Opinion ID: 148836
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The plaintiffs' evidence of political discrimination

Text: The plaintiffs presented ample evidence permitting a reasonable jury to conclude that their dismissals were the result of discrimination. The jury heard testimony at trial from the plaintiffs describing the anti-NPP environment at the DNER after the elections. As one cadet put it, after the new administration was elected in November 2000, officers in the Ranger corps discussed how they were going to throw us out because we came in under the administration of the New Progressive Party. Another cadet explained that a senior officer told him in the presence of other agents that having them won, that we were going to leave. We had a short time there. The jury also heard testimony that this hostility towards the NPP cadets permeated the PDP government to the extent that the leadership of the DNER was being pressured to fire the cadets well before Salas-Quintana took charge and made the decision to dismiss them. Lugo-González, a legal advisor to Secretary Padín during the transition from the NPP administration to the PDP in early 2001, testified that one of the issues of major concern to the transition committee was the training academy for the Ranger cadets. Secretary Padín had told him that the Academy was not being continued because those people had been selected under the administration of the New Progressive Party, and that is the only reason. Because judicially and administrat[ively], the [c]adets were qualified. [4] Lugo-González testified that it was clear from a meeting at the Governor's office he attended that the leadership of the PDP wanted the cadets to be laid off. When he communicated this desire to Padín, Padín refused to lay off the cadets because the only reason that they don't want to renew the Academy is because they had been appointed under the New Progressive Party Administration. [5] The plaintiffs introduced further testimony that both Salas-Quintana and Cabezudo were fully cognizant of the cadets' political affiliations. Lugo-González recounted a conversation he had with Salas-Quintana in late October 2001 in which Salas-Quintana referred specifically to the cadets' political affiliations, announcing, I am going to lay all those republicanos off. Lugo-González testified that Salas-Quintana told him, now that I'm going to be the Secretary, it is my responsibility, my obligation, my determination, I am the one that is going to go ahead and lay [the cadets] off. One plaintiff testified that Cabezudo, the Director of Human Resources, refused to give him a copy of his personnel file after his termination, telling him that the department is now under a new administration, under a new power, and that he should have made the request of the other secretary who did belong to [his] party. [6] Cabezudo also admitted that she conducted a review of the cadets' files which, unlike the review conducted under Secretary Padín, concluded that they were not qualified because they had gone to the wrong testing center for psychological testing. She also oversaw the preparation of the letters informing the plaintiffs that they had been fired. [7] In short, based on the totality of the evidence describing the events leading up to the plaintiffs' firing, including the actions and statements of Salas-Quintana and Cabezudo themselves, it was reasonable for the jury to conclude that the defendants shared the prevailing sentiment among PDP officials that the cadets should be fired because of their alliance with the NPP, and acted accordingly. [8]