Elba Estrada-Adorno v. Jose R. Gonzalez, Etc., 861 F.2d 304, 1st Cir. (1988)

861 F.
2d 304
3 Indiv.Empl.Rts.Cas. 1620
Elba ESTRADA-ADORNO, Plaintiff, Appellee,

v.
Jose R. GONZALEZ, etc., et al., Defendants, Appellants.
No. 88-1282.
United States Court of Appeals,

First Circuit.
Heard Sept. 15, 1988.
Decided Nov. 10, 1988.
Manuel Alvarado with whom Elba Rosa Rodriguez, Saldana, Rey, Moran
& Alvarado, Santurce, P.R., Hon. Hector Rivera-Cruz, Secretary of
Justice, and Rafael Ortiz-Carrion, Sol. Gen., San Juan, P.R., were on brief
for defendants, appellants.
Kenneth B. La Quay Rebollo, Rio Piedras, P.R., for plaintiff, appellee.
Before BOWNES and BREYER, Circuit Judges, and ATKINS, * Senior
District Judge.
BREYER, Circuit Judge.
This appeal, in a "political discharge" case, presents an unusual variation on a

familiar theme. See, e.g., Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86
L.Ed.2d 411 (1985); Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d
574 (1980); Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547
(1976); Juarbe-Angueira v. Arias, 831 F.2d 11 (1st Cir.1987); Jimenez-Fuentes
v. Torres Gaztambide, 807 F.2d 230 (1st Cir.1986); De Abadia v. IzquierdoMora, 792 F.2d 1187 (1st Cir.1986). Like the plaintiffs in many earlier cases,
the plaintiff here, Elba Estrada Adorno, claims that the defendants dismissed
her from her job as Personnel Director of the Government Development Bank
of Puerto Rico ("Development Bank") for "political" reasons. But, unlike
earlier cases, Estrada and the defendants all belong to the same political party.
The plaintiff claims that the defendants dismissed her, not because of her party
affiliation, but because she refused to go along with their plan to base the hiring
of others upon political party affiliation. She adds that, after dismissing her as
Personnel Director, they compounded their error by failing to arrange another
career job for her elsewhere in the civil service. Plaintiff argues that her
dismissal violates the federal Constitution, see Elrod, 427 U.S. at 372-73, 96
S.Ct. at 2689-90 (threat of dismissal for failure to support favored political
party infringes on protected belief and association, and violates first and
fourteenth amendments); Branti, 445 U.S. at 517, 100 S.Ct. at 1294 (discharge
due to political affiliation violates first and fourteenth amendments), 42 U.S.C.
Sec. 1983 (1982); and that it also violates Commonwealth statutes governing
the Development Bank, see 7 L.P.R.A. Sec. 551 et seq. (1981). She seeks both
reinstatement and damages.
2
The defendants asked the district court to grant them summary judgment as to
damages on Estrada's federal claims, on the ground that they enjoy "qualified
immunity." They argued that, even if the facts were as plaintiff alleged, at the
time she was dismissed the law did not clearly forbid her dismissal. The district
court denied their motion, 678 F.Supp. 948, and defendants have taken an
interlocutory appeal. See Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 530, 105 S.Ct. at 2817 (denial of
a summary judgment motion based on qualified immunity is immediately
appealable, if it turns solely on issues of law); De Abadia, 792 F.2d at 1190
(qualified immunity issue appealable even if the case also involves claims for
injunctive relief, which are not subject to the qualified immunity defense). In
our view, defendants are correct; the law is not clear, and the district court
therefore should have found that they are immune from damages as to
plaintiff's federal claims based on her discharge and on defendants' failure to
find her a different job.
1. The key facts, as Estrada states them, are as follows: From March 1980 to
February 1985 she worked in a career civil service position in the Department
of Housing in Puerto Rico. In February 1985, soon after the Popular
Democratic Party won the gubernatorial election, Estrada, a member of that
party, was made personnel director of the Development Bank; this job was a
non-tenured confidential or trust position. Estrada says that during 1985 the
defendants pressured her to recommend and to accept job applicants as a form
of political patronage. She says that she opposed patronage hiring and that in
1986 the defendants dismissed her because of this opposition. Estrada also
claims that, when defendants dismissed her, they did not give her back her old
job in the Housing Department, nor did they find any other career position for
her. All this, she says, violates federal law, and, she adds, the violations were
sufficiently clear, in light of the law as of 1986, to entitle her to damages as well
as to injunctive relief.
2. In a case such as this one, where a plaintiff asserts that a government official
has subjected her to "the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities
secured by the Constitution and laws," 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, the official enjoys
a "qualified immunity" from liability for damages. He is immune unless, at the
time he took action, the right at issue was clearly established. Anderson v.
Creighton, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) (for an
official to be liable for damages, the unlawfulness of his conduct must be
apparent in light of preexisting law); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 81819, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738-39, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982) (state official is immune
from damages liability unless his action violates a right that was "clearly
established" at the time the action occurred, so that he "could be expected to
know that his conduct would violate statutory or constitutional rights."). Here,
we can find no clearly established federal right not to be dismissed for refusing
to use political affiliation as a criterion for hiring Bank employees.
For one thing, we have found no federal case holding that it violates the federal
Constitution to use political criteria for hiring state employees, even in
circumstances where it might violate the federal constitution to dismiss them
for political reasons. The only case we have found directly on point, a 1986
decision, describes the issue as one of first impression and holds that using
political factors in hiring does not violate the Constitution. Avery v. Jennings,
786 F.2d 233, 237 (6th Cir.1986) (weighing political factors in hiring does not
violate unsuccessful applicants' free speech rights). In a dissenting opinion,
Justice Marshall has expressed the view that the fourteenth amendment
requires that government employers act fairly and reasonably in hiring, Board
of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 588, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2714, 33 L.Ed.2d 548
(1972) (Marshall, J., dissenting), but a majority of the Court has not adopted
this view.
Appellant argues that, nonetheless, the use of political criteria to hire

