Opinion ID: 202046
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Political Discrimination and the Career Plaintiffs

Text: 56 The defendants argue that no reasonable juror could have found political discrimination on these facts. They point to the testimony of Román and Norat that the sanitation division was privatized because of public health and quality-of-service concerns, and that political affiliation played no role in their decisions. This, they argue, constitutes (1) evidence showing lack of discriminatory animus, (2) evidence of a non-discriminatory reason for the privatization, and (3) evidence sufficient to show, under Mt. Healthy, that political discrimination was not the but-for cause of the decision to eliminate career plaintiffs' jobs. 57 Defendants make two additional arguments. First, they point to the testimony that a system was in place to ensure that the fired employees were rehired, either by ARB or by the Municipality; they suggest this compels a conclusion that no discrimination was intended. Second, they argue that the municipal ordinance authorizing privatization, and Román's testimony that he followed the advice of his human resources director and an attorney in devising the privatization process, show that both the decision to privatize, and the decision to privatize in a way that cost the career plaintiffs their jobs, were free of discriminatory intent. 58 In our view, the case does not turn on the legitimacy of a decision by a Municipality to privatize its sanitation division. To be sure, the evidence presented some reasons to doubt such legitimacy: the Mayor had expressed a desire to rid the Department of Public Works of NPP members, and to fill the jobs with PDP members, and he could not do so within the current structure, given that the sanitation workers were protected as career employees under Puerto Rico law. Further, there is some evidence that the new regime deliberately made matters worse in order to provoke a sanitation crisis which would justify a decision to privatize. Still, this might well be too fragile an underpinning to justify federal intervention in a decision to privatize.
59 The verdict against Mayor Román, however, is easily supported by the manner in which his administration implemented the decision to privatize. A jury could readily conclude that the Román administration implemented privatization in a manner designed to discriminate. The administration did so, or so a jury could find, in violation of multiple separate requirements of local law: (1) two provisions of the municipal privatization ordinance, (2) the previously adopted Layoff Plan, and (3) the procedural rights of career employees. The municipal ordinance did not authorize Román to terminate the career plaintiffs' employment. Instead, it required that the private sanitation firm consider the municipal sanitation workers for jobs, and that sanitation workers who did not take jobs with the private firm be  retained in their positions or . . . relocated to other dependencies of the municipality.  The ordinance also stated that the Municipality agreed to protect and guarantee the vested rights of the career plaintiffs. The privatization system Román and Norat actually implemented did neither of these things. As to the 1997 Layoff Plan, González testified that it applied to privatizations and that she advised the Mayor to follow the law, and Mayor Román himself conceded that if the Layoff Plan applied, transitory workers had to be laid off before any career employee. The jury could easily conclude that political motivation was a substantial reason and, indeed, the but-for reason for the decisions not to follow these laws. 60 In addition, there were explicit statements by Mayor Román of an intent to discriminate. González testified that the Mayor said that with this privatization process, they were going to be able to get rid of employees that were not belonging to the political party of the people in power. She also testified that Román said the Layoff Plan was ignored because it would have been an obstacle to firing NPP workers. Others testified that the Mayor went so far as to instruct ARB officials not to offer the fired workers jobs in San Lorenzo. 61 Further, the Mayor took the stand, and on important questions where his testimony was flatly contradicted by other witnesses, the jury could easily have concluded his testimony was not credible. Mayor Román testified that discrimination played no role in the privatization decision. But the jury also heard testimony that Román believed (correctly) that the sanitation division was a nest of NPP-affiliated workers, and that discrimination did play a role in the decision to privatize. 62 Mayor Román also testified that he shaped the privatization plan in reliance on advice from his human resources director and attorney. Here, too, a reasonable jury could conclude that Mayor Román's testimony was deliberately untrue: his human resources director, González, testified both that she did not in fact give Mayor Román such advice and that Mayor Román structured the privatization plan the way he did specifically so he could fire NPP-affiliated workers. The defendants also failed to call as a witness the attorney on whose legal advice the Mayor purportedly relied. 63 The defendants also testified that they intended to ensure the career plaintiffs jobs at ARB and rehire them at the Municipality if necessary. However, a reasonable jury easily could have concluded that this too was a lie, and that no such system was in place. Most of the career plaintiffs never acquired jobs at ARB or the Municipality, even when they sought them out. Some were explicitly told that Román had ordered that they not be rehired. And those who did receive employment offers were confronted with jobs vastly inferior, either in terms of benefits (transitory employment) or working conditions (private-sector positions with long commutes and questionable job security), to those they had previously held. 64 Furthermore, the jury heard specific and detailed testimony that most, if not all, of the municipal workers hired since the privatization were PDP-affiliated, and that some of those new PDP workers performed jobs that the fired sanitation workers had done, just under the guise of different job titles. This, in combination with the evidence described above, is more than sufficient. See Acevedo-Garcia v. Monroig, 351 F.3d 547, 565-66 (1st Cir.2003).
65 On the evidence, the jury could well have concluded that Norat was not liable because he did not agree with or intend to participate in the discrimination effectuated by the Mayor, but did so only under compulsion. However, the jury did not exonerate Norat, and evidence supports its conclusion. 66 Borges testified that Norat was present when Mayor Román spoke of his desire to fire the NPP employees in the Public Works Department. Norat was deeply involved with the privatization; he took it to the Municipal Assembly and he told the career plaintiffs to stay home and take compensatory time after January 25. Defendants characterize the privatization decision as one made by both men together:  Mayor Román and Norat made a difficult administrative decision, after a thorough analysis, to privatize the sanitation services. Importantly, there is evidence that Norat was not just carrying out Mayor Román's decision, but in fact harbored political animus himself. Asked how he knew that the Mayor's desire to fire public works employees was politically motivated, Borges replied: Because they would tell me, the engineer would tell me, Mr. Martin Davila would tell me, that they wanted to get rid of the NPP employees in order to place Popular Democratic Party followers. The engineer was obviously Norat, or so a jury could find. Further, it was Norat who encouraged NPP members elsewhere in the department to transfer to sanitation before there was any public discussion of privatizing the division; these NPP members subsequently lost their jobs upon privatization. 67 On this evidence, a reasonable jury could have concluded that Norat helped Mayor Román devise the plan to privatize the sanitation division in such a way as to remove the career plaintiffs from their jobs, and would not have done so but for plaintiffs' NPP affiliations. 68