Opinion ID: 201133
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Policy-making Position Instruction

Text: 51 Defendants equate the term trust position (puesto de confianza) with policy-making position and use the term to signify a position for which political affiliation is an appropriate requirement. For purposes of this opinion, we refer to such a position as a policy-making position. A new government in power can replace employees in such positions without violating the First Amendment. See Branti, 445 U.S. at 517, 100 S.Ct. 1287. 52 One of the Bank's defenses was that two of the plaintiffs had been in such policy-making positions until the former administration changed those positions to career positions (puesto de carrera) in violation of local law. Defendants argued that because the change had been illegal, the two plaintiffs affected (Santiago and Boneta) should have been considered as holding only such policy-making positions, from which they could be removed without any First Amendment issue. 53 Defendants introduced evidence to this effect and requested a jury instruction that a First Amendment claim is not stated as to positions for which political affiliation is an appropriate requirement. The requested instruction was rejected, and defendants properly preserved their objection. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 51; Connelly v. Hyundai Motor Co., 351 F.3d 535, 544 (1st Cir. 2003). In rejecting the instruction as irrelevant, the district court said: 54 Those positions were career positions. Whether it was advisable or wise to convert them is a different story, but they were converted to career. 55 When you took the adverse employment action, they were career positions, and we have to start from that. 56 This reasoning was error in light of defendants' Mt. Healthy defense. The theory of defendants' case was that these formerly policy-making positions had been illegally converted into career positions, that the illegality of the conversions, in turn, meant that the positions remained only policy-making positions, and thus that no violation of the First Amendment had occurred. 57 We consider the question of prejudice in light of defendants' claims of cumulative error.