Development Bank employees clearly violated Commonwealth law. She points
to Puerto Rico's Public Service Personnel Act, 3 L.P.R.A. Secs. 1301-1431
(1978), which says that even "agencies or instrumentalities," such as the
Development Bank, to which the provisions of the Act do not apply, "shall
adopt ... a personnel regulation embodying the merit principle." Sec. 1338. She
adds that the Act defines the "merit principle" as the "concept that all public
employees shall be selected ... on the basis of capability, without discrimination
on account of ... political ... ideas." Sec. 1411(7) (emphasis added). She also
notes that the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico has said that when an excluded
agency's own "regulations do not comply with the fundamental purpose of
guaranteeing strict application of the merit principle, ... the provisions of the
[Personnel] Act ... shall be applied." Torres Ponce v. Jimenez, 113 P.R.R. 58,
70-71; translation, 113 P.R.R. 79, 93 (1982). Since the Personnel Act's
definition of the merit principle includes hiring without reference to political
affiliation, Estrada concludes that, whether or not the Bank had a regulation
requiring nonpolitical hiring, Puerto Rico law clearly imposed such a
requirement on the Bank in 1986.
7
The problem with plaintiff's argument is that, even if she is correct about the
clarity of Puerto Rico's law, she still has not shown that defendants clearly
violated federal law when they dismissed her. It is by no means clear whether
or to what extent the federal Constitution forbids state officials from dismissing
employees who refuse to violate state law. It seems unlikely, for example, that
the Constitution would protect such employees in an ordinary case where the
state law in question has no particular connection with constitutionally protected
interests, such as free speech. How much protection the Constitution offers
when the state law in question does relate to constitutionally protected interests
appears unsettled. The plaintiff has not called to our attention any relevant
authority. And, the arguably relevant authority we have found suggests that the
federal Constitution does not provide protection, but in a context where no clear
violation of state law was involved. See Berry v. Bailey, 726 F.2d 670, 675-76
(11th Cir.1984) (deputy sheriff, allegedly fired for refusing to obey sheriff's
order to drop charges against politically influential arrestees, not protected by
first amendment).
Since, under plaintiff's version of the circumstances, we cannot say her

