Opinion ID: 148836
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Due Process and Qualified Immunity

Text: The defendants argue that no reasonable jury could have found that the plaintiffs' due process rights had been violated because they did not have an entitlement to retain their positions as cadets. Without such an entitlement, the plaintiffs would not have a valid claim under the due process clause, which only protects government employees who have a property interest in continued employment. Costa-Urena v. Segarra, 590 F.3d 18, 26 (1st Cir.2009). We need not reach the merits of this property interest argument because the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity from suit on the due process claim. [9] Qualified immunity protects government officials from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Pearson v. Callahan, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 808, 815, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009) (quotation marks and citation omitted). The qualified immunity analysis has two parts. A court must decide whether the facts shown by the plaintiff make out a violation of a constitutional right and whether the right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation by the defendant. Id. at 815-16; Maldonado v. Fontanes, 568 F.3d 263, 269 (1st Cir.2009). [10] Supreme Court doctrine had required that we begin our qualified immunity analysis by determining whether the plaintiff has shown a constitutional violation. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001) (holding that a court considering qualified immunity must decide, as a threshold question, whether the facts alleged show the violation of a constitutional right). Recently, however, the Court relaxed that requirement, allowing us to bypass the initial step in certain circumstances. See Pearson, 129 S.Ct. at 818-19; Maldonado, 568 F.3d at 270. The Court agreed that the underlying principle of encouraging federal courts to decide unclear legal questions in order to clarify the law for the future `is not meaningfully advanced ... when the definition of constitutional rights depends on a federal court's uncertain assumptions about state law.' Pearson, 129 S.Ct. at 819 (quoting Egolf v. Witmer, 526 F.3d 104, 109-111 (3d Cir.2008)). This is a case in which any conclusions we might draw about the relevant Commonwealth law would be uncertain at best. Moreover, as we explain below, that very uncertainty is critical to our analysis of the clearly established prong of the qualified immunity doctrine. Property interests subject to due process protection are delineated by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law. Bd. of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). In order to create a property interest, that independent source must give the individual a legitimate claim of entitlement to some sort of benefit. Hatfield-Bermudez v. Aldanondo-Rivera, 496 F.3d 51, 59 (1st Cir.2007). Whether the plaintiffs had a clearly-established property interest in their employment as cadets is therefore a question of Puerto Rico law. See Costa-Urena, 590 F.3d at 27. The law is clearly established if courts have ruled that materially similar conduct was unconstitutional, or if there is a previously identified general constitutional principle that applies with obvious clarity to the specific conduct at issue. Jennings v. Jones, 499 F.3d 2, 16 (1st Cir.2007). In other words, a right is clearly established if a reasonable official is on clear notice that what he or she is doing was unconstitutional. Costa-Urena, 590 F.3d at 29. It was the plaintiffs' burden to demonstrate that the law was clearly established in early 2002, when the termination took place. See Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 197, 104 S.Ct. 3012, 82 L.Ed.2d 139 (1984); Horta v. Sullivan, 4 F.3d 2, 13 (1st Cir.1993). As we have had occasion to observe in the past, translated Puerto Rico law is both sparse and contradictory on the question of the property interest in continued employment of transitory government employees. Hatfield-Bermudez, 496 F.3d at 60 (noting that it is not entirely clear what the Puerto Rico Supreme Court's current position is on whether a non-career government employee has a legitimate expectation of permanent employment). The plaintiffs cite two cases on point available to us in English translation. The plaintiffs do not cite or provide any additional cases on the question, nor has our independent research revealed any additional translated cases. In the earlier of the two available opinions, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court indicated that there may be certain circumstances in which a transitory employee could have a legitimate expectancy of contract renewal. Id. at 60 (emphasis in original)(citing Lupiánez de González v. Cruz, 5 P.R. Offic. Trans. 966, 1977 WL 50866 (1977) (finding that a non-career employee who had been told that a permanent position was being created for her had a right to due process before being terminated)). In the latter of the cases, however, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court held that a transitory employee has a job retention expectancy only during the term of the appointment. Departamento de Recursos Naturales v. Correa, 18 P.R. Offic. Trans. 795, 804, 1987 WL 448329 (1987). The Court stated that [a] person who has a transitory appointment, knowing that it expires at the end of the period for which it is given, cannot validly claim that he had a real expectancy that this type of appointment would offer him a permanent job status or the right to have the same constantly renewed. Id. at 806, 1987 WL 448329. In the face of two cases that seem to give opposing answers to the question whether a transitory government employee has an entitlement to his or her continued employment, the plaintiffs do not explain how the law clearly established that conduct materially similar to that of the defendants in this case was unconstitutional at the time the plaintiffs were fired. [11] The plaintiffs were hired under bylaws that required that they receive training, and the successful completion of that training would result in their becoming non-transitory employees. [12] However, they were also indisputably transitory employees whose term had expired when they were discharged. Thus, their circumstances could be analogized either to Lupiáñez or Correa. We are unable to say that one case or the other clearly governs. Qualified immunity, therefore, shielded the defendants from the due process claims of the plaintiffs. [13]