Court Opinion

ID: 9475641
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:33:52.432742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:50.356293
License: Public Domain

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Although I realize that the majority’s task in attempting to define when political *249affiliation is “appropriate” to a governmental task is not an easy one, I suggest that this burden has not been lightened by its refusal to give due weight to the most relevant reference available in this particular case. See Colón v. CRUV, 84 J.T.S. 52 (P.R.1984).
Undoubtedly influenced by the inflated assertions of appellants regarding an alleged egregious volume of political discharge cases pending before the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, the majority has been induced into granting en banc consideration with a view to laying down an all-encompassing rule that will easily resolve these controversies. Unfortunately, the subject of this special attention is a case which both proee-durally and factually does not lend itself to such facile disposition. The majority’s statement that the “ ‘conclusions’ and ‘holdings’ as to the merits of the issue presented are to be understood [only] as statements as to probable outcomes,” ante, at 238, further emphasizes the inappropriateness of using this juncture for the purpose of laying down a pronouncement by an en banc court. More importantly, if this is a “tentative” holding, the strained result is additional proof that it contributes little to providing concrete guidelines for future action by the district courts or by governmental administrators.
Although the opinion appeals to “common sense judgment,” ante, at 241-242,1 fail to see how a dispassionate observer can conclude that such a standard was applied herein if we consider that the majority opinion reaches an opposite conclusion, regarding the same job classification and description, as was reached by three other judicial bodies, e.g., the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, Colon v. CRUV, supra, the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, and a panel of judges of this Court, 807 F.2d 230 (1st Cir.1985). I do not believe that the present court has a higher claim to common sense than the three judicial bodies that preceded us in deciding this issue. Thus, the majority opinion not only fails to provide cogent guidelines for future action, but completely unsettles what little law was available to direct the district courts in this delicate area. Furthermore, the observance by the public of such a divergence of results can only cause an erosion of its confidence in the judicial process. See Pound, The Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction With the Administration of Justice, 20 Journal of the American Judicature Society 170, 183-185 (1936-37) (reprinting of an address delivered by Roscoe Pound in 1906 at the annual convention of the American Bar Association).
When all is said and done, the majority simply does not accept the holding in Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980). That case places a heavy burden on the side claiming “that party affiliation is an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of the public office involved”:
[U]nless the government can demonstrate ‘an overriding interest ... of vital importance’ requiring that a person’s private beliefs conform to those of the hiring authority, his beliefs cannot be the sole basis for depriving him of continued employment.
Id. at 515-516, 100 S.Ct. at 1293. This is not a new rule, the Court in Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 362, 368, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 2684, 2687, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1975), having indicated that “the [governmental] interest advanced must be paramount,” and that “cases of doubt [should be] resolved in favor of the [employee].” See also Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 94, 96 S.Ct. 612, 670, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976). This high standard is overcome in the present appeal by reliance on the flimsiest of evidence and on Branti-discarded labels.
Notwithstanding Branti’s stricture that “the ultimate inquiry is not whether the label ‘policymaker’ or ‘confidential’ fits a particular position,” id. at 518, 100 S.Ct. at 1295, much of the majority’s analysis continues to rely on such tokens. Ante, at 244-245 (“policymaking”), 245, (“confidential”), 246 (“policymaker,” “confidential”). Even assuming arguendo the present-day *250relevance of these labels, the opinion’s deference to Puerto Rico’s Legislature in classifying the disputed position within those titles, ante, at 246, is particularly disconcerting considering its failure to grant equal treatment to the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico’s interpretation of its law. Ante, at 243 n. 9. See Posadas de Puerto Rico v. Tourism Co. of Puerto Rico, — U.S. -, -, 106 S.Ct. 2968, 2974-76 (1986) (in deciding a First Amendment violation claim, the restrictive interpretation given by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico to a local statute is entitled to “[a] rigid rule of deference ... given the unique cultural and legal history of Puerto Rico.” Id. n. 6).
This case also sets bench marks in other respects. We now have “experts” in the field of “appropriateness of political affiliation.” Although I would not have thought that this is a matter within the reach of Rule 702, Fed.R.Evid., I will, also arguendo, overlook this apparent technicality. It would seem, however, that such factual conclusions as were testified to by Dr. Hirshbrunner are nevertheless subject to the strictures of Rule 52(a) of the Civil Rules, which advises against the setting aside of a trial court’s findings of fact, even in “granting interlocutory injunction[s] ... [,] unless clearly erroneous.” Rule 52(a), Fed.R.Civ.P. As stated by the original panel majority in this case in upholding the district court’s findings, “By this time we need not dwell on the principle that the district court’s findings of fact must stand unless clearly wrong.” Jimenez Fuentes v. Torres Gaztambide, 807 F.2d at 231. Notwithstanding the clarity of this statement of principle, in view of the majority’s actions I am obliged to remind it of the additional wisdom provided by Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, N.C., 470 U.S. 564, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511-1513, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985), also a discrimination case, in which the Supreme Court stated:
[A] finding is ‘clearly erroneous’ when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed. This standard plainly does not entitle a reviewing court to reverse the finding of the trier of fact simply because it is convinced that it would have decided the case differently. The reviewing court oversteps the bounds of its duty under Rule 52 if it undertakes to duplicate the role of the lower court ... If the district court’s account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record reviewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently. Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the fact finder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous. This is so even when the district court’s findings do not rest on credibility determination, but are based instead on physical or documentary evidence or inferences from other facts. ... Rule 52 ‘does not make exceptions or purport to exclude certain categories of factual findings from the obligation of a court of appeals to accept a district court’s finding unless clearly erroneous’.
... But when a trial judge’s finding is based on his decision to credit the testimony of one of two or more witnesses, each of whom has told a coherent and facially plausible story that is not contradicted by extrinsic evidence, that finding if not internally inconsistently can virtually never be clear error.
Citations omitted, emphasis supplied.
The majority violates virtually every prescription in Anderson. Unless the original panel of this court was completely misguided, I can state with some assertion that the evidence presented to the district court permits at least two plausible views of the evidence.
It is self-evident that the trial court rejected the “expert’s” “opinion” on this matter, as well it might have in view of the facetious nature of this testimony. The “expert’s” statement that there are ideological differences between Puerto Rico’s *251two leading parties regarding the acceptance or non-acceptance of federal funds for public housing, ante, at 242, would lead any trier of fact sitting in Puerto Rico to question the reliability of such an assertion. See Junta de Planificación de Puerto Rico, Informe Económico al Gobernador, 1984-85, San Juan, Puerto Rico (1986), Tabla 19, “Transfers between Puerto Rico and the Federal Government ... Fiscal Years 1972-1985,” p. A-19, column entitled “Rent subsidies.”
The “expert’s” conclusions regarding the need for political affiliation of the job description in question are equally incredulous. The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, in considering this same position, with an almost identical job description, put it this way:
It would be difficult to visualize that the faithful and efficient discharge of the duties of Director or General District Supervisor, as listed in OP-16 of the Personnel Office, in the public housing program, would require a determined loyalty to the ideological postulates of a given political party.
Colón, supra, at 3628. (My translation). I believe we would be on safe grounds to assume that Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court is better qualified to reach this conclusion than appellant’s “expert.”
Yet, the majority avoids specifically ruling that the district court was clearly erroneous in not giving credibility to the “expert’s” tailormade testimony. Of course, if we conclude that the issue of “appropriateness” is a legal one, then the district court had no business in even hearing Dr. Hirsh-brunner's opinion, and we, even less in relying upon it as a basis for today’s far reaching decision.
Although much is made of the ranking of the regional director’s position within CRUV, the majority overlooks the real standing of that position in the hierarchy of the Department of Housing, the umbrella organization within which CRUV is but one of three divisions. Joint Exhibits I and II, reproduced as appendices to this dissent, establish that “regional director” is a bombastic title for a fifth echelon government supervisor (their previous title), with limited territorial and agency jurisdiction. These, at least, are two distinguishing features from Tomczak v. City of Chicago, 765 F.2d 633 (7th Cir.1985), in which the politically-discharged employee occupied the second highest job in a city-wide department. Other cases relied upon by the majority, ante, at 244-245, involve employees with agency-wide or statewide authority. The very testimony of plaintiffs Jiménez-Fuentes and Vicente Vázquez, cited as proof their “role as ... policymakers],” ante, at 244-245, is in fact demonstrative of exactly the opposite: they were sent and told to do a job in a region, i.e., all they did was follow orders and policy established higher up.
Reliance on Tomczak in my opinion is not advisable. In addition to the factual distinctions already alluded to, I believe that a holding, which makes the dispensation of water a job in which political affiliation is an “appropriate” requirement for its effective performance, is a highly suspect ruling. I should point out that we shall be the first court outside’ the Seventh Circuit to even cite Tomczak.
Nor do I agree with the majority’s labeling or analysis of the job description in this case as leading to a “common sense” conclusion that political loyalty is appropriate to a regional director’s job. Ante, at 244. Important and relevant portions of that description have been overlooked. See Appendix, ante, at 247. For example, from paragraph 1 of those functions la-belled “policy-making” by the majority, ante, at 244, is excluded the fact that the functions therein described merely deal with activities “such as: Accounting, Personnel and Occupation, Maintenance, Modernization, Community Labor, Management and Section 8.” Ante, at 247. From the next paragraph included by the majority within that label, Paragraph 3, have been omitted those parts dealing with the standard to be applied by the regional directors in monitoring compliance: “the philosophy of the Public Housing Administration and *252the HUD Federal Agency.” Ante, p. 247. If we equate “philosophy” with “policy,” the conclusion cannot be avoided but that a regional director follows, rather than establishes, public policy. The discussion of his region’s operational problem with the associate director (No. 14), the offering of recommendations on improvement of the services to the Executive Director (No. 15), and the preparation and control of his Region’s functional budget (No. 19), can only be labelled “policymaking” by a more expanded view of that term than has hereto been prevalent.1 Requirement No. 15, “[p]erforms any task as assigned,” is, if anything, illustrative of the subservient status of regional directors rather than an indication of their “policymaking” prerogatives.
I do not believe that it is necessary or productive to continue an indefinite discussion of the majority’s analysis of the job description. A brief reading of the duties classified under the various headings (“Representative Functions,” “Spokesperson Functions,” “Personnel Duties,” “Ministerial Duties”), ante, p. 244, reveals that these activities are similar to those carried out by a myriad of low and middle level government executives. If the performance of these functions are sufficient excuse for abrogation of their First Amendment rights under Branti, then this Court is opening the flood gates for the swinging of the patronage axe. This will be a judicial throwback to the days of the spoils system, when someone in a position like the regional directors, because they were party hacks responding to selfish partisan interests, could condition the granting of public aid to “appropriate” party affiliation by the recipient. This decision will hardly be a contribution by this court to good government to say nothing of the chilling effect that it will have on. the exercise of the associational rights of the thousands of government employees who must now fear its impact.
This is an unfortunate decision. It is the wrong case, the wrong juncture in that case, and the wrong outcome. Branti, supra; Anderson, supra.

Politiae legibus non leges politiis adap-tandae.

I dissent.
*253[[Image here]]
*254[[Image here]]

. See Elrod v. Bums, 427 U.S. 347, 368, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 2687, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976):
In determining whether an employee occupies a policymaking position, consideration should also be given to whether the employee acts as an advisor or formulates plans for the implementation of broad goals.
(Emphasis supplied).