Alvarez Sanchez v. Aponte de la Torre

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

No. 93-1150

ANGEL L. ALVAREZ-SANCHEZ, ET AL.,

Plaintiffs, Appellants,

v.

JOSE E. APONTE DE LA TORRE, ETC., ET AL.,

Defendants, Appellees.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. Jose Antonio Fuste, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Selya, Circuit Judge,

Aldrich and Coffin, Senior Circuit Judges.

Armando Cardona-Estelritz with whom Isidro Garcia Pesquera Law

Offices was on brief for appellants.

Jacqueline D. Novas-Debien with whom Carlos Lugo Fiol, Acting

Solicitor General, Reina Colon De Rodriguez, Acting Deputy Solicitor

General, Pedro Juan Perez Nieves and Saldana, Rey & Alvarado were on

brief for appellees.

September 29, 1993

ALDRICH, Senior Circuit Judge. This 42 U.S.C.

1983 action was commenced on June 27, 1991, and was

dismissed as out of time. We affirm.

Defendant, mayor of Carolina, Puerto Rico,

determined that a large number of municipal employees had

been hired as career employees by procedures that did not

comply with the Puerto Rico Personnel statute. On May 23,

1989 he wrote each one a basically form letter to that

effect, but stating that recipient employee could request a

hearing in 15 days to seek to show error in the records. If

a hearing was not requested, or if the hearing was

unsuccessful, the employee would be discharged, but would be

given provisional employment during which he or she could

appeal, or apply for new employment. The present twelve

plaintiffs obtained hearings, but were unsuccessful.

Thereafter, during the summer of 1989, each received a letter

from defendant mayor notifying him or her of that fact and

stating that severance "shall be effective" one week from the

date of the letter. They were told they could apply for new

employment, but none did. Plaintiffs were continued as

provisionals until July 23, 1990, at which time all were

totally terminated. They sue for their loss of career

employment.

On defendants' motion for summary judgment the

court held that the May 23, 1989 letters were sufficient

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notification of discharge to start the one year statute of

limitations, rejecting plaintiffs' claim of July, 1990. We

concur in the judgment, but do so without reaching

plaintiffs' contention that the May letters were ambiguous

and not to be read as definite. Even were that so, the

letters sent in the summer of 1989 were unmistakably clear,

and were nearly two years before suit.

Plaintiffs' sole answer is that the court did not

rely on the 1989 summer letters. This neglects the

elementary principle that if a court's result is correct it

must be affirmed even though the court gave a wrong reason.1

Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 459 (1953). Persisting in this

error, plaintiffs refused to include the summer letters, and

the pretrial order that admitted their receipt, in their

appendix, even though the court ordered them to do so.2

Instead, in their brief, plaintiffs brazenly refer to the

July 23, 1990 letters as "a second series of letters" rather

than as the third.

1. We doubt that the court erred as to the very lengthy May
letters, but need not pursue analysis.

2. Defendants, as well as having to supplement the appendix,
have had to bring four motions. Plaintiffs continually
failed to file their brief, and failed to make proper
service, or to comply with an order to explain their
insufficient appendix. The court referred defendants'
request for sanctions to the sitting panel, and so advised
plaintiffs.

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This appeal is worse than frivolous, and counsel's

conduct calls for sanctions against him personally, pursuant

to Fed. R. App. P. 38, as damages and for vexatious conduct,

in the amount of $2,500, payable to defendants, and not to be

waived.

Affirmed, with double costs.

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