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

Heading: Politically-Motivated Changes in Work Conditions and Responsibilities

Text: 37 A second group of plaintiffs complain of loss of job function, relocation to remote or inferior offices, and restricted access to bathroom breaks and facilities. These plaintiffs claim that the miserable working conditions created by their supervisors amounted to a constitutional violation. 38 In denying summary judgment for the defendants on their political harassment claims, the district court discussed the relevant law on political discrimination based on changes in work conditions and responsibilities. Specifically, it noted that we have left unresolved the relationship between our holding in Agosto-de-Feliciano v. Aponte-Roque, 889 F.2d 1209, 1218 (1st Cir. 1989), that politically-motivated changes in work conditions and responsibilities which make a plaintiff's situation unreasonably inferior to the norm for the position violate constitutional rights, and the Supreme Court's later decision in Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois, 497 U.S. 62, 75 (1990), that promotions, transfers, and recalls after layoffs based on political affiliation are examples of impermissible deprivations less harsh than dismissal that nevertheless press state employees and applicants to conform their beliefs and associations to some state-selected orthodoxy. Acevedo-Garcia, 30 F. Supp. 2d at 156. Although the Rutan Court did not explicitly address the issue of changed work conditions and responsibilities as examples of deprivations less harsh than dismissal, it noted in dicta that, the First Amendment . . . already protects state employees not only from patronage dismissals but also from 'even an act of retaliation as trivial as failing to hold a birthday party for a public employee . . . when intended to punish her for exercising her free speech rights.' Id. at 76 n.8 (citations omitted). It is not clear if this language in Rutan proscribes application of the unreasonably inferior to the norm standard of Agosto-de-Feliciano to politically-motivated changes in work conditions and responsibilities, or whether that doctrine survives Rutan, providing a sort of . . . intermediate First Amendment haven for employees wounded by slings and arrows less damaging than those [official actions] described by the Rutan court. Nereida-Gonzalez v. Tirado-Delgado, 990 F.2d 710, 705 (1st Cir. 1993). In Acosto-Orozco v. Rodriguez-de-Rivera, 132 F.3d 97, 101 n.5 (1997), we noted the possible conflict between these two cases and stated that we leave the resolution of any conflict in the standard for such adverse personnel actions to some future case. 39 Despite noting that it is unclear how the First Circuit views the Rutan dicta as affecting its unreasonably inferior standard, the district court rejected the qualified immunity defense of the defendants to the political harassment claims of the plaintiffs, concluding that a finder of fact could determine that the plaintiffs here put forth clear and convincing evidence [as required by Agosto-de-Feliciano], that their positions are 'unreasonably inferior to the norm.' Acevedo-Garcia, 30 F. Supp. 2d at 156-58. By applying the Agosto-de-Feliciano standard, the court implicitly concluded that the right of the plaintiffs to be protected from politically-motivated changes in work conditions and responsibilities was established clearly enough to reject the qualified immunity defense of the defendants. 40 Arguably, the defendants could have appealed from this implicit legal conclusion of the district court relating to the clarity of the right protecting the plaintiffs from politically-motivated changes in work conditions and responsibilities. In Behrens v. Pelletier, the Supreme Court held that summary judgment determinations are appealable when they resolve a dispute concerning an 'abstract issu[e] of law' relating to qualified immunity -- typically, the issue whether the federal right allegedly infringed was 'clearly established.' 516 U.S. 299, 313 (1996)(internal citations omitted). The defendants failed to frame such an issue. 7 Instead, they persisted in their argument that their conduct, viewed objectively, was reasonable and that any consideration by the district court of evidence of a proscribed political motive was inappropriate. For the reasons already stated, that argument is wrong. The district court's denial of summary judgment for the defendants on their immunity defense to the political harassment claims of the plaintiffs rests, in part, on what the district court reasonably perceived to be triable issues of fact about the defendants' political motivation. We have no jurisdiction to consider such rulings on appeal.