Opinion ID: 198824
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Politically-Motivated Terminations

Text: 28 The district court identified seven plaintiffs who had established a triable issue of fact as to whether they had been fired because of their political affiliation and then replaced by contract workers or less senior employees. These employees presented evidence that, although their positions were eliminated under the layoff plan, they were effectively replaced with newly hired PDP members who performed the same job functions (though typically under a different title). The court also requested additional evidence from other plaintiffs so that it could determine whether they had established a triable issue of fact on political motivation. In making these rulings, the court concluded that the law on politically-motivated terminations was clearly established. 29 Vera and Gonzalez concede that the law on politically-motivated terminations is clearly established. They argue, however, that they are guilty of nothing more than develop[ing] a layoff plan and evaluat[ing] the positions to be eliminated according to the objective criteria of seniority. In their brief, defendants list twenty-one uncontested facts [regarding the layoff process and procedures] that directly demonstrate that Mayor Vera and Ms. Gonzalez acted reasonably. They conclude that they acted with objective reasonableness, and they assert that [t]he district court erred, therefore, in looking at defendants' allegedly politically discriminatory motive . . . . [R]easonability from an objective point of view is the norm to apply in this case. 30 Defendants misunderstand the nature of the claim that they face in this case. For a subset of constitutional torts, motivation or intent is an element of the cause of action. In Tang v. State of Rhode Island, Department of Elderly Affairs, 120 F.3d 325, 325 (1st Cir. 1997), the plaintiff alleged that she had suffered racial discrimination and retaliation in her position as nutritionist for the state government. The district court found the majority of facts in dispute and deferred hearing the defendants' motion for qualified immunity until completion of the trial. Id. at 326. The defendants appealed. In concluding that we lacked jurisdiction because the appeal was based on a dispute over motive and other factual matters, we responded to the defendants' contention that subjective intent is irrelevant to qualified immunity: [T]he Harlow-Anderson objective test does not automatically resolve a qualified immunity defense in favor of the defendant in a case of alleged racial discrimination or retaliation . . . . a wholly objective test would wipe out many, if not most, of these claims. Id. at 327. 31 The reasoning in Tang applies to the claims of Vera and Gonzalez that the district court erred in considering evidence of their motivation. The plaintiffs allege that they were terminated because of their political affiliation, a constitutional claim that has no meaning absent the allegation of impermissible motivation. The district court recognized this fact, concluding that the Defendants' emphasis on the fact that their conduct was 'objectively reasonable' because they acted pursuant to Puerto Rico Law 81 in the Layoff Plan . . . is not sufficient to meet their burden under the relevant legal standard and to grant them qualified immunity. Acevedo-Garcia, 30 F. Supp. 2d at 149. That was so, the court continued, because Plaintiffs have proffered evidence of a triable issue of fact regarding a potentially discriminatory application of the Layoff Plan. Id. There was no error in this analysis. 32 Interestingly, we suggested in a footnote in Tang that the Supreme Court might clarify the relevance of motivation in considering a qualified immunity defense to a charge of retaliatory motive when it heard Crawford-El v. Britton, 118 S. Ct. 1584 (1998), a case then scheduled for argument, in which the defendant correction officer was charged with diverting the property of the plaintiff prisoner with an intent to retaliate against him for exercising his First Amendment rights. See id. at 1587. As noted by Chief Justice Rehnquist in his dissent in Crawford-El, that clarification did not occur. Instead, the Supreme Court confined its ruling to a disapproval of the requirement of the Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, that in claims of a constitutional tort requiring proof of the actor's unconstitutional motive, the plaintiff must present clear and convincing evidence of that motive. The Court did not address the second question presented in the petition on which the Court granted certiorari: 33 In a First Amendment retaliation case against a government official, is the official entitled to qualified immunity if she asserts a legitimate justification for her allegedly retaliatory act and that justification would have been a reasonable basis for the act, even if evidence - no matter how strong - shows the official's actual reason for the act was unconstitutional? 34 Given the lack of an answer to this question, Chief Justice Rehnquist concluded that [u]nder the Court's view, only a factfinder's ultimate determination of the motive with which he acted will resolve this case. Id. at 1602. 35 Chief Justice Rehnquist's assessment of the law after Crawford-El confirms the rightness of the district court's consideration of motivation in rejecting the qualified immunity defense of the defendants. Because we reject the defendants' legal argument that the district court erred in considering motivation, we are left with a denial of summary judgment based on their motivation. In Stella v. Kelley, we held that we lack the power to inquire into . . . the fact-based question of what the evidence does (or does not) show concerning whether the selectmen's actions violated the asserted right -- a question that depends, in this case, on the selectmen's motives . . . . 63 F.3d 71, 75 (1st Cir. 1995). The evidence relating to the defendants' motivation in terminating plaintiffs is a factual matter and thus cannot form the basis of an appeal from the denial of summary judgment. See Guilloty-Perez v. Fuentes-Agostini, 196 F.3d 293, 294 (1st Cir. 1999). 36