USCA1 Opinion
May 8, 1996
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
____________________
No. 95-2090
HECTOR RODRIGUEZ-GUZMAN, ET AL.,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
HON. VYDIA GARCIA, ETC., ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellees.
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ERRATA SHEET
The opinion of this court dated April 25, 1996, is amended
as follows:
Page 2, second paragraph, line 7, add the following after
"relocation": "procedures were administered in a politically
discriminatory manner."
April 26, 1996 [NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
____________________
No. 95-2090
HECTOR RODRIGUEZ-GUZMAN, ET AL.,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
HON. VYDIA GARCIA, ETC., ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellees.
____________________
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Jaime Pieras, II, Senior U.S. District Judge]
__________________________
____________________
Before
Torruella, Chief Judge,
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Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge,
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and Cyr, Circuit Judge.
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Raul Barrera Morales with whom Jesus Hernandez Sanchez was
_____________________ ________________________
on brief for appellants.
Graciela J. Belaval for appellees.
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____________________
___________________
-2-
Per curiam. Plaintiffs are 61 former employees of the
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Puerto Rico Housing and Urban Renewal Corporation (CRUV) who
primarily claim that they were dismissed from public employment
based on their political affiliation, in violation of their First
Amendment rights.1 The district court granted summary judgment
for the defendants, concluding that the plaintiffs had relied
"solely on conclusory arguments and unsubstantiated allegations"
and thus had failed to establish a prima facie case of political
discharge. We agree that the plaintiffs have not offered
competent evidence to rebut defendants' motion, and consequently
affirm.
We see no need to revisit the facts ably set out by the
district court. Guzman v. Garcia, 901 F. Supp. 45 (D.P.R. 1995).
______ ______
For the sake of context, we note only that the claims concern the
relocation of employees who had been working for CRUV at the time
the Legislature decided to dissolve the agency. CRUV employees
were ensured priority in hiring elsewhere in the Commonwealth,2
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1 The complaint asserts a host of other unlawful bases for
defendants' actions, including age discrimination and retaliation
for participation in labor protests. Plaintiffs also claim a
deprivation of due process in the termination procedures and
allege a conspiracy in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1985.
The age discrimination, due process and conspiracy claims
are mentioned in the brief without discussion, and there is not
even a reference to any other basis for recovery. We have long
held that issues addressed in a perfunctory manner are deemed
waived, see, e.g., United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st
___ ____ _____________ _______
Cir. 1990), and that principle operates in all its force here.
We therefore have considered only the claim of politically
motivated discharge.
2 Contrary to plaintiffs, we do not read the relevant
authorities -- Law 55 and Executive Order 1991-63 -- to guarantee
employment, but rather to guarantee relocation assistance and
-3-
and this case centers on plaintiffs' allegations that the
relocation procedures were administered in a politically
discriminatory manner.
Nor is it necessary to engage in a lengthy dissertation on
the inadequacies of plaintiffs' showing. Indeed, their appellate
argument comprises less than six pages, and its centerpiece
consists of two types of evidence: first, hiring statistics for
the Commonwealth government overall in 1991 and 1992 and for the
Housing Department in particular, and, second, reported
statements from several non-defendants expressing discriminatory
animus toward members of the New Progressive Party ("NPP").
Neither the statistics nor the quoted comments -- seemingly
hearsay and thus inadmissible at trial -- provide evidentiary
support for plaintiffs' assertion that they were not transferred
because of their political beliefs.3
We have looked carefully at the statements filed by each
plaintiff as part of an Appendix to their Motion in Opposition to
Defendants' Motion to Dismiss. These statements contain a jumble
of allegations, many of which have nothing to do with the claim
of discriminatory implementation of the relocation procedures.
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priority in hiring during the year after CRUV's closing.
3 Although plaintiffs emphasize the defendants' antipathy to
the New Progressive Party, only 40 of them are NPP members. Six
are members of the Puerto Rico Independence Party, six are
members of the Popular Democratic Party ("PDP") who do not
support the incumbent PDP governor, and nine do not identify with
any party. Plaintiffs therefore necessarily claim that the
discrimination is not against any particular party but against
all those who do not share the defendants' political perspective.
-4-
Several of the statements directly belie such a claim, asserting
that job offers were made but withdrawn because of the
plaintiffs' participation in this litigation. Regardless of the
lawfulness of such retaliatory conduct, it is not the basis of
the claim raised to us.4
Some plaintiffs similarly attribute discrimination against
them to their participation in labor protests. Some make no
specific reference to the process following CRUV's dissolution,
and instead refer to continuous employment discrimination since
the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) took power in 1985. One
plaintiff who identifies himself as non-political, stated "I
don't know" in completing a portion of the standard form that
began "I was discriminated because . . . ." Another acknowledges
that she was offered a job, but complains that the procedure was
rushed and irregular. Yet another states that he was reinstated
in the same position and salary after eight months of
unemployment, which appears to be within the one-year relocation
period prescribed by Law 55, the statute dissolving CRUV. And
another states that he was offered relocation but did not accept
the new position because "I consider it a degradation and
demotion."
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4 In their Opposition to Defendants' Motion for Summary
Judgment, plaintiffs did not dispute defendants' statement that
many known NPP followers had been hired during the relocation
process, responding instead: "The Trustee Office discriminated
against former CRUV's employees for their exercising of the right
to file this case, which is violation of plaintiffs First
Amendment protected rights." As noted earlier, however, this
claim is not raised on appeal.
-5-
In addition, plaintiffs fail to respond to statistics
offered by the defendants to show that many NPPs -- presumably
including some of the plaintiffs -- were relocated. Of CRUV's
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421 regular employees, plaintiffs claim that 65 percent -- 275 --
were NPPs. Of the 87 employees who initially lost their jobs,
about 40 were NPPs. Fifty-two of those left unemployed were
relocated within one year, including all but 20 of the
plaintiffs.5 In other words, only 20 of the 61 plaintiffs (plus
15 non-plaintiffs) were not placed in new jobs within the one-
year relocation period. These numbers, showing that only a small
percentage of CRUV's NPP employees were not relocated, do not add
up to proof of discrimination based on political affiliation.
In concluding that plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate
that the district court erred in granting summary judgment for
defendants, we do not discount the possibility that some of them
suffered from politically based employment discrimination. The
history of politics in Puerto Rico makes plausible plaintiffs'
allegations that PDP members expressed antipathy for NPP members
and over the years gave favorable treatment to their own
partisans. On the narrow question before us at this time,
however -- whether a material factual dispute exists concerning
the constitutionality of defendants' implementation of the CRUV
relocation procedure -- plaintiffs have not demonstrated an
entitlement to trial.
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5 We are not told the political affiliation of the 20 who
remained unemployed.
-6-
The judgment of the district court is therefore affirmed.
Double costs to appellee.
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