dismissal was clearly unlawful under federal law, the defendants are entitled to
qualified immunity as to plaintiff's federal claim for damages. See Anderson,
107 S.Ct. at 3039; Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818-19, 102 S.Ct. at 2738-39.
3. Estrada also seeks damages in respect to a second federal claim. She says
that the defendants violated Puerto Rico law, in that, after removing her from
her position as personnel director, they did not find her another civil service job.
She points to the Personnel Act provision which says,
10
Every
regular employee in a career position who is appointed to a confidential
position shall be entitled to be reinstated in a position equal or similar to the last one
he held in the career service.
11
3 L.P.R.A. Sec. 1350 (Supp.1987). Before she obtained her job in the
Development Bank, she held a career position in the Department of Housing.
Since her Development Bank job was a confidential position, she concludes
that the Personnel Act entitles her to reinstatement to her career position at the
Housing department, or a similar position.
12
Again, since we are reviewing the district court's decision denying defendants'
assertion of qualified immunity, we need not determine the legal validity of the
plaintiff's argument. We need only decide if defendants' refusal to reinstate her
violated federal rights that were "clearly established" in 1986. Harlow, 457 U.S.
at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738. In our view, the law was not then, nor is it now,
clearly on the plaintiff's side. For one thing, as we previously noted, at p. 306,
supra, the Personnel Act does not apply to the Development Bank. 3 L.P.R.A.
Sec. 1338. The Act requires only that the Development Bank follow the "merit
principle." Id. That principle, as defined in Sec. 1411(7), does not in any clear
or obvious way encompass the notion that a former career employee has a right
to reinstatement in a career position. We have no reason to think that detailed
provisions of the Personnel Act, such as the reinstatement provision we have
just quoted, apply to agencies like the Development Bank that the Act
specifically excludes from its coverage.
13
Regardless, for the reasons discussed at p. 306, supra, it is not clear that
defendants' failure to reinstate Estrada, even were reinstatement required under
Puerto Rico law, would violate federal law. Plaintiff's lawsuit rests on a claim
that her dismissal was due to "political" factors that the federal Constitution
forbids the defendants to take into account. See Mitchell, supra; Branti, supra;
Elrod, supra. For the reasons discussed at pp. 306, supra, we have found it
unclear whether the federal Constitution forbids the defendants from dismissing
a Commonwealth employee because she refuses to use political criteria in
hiring. It must, therefore, also be unclear whether the federal Constitution
forbids the defendants from refusing to reinstate Estrada for those same
reasons.
14
Again, because the state of federal law was unclear when plaintiff was
dismissed in 1986, defendants are entitled to qualified immunity.
15
4. Though defendants' brief raises several other issues, none of them directly
turns on the issue of qualified immunity, the only question they may raise on
this interlocutory appeal. Bonitz v. Fair, 804 F.2d 164, 173-74 (1st Cir.1986) (a
defendant does not have a general right to appeal an adverse ruling on summary
judgment by raising a qualified immunity defense; any other issue the
defendant seeks to raise on appeal must independently qualify as a final,
appealable order); see also Lugo v. Alvarado, 819 F.2d 5, 8 (1st Cir.1987)
(interlocutory review of a discovery order is not permissible just because
defendant had raised a qualified immunity defense). Defendant Doble, for
example, argues that plaintiff has no reason to sue him, for he did not cause her
dismissal and he is not an appropriate subject for injunctive relief. He says he
never held a position in the Bank with authority to hire and fire any employee,
including plaintiff; he only recommended that the Bank president fire her.
Doble is, of course, entitled to qualified immunity for the reasons we have set
forth above. Whether or not he is a proper subject for injunctive relief,
however, is a question he must present to the district court. If the district court
decides against him, he must raise the issue in the course of an ordinary appeal
from a final judgment, as required by 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291 (1982).
16
The determination of the district court denying qualified immunity is
17
REVERSED.
Of the Southern District of Florida, sitting by designation

Elba Estrada-Adorno v. Jose R. Gonzalez, Etc., 861 F.2d 304, 1st Cir. (1988)

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861 F.

Elba ESTRADA-ADORNO, Plaintiff, Appellee,

United States Court of Appeals,

This appeal, in a "political discharge" case, presents an unusual variation on a

Appellant argues that, nonetheless, the use of political criteria to hire

Since, under plaintiff's version of the circumstances, we cannot say her

The determination of the district court denying qualified immunity is

Of the Southern District of Florida, sitting by designation

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