Opinion ID: 194852
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Individualized Defenses

Text: The defendants attempted to establish their individualized Mt. Healthy defenses at trial based largely on the con- temporaneous justifications relied on in Mayor Aponte's letters of dismissal. See supra p. 3. Under the Mt. Healthy burden- shifting mechanism, the employer's contemporaneous justifications for an adverse employment action serve at least two important functions. First, to the extent the reasons given by the employer at the time of the dismissal are later proven false or frivolous, the weight of the evidence of discriminatory animus may be enhanced, thereby contributing significantly to the threshold Mt. Healthy showing the plaintiff-employee must make in order to shift the ultimate burden of persuasion to the defendant-employ11 er. Second, once the burden of persuasion has shifted to the employer, the jury would be entitled to find for the plaintiffemployee were it to conclude that the employer did not offer sufficient evidence to demonstrate that (i) the proffered reason for the dismissal was genuine or (ii) a bona fide basis existed which would have prompted the dismissal without regard to the employee's political affiliation. We reserve these individualized defenses for consideration with plaintiffs' evidence. Leaving aside certain proffered justifications for employee dismissals in the First Amendment political discrimination context,5 only two individualized defenses remain for our 5Some of the proffered justifications for defendants' employment actions must be pared to accord with applicable law. Although evidence that an employee was hired in violation of Commonwealth law precludes a finding that the employee possessed a property interest in continued employment, and hence a cognizable due process claim, Kauffman, 841 F.2d at 1173, evidence that an employee's appointment was a nullity under Puerto Rico law ab initio does not control a claim alleging a violation of the employee's First Amendment right of political affiliation, see Hiraldo-Cancel, 925 F.2d at 13 ('We do not think that a new administration can use the nullity of appointments doctrine as a cover for discharges, transfers, and discrimination based solely on political affiliation') (quoting Santiago-Negron v. Castro-Davila, 865 F.2d 431, 436-37 (1st Cir. 1989)). Although defendants argue that the rationale of Santiago-Negron applies only if the new administration continues to hire new personnel in violation of the Personnel Act, Santiago-Negron rested on the ground that state law does not and cannot define First Amendment rights. Santiago-Negron, 865 F.2d at 436. We do not suggest, however, that evidence relating to the plaintiff-employee's qualifications under the applicable personnel regulations is immaterial. For example, an employee's lack of qualifications for the position, at the time of the dismissal, may well be considered a nondiscriminatory basis for the dismissal. The jury must determine whether such a lack of qualifications was a real or pretextual justification for the dismissal. On analogous reasoning, we discount two variations on the same defensive theme. First, the fact that some plaintiffs were appointed or promoted during the veda, the electoral prohibi12 consideration in the present case, based on the evidence relating to each appellant's claim: (1) whether the plaintiff was qualified for the position at the time of the dismissal, and (2), if so, whether the position was eliminated for nondiscriminatory reasons.