review the denial of a motion to amend for abuse of discretion and will
defer to the district court's hands-on judgment so long as the record evinces an
adequate reason for the denial. Grant v. News Group Boston, Inc., 55 F.3d 1, 5
(1st Cir.1995). We find an adequate basis for the district court's order in this
case.

34

In their opposition to the defendants' dispositive motion, the plaintiffs made no

attempt to supplement their bare request for leave to amend, nor did they
preview what additional facts or legal claims might be included in a second
amended complaint (should one be allowed). The absence of supporting
information may, in and of itself, be a sufficient reason for the denial of leave
to amend. See Twohy v. First Nat'l Bank, 758 F.2d 1185, 1197 (7th Cir.1985)
(acknowledging "the normal procedure" for requesting leave to amend "is for
the proposed amendment or new pleading to be submitted with the . . .
motion"); see also 3 James Wm. Moore et al., Moore's Federal Practice 15.17
(3d ed.2005).

35

Here, the court had an even sounder reason to deny the plaintiffs' request. Over
a year earlier, it had arranged for access to the "suspicious" files and ordered
the plaintiffs to inspect them and decide whether they wished to move forward
with the case. The plaintiffs canvassed those files, presumably took note of
their contents, decided to stay on the offensive, and composed an amended
complaint. That pleading failed to state any viable federal cause of action. See
supra Part III(A). Having afforded the plaintiffs an ample opportunity to put

their best foot forward, the district court was not obliged to grant them yet
another opportunity to state a claim. Plaintiffs must exercise due diligence in
amending their complaints. As a corollary of that principle, busy trial courts, in
the responsible exercise of their case management functions, may refuse to
allow plaintiffs an endless number of trips to the well.
36

That ends this aspect of the matter. We conclude, without serious question, that
the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the plaintiffs' request
for leave to file a second amended complaint.

C. Stay of Discovery.
37

In a last-ditch effort to uncover error, the plaintiffs challenge the court-imposed

stay of discovery. This challenge is impuissant. The plaintiffs' attack focuses on
the sequence of events, noting that the defendants filed their dispositive motion,
then turned over the "suspicious" files, and within a matter of weeks thereafter
moved to stay discovery. This chronology, however, is incomplete and tells
only a part of the story.

38

For one thing, discovery in this case was not stayed until the defendants'
dispositive motion had been fully briefed by all parties and taken under
advisement by the district court. Thus, any matters disclosed by further
discovery would have been irrelevant to the district court's ruling on the
defendants' dispositive motion. Cf. Rodi v. S. New Eng. Sch. of Law, 389 F.3d 5,
12 (1st Cir.2004) (noting that, in "ruling on whether a plaintiff has stated an
actionable claim," the district court's consideration is limited to "the complaint,
documents annexed to it, and other materials fairly incorporated within it").

39

For another thing, before the staying of discovery, the plaintiffs had twice
examined the "suspicious" files-once prior to composing the amended
complaint and again before serving their opposition to the defendants'
dispositive motion. The discovery rules are not intended as a broad license to
mount serial fishing expeditions. Where, as here, a party has had an adequate
opportunity to conduct discovery, it is well within the district court's province,
at least in the absence of a showing of changed circumstances or particularized
need, to stay further discovery pending the determination of a dispositive
motion. See E. Food Servs., Inc. v. Pontifical Catholic Univ. Servs. Ass'n., 357
F.3d 1, 9 (1st Cir.2004); Corwin v. Marney, Orton Invs., 843 F.2d 194, 200 (5th
Cir.1988).

40

To say more on this point would be to paint the lily. Trial courts have broad

discretion in shaping the parameters of pretrial discovery, and an appellate

court should not interfere with the exercise of that discretion "unless it clearly
appears that a discovery order was plainly wrong and resulted in substantial
prejudice to the aggrieved party." Dynamic Image Techs., Inc. v. United States,
221 F.3d 34, 38 (1st Cir.2000) (quoting Mack v. Great Atl. & Pac. Tea Co., 871
F.2d 179, 186 (1st Cir.1989)) (internal quotation marks omitted). No such
extenuating circumstances are present here.
IV. CONCLUSION
41

We need go no further.3 For the reasons elucidated above, we reject the

plaintiffs' appeal in all its permutations. We add, however, that to the extent any
local-law claims may be deemed to have been pleaded in the amended
complaint, we understand them to have been dismissed without prejudice. See
Martinez v. Colon, 54 F.3d 980, 991 n. 12 (1st Cir.1995).

42

Affirmed.

Notes:
1

Ironically, Jos R. Diaz-Alamo, an original defendant in this case, is not a party

to this appeal. Although Diaz-Alamo appears to have spearheaded the conduct
complained of, the district court granted his motion to dismiss for insufficient
service of process on July 6, 2004See Fed.R.Civ.P. 4(m). The plaintiffs have
not challenged that order.

The original complaint averred that, despite at least two requests, the plaintiffs
had been refused access to the "suspicious" files prior to instituting suit

Like the district court, we have no occasion to reach the immunity issues raised
in the defendants' dispositive motionCf. Quintero de Quintero v. Aponte-Roque,
974 F.2d 226, 230 (1st Cir. 1992) ("Courts are without jurisdiction to address
academic questions.").