Opinion ID: 1454041
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Political Discrimination and Tort Claims: The Evidence at Trial

Text: The discrimination and tort claims were tried before a jury. We recount the key testimony. Hatfield's night school operated under the auspices of the Puerto Rico Department of Education (PRDE), and Hatfield had a long career working for this agency. With the exception of a four-year stint working in the Caguas regional office, Hatfield's day job since 1980 had been to work as the principal of two different public schools in Cayey, Puerto Rico. In 1993, Hatfield took on an additional post as a school director in a night school for adults. For several years she directed the night program at the Benigno Fernandez Garcia school. Enrollment surged, and that program was transferred to the larger Miguel Melendez Muñoz school. Hatfield continued as director, with her contract being renewed each year through the 2000-2001 school year. Hatfield is a member of the New Progressive Party (NPP). From 1993 until early 2001, the NPP controlled Puerto Rico's governorship. After the 2000 elections, the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) took power. The new administration quickly appointed new individuals to trust positions within the PRDE, including defendant Aldanondo, who was named the Director of Puerto Rico's Adult Education Program (AEP). Hatfield's night school operated within the AEP. AEPs are partially funded with federal grant money. See 34 C.F.R. § 461.1. In Puerto Rico, the PRDE administers the AEP and decides which projects should be funded, but it must also comply with various procedural regulations issued by the federal government. As a result, the PRDE annually requires night school directors to fill out detailed funding proposals in order for their particular programs to continue in operation. The proposals must discuss the program, the needs of its students, the progress the program had made, the objectives for the coming year, and a number of other subjects. These proposals for continuing programs, along with any proposals for new programs, are then submitted to the PRDE for approval. See id. §§ 461.30-33 (discussing the procedures that states must use for selecting the recipients of AEP funds). In the spring of 2001, the new PDP administration initiated the proposal process for the coming 2001-2002 school year. Orientations were held in April to advise interested persons on how to prepare proposals. Hatfield attended one of these orientations. At that session, a director asked whether the process for selecting school directors would be the same as it had been in previous years. Hatfield testified that Aldanondo answered the question by saying: As you well know, there has been a change in administration. I recommend to you that you go by the regional office, to your regional director, . . . you go and stroke them. This last comment, to go and stroke them, was an in-court translation of the Spanish phrase pasarle la mano  a phrase that Aldanondo emphatically disputed using when he later testified. Hatfield testified that there was a big commotion immediately after Aldanondo made these comments. School directors got up, started speaking out loud, and practically that was the end of the meeting. Hatfield prepared a proposal for the 2001-2002 school year. The cover of the proposal lists Hatfield as the Provider of the proposal, and it lists the School or Institution as the Miguel Melendez Muñoz High School. Another school director, Victor Ayala, submitted a proposal for the nearby Augustin Fernandez Colon School. Both proposals were approved, and these approvals were forwarded to the relevant regional office. These were the only two proposals submitted within the Cayey school district. After the proposals had been approved, the PRDE began the process of hiring staff for the schools, including directors. Hatfield testified that in prior years, school directors would go for an interview, at the end of which each would be asked if he or she wished to continue directing. If the director answered yes, and that director's proposal had been approved, the director would be given the position. If the director said no, then the regional office would consider other candidates for that position. Hatfield's description of the old hiring process was reinforced by another witness. This process changed in 2001. After a proposal was approved, the director was nevertheless required to compete for the school for which he had prepared the proposal. Hatfield's experience confirmed that the policy change was put into effect in the Caguas region, which encompassed Cayey. Within that region, the hiring process after June 2001 was headed by the PRDE's Regional Director, defendant Berríos. Berríos is a member of the PDP, and the hiring for the 2001-2002 school year was the first hiring cycle in which she participated. She testified that she had looked for documents explaining how the hiring process had previously operated in the region, and that the only useful document she found was a 1996 PRDE circular letter. This letter explained that regional directors had to prepare a list of interested and qualified candidates, from which the selection was to be made by a three-person committee. That committee was to consider the academic background, experience, participation in training[,] and disposition of the candidate. Because this letter provided only limited guidance, Berríos met with her operations manager, Ramona Nieves, to design procedures for interviewing and selection. Nieves is the wife of the Mayor of Comerío and a PDP activist. Berríos and Nieves devised a point system to rank candidates, with a maximum of 90 available points. Some 30 points would be based on a candidate's academic qualifications, experience within the PRDE generally, and experience teaching adults. The remaining 60 points would be based on how the committee evaluated the candidate's response to one written and one oral question, with 30 points allocated to each question. The two questions were open-ended and did not have clearly correct answers. After the interviewing committee assigned points to each candidate, it would rank the candidates by point totals. Berríos would then go down the list, in order, offering director positions. Berríos was not part of the committee conducting the interviews. The three members were Avelina Rivera, Rogelio Campos, and Margarita Gonzalez. Rivera represented the central office and was placed on the committee by Aldanondo. Campos had been selected for the committee by the prior Regional Director before that director left her position. Gonzalez was placed on the committee by Berríos. Hatfield was interviewed by the committee, and she gave her answers to the oral and written questions. Rivera then asked a few questions about Hatfield's academic background. At the end of the interview, Hatfield said to Rivera: [R]emember, I'm interested in continuing working. Rivera responded that she was aware of this. At no point in the interview did anyone discuss Hatfield's proposal for the Miguel Melendez Muñoz school. This was not an oversight. Indeed, Berríos testified that she understood the proposal process to be completely separate from the process for hiring directors. The hiring process she and Nieves designed did not directly account for the fact that a director had previously prepared a proposal for, or had worked at, a given school. The unsurprising result was that the Caguas region saw significant turnover in the identity of its directors. Of the roughly 12-16 night schools in the Caguas region, only a single school had the same director in 2001-2002 as in the prior year. Hatfield was one of the many directors not reappointed. After the interviews had finished, and all the points had been assigned and tallied, Hatfield had 70 points. This left her ranked third among all candidates who had applied for positions in Cayey. (As had been done in previous years, candidates formally applied to work in a school district, not at an individual school). Ranked above Hatfield were Luis Enchauste, who received 78 points, and Maria Roldán, who received 71 points. Ranked below Hatfield were Miriam Cartagena and Ayala, the incumbent director of the Augustin Fernandez Colon school. Testimony linked Enchauste with an affiliation with the PDP; there was no admissible evidence regarding the political affiliations of Roldán, Ayala, or Cartagena. [1] Hatfield scored quite well with regard to the 30 points allocated to experience and background, although she received one less point than Enchauste received in this category. Hatfield scored somewhat lower than Enchauste and Roldán with regard to the 60 points allocated to the written and oral questions. As Enchauste had the highest total score, Berríos met with him first to offer him his choice of positions in Cayey. He did not accept either of the positions. The second person on the list was Roldán, who accepted a position directing the school Hatfield had previously directed, the Miguel Melendez Muñoz school. Hatfield was the third person on the list, and Berríos offered her the directorship of the remaining school, the Augustin Fernandez Colon school. [2] Hatfield refused, explaining that she had not drafted the proposal for that school, and that because of her honesty and work quality she was unwilling to supplant Ayala, the previous director. [3] Berríos then offered Hatfield the opportunity to direct a school in a different school district, but Hatfield declined that offer as